A political nutjob I can support (being in the race, not winning)

The Washington Post reports that former Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel has announced his candidacy for president (a little early, I think) on the platform of eliminating the income tax and representative democracy (in favor of direct democracy). While his platform is way out there (much too much for me), I think it would be good to see him as a candidate (which he could if there were voter owned elections). [This blog post was unfinished (interrupted), but I'd like to use it to reiterate my policy on third parties].

Third party politics would be good for the electoral system. I think that there should be many more than three parties in the system. However, Nader-loyalists who think that a presidential bid is the ticket to multi-party democracy are dead wrong. The only way there will be more than two parties where the third party is not a spoiler party (as Perot was in 1992 for George H.W. Bush or Nader was for Al Gore) is if the electoral college is abolished. However, the only way for that to become at all an issue is not from running no-shot candidates on the Green, Reform, Independent or Constitution parties. That reinforces the two-party system (in the interests of full disclosure, I am an anti-Nader guy; he cost Gore the election and ran in 2004 to masturbate his ego). To eliminate the two-party monopoly on power, the electoral college needs to be abolished and the only way to do that is to focus on the branches that matter in deciding the matter. For the constitution to be amended to eliminate the electoral college, the Congress needs to pass a bill by a 2/3rds majority and then it needs to be ratified by some number of states (I'm no constitutional expert). Therefore, non-major parties need to focus on state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. That is the avenue for their sucess. They could learn from Portland, Oregon in enacting voter-owned elections, which provide funding for candidates that otherwise wouldn't have a chance. It would also highlight the differences between candidates who buy into the corporate money government versus those who emphasize the power of the people, the ones who they supposedly represent. Until then, third-party candidates in presidential elections are just a distraction and spoiler driven by ego gains and no real concern about the direction of the country. They can play their game as long as they withdraw before they appear on the ballot (as a way to draw attention to the failure of two-party politics), but I am sick and tired of egoists like Nader putting Bush into office (I understand that Gore's campaign was weak, but you have to look at end results to draw conclusions)