Thanks for posting this, SkyGuy. Dismissing the legitimacy of third-party candidates is akin to using an assumed right to complain as justification for voting when you don't fully support either majority candidate. It's apathy, at its ugliest, which is the disease that has rendered the People powerless against their elected officials.

I'm not saying that any third-party candidate stands a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but I think more people should pay attention to what these folks have to say. If they are, as Fast n Furious tells us, people who cut ties with the major parties, they are probably exactly the sort of politicians we all claim to be seeking, and they may have perspectives that make us all think beyond what the primary candidates and the media tell us we should. i haven't seen the debates (I don't have cable TV in my house anymore, and until I read this, I didn't know they were happening), but I'll confidently bet there was more substantive discussion of the real issues confronting our nation than in the last 50 presidential debates combined.

The two-party, lesser of two evils system has effectively removed popular influence from Federal government altogether. If we truly want to see change for the greater good, we need to start talking to each other about what we really want, not the limited, hot button selection of topics upon which the Democrats and Republicans base their campaigns.