Intro/Two Party System Biases

Hola, I'm Garland as Rachel so graciously described in her previous post. Although, she did forget some of my previous incarnations such as Howard Hughes, Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III, and of course, my most famous stint as Martin Luther King Jr. I have tried to spread fair independent ideology throughout the ages which i will continue with on tonight. The libertarian party, recognized as a legitimate third party as well as the largest political party outside of Democrats and Republicans, has been prevented from putting their candidate, Bob Barr on presidental ballots in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. In Oklahoma, a lawsuit was filed due to its restrictive ballot access rules, which "are contrary to the First Amendment right to petition one's government for a redress of grievances."(Bob Barr Wiki Page). Also in Pennsylvania, the issue lies with the GOP filing a lawsuit to prevent Barr from taking his rightful place on the ballot; they claim that the Libertarian Party waited too long to place his name on teh ballot. The hypocritical notion of this is that in 2000, when Bush lobbied unsuccessfully to get McCain's name off the primary ballot, McCain said of the situation, "I would never consider, ever consider, allowing a supporter of mine to challenge Governor Bush's right to be on the ballot in all 50 states." Now, how is this any different from challenging Bob Barr's right to be on the ballot? And why challenge it? Because he filed it past the deadline. However, the Democratic and Republican Party have not even submitted their packages to be on Texas' ballot and by the own logic of the GOP Party, McCain's name should not be on the ballot there as well. Also, there is a lot of debate, about just that...the presidential debates and whether or not Bob Barr should be allowed to participate in these debates. Why should a legitimate political contender in the presidential election not be allowed to participate in debates and get his party platform and help get the main parties to adopt parts of their politicies? Over 70% of independents polled say that he should be allowed to take party, and a majority of Republicans and Democrats agree as well. This country needs more of a challenge to the two party system if we are to maintain any kind of political integrity and more importantly, to get more and exceedingly diverse ideas and solutions to our nation's problems.