Many Americans mistakenly believe that the United States has a two-party system: the Democrats and the Republicans. Although simple plurality elections tend to create a two-party system (Unknown, 2002d), the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of political parties at all. Nor was the first President, who ran unopposed, a member of any party. Parties began with a split between the cliques that became the Federalists (only John Adams won election to the Presidency) and the Democratic-Republicans (the Party of Thomas Jefferson). Democratic-Republicans became simply Democrats, and the Federalist Party was replaced by other "second" parties, notably the Whigs, then the Republicans. The Republican Party prevailed in the 1860 Presidential election and the civil war that followed, becoming an equal of the Democratic Party. Various "third parties" have briefly appeared and quickly disappeared without ever having elected a President, even when their candidate was a former President. Martin Van Buren ran with the Free Soil Party in 1848, and Theodore Roosevelt as a Progressive in 1912 (Unknown, 2002e).
        To a certain extent this perception of America's having a two-party system creates that "reality". Like the Green Party, the Reform Party, the Libertarian Party, and other parties with Presidential candidates in 2000, almost all "third parties" are systematically and studiously ignored by politicians from the two major parties, large political contributors, and the mass media. With media encouragement tactical voting for leading contenders poses a serious barrier to any new political force (Unknown, 2002a and 2002b). Allow me to illustrate with examples taken from my own personal experience.

        Anybody can start his or her own political group. To become a real political party, however, such a group has to have ballot status in one or more states. Even federal elections are administered by the individual states. To qualify for ballot status the group needs to get a petition signed a certain percentage of the registered voters. In the State of Hawaii the requirement is five percent. (I believe this is a common figure for other states as well.) This is quite an undertaking and may be legally challenged by individuals or groups that wish to protect the "two-party system". That's what happened in 1972 when supporters of Dr. Benjamin Spock tried to get his name on the ballot in Hawaii. Their petition was challenged and initially rejected. The dispute ended up in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, where Judge Martin Pence eventually ruled in favor of the People's Party of Hawaii. The 1972 elections were long over by that time, so the party was granted ballot status for the next elections, in 1974.
        What about the two major parties? What is the basis for their continued ballot status? As long as they continue to get at least 10% of the vote in any state-wide election or in more than half of certain categories of smaller districts, they continue to keep their ballot status. As long as "third parties" are effectively marginalized, automatic renewal of the two major parties' ballot status can almost be guaranteed. So, in the summer of 1974 Hawaii had three official political parties: the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the People's Party of Hawaii.
        I was on a leave-of-absence from college at that time looking for interesting things to do and freshly inspired by my recent studies of political activist Eugene Debs when my mother pointed out the newspaper article that announced the court's final decision in the challenge to the People's Party's ballot status. I contacted this newly created party and was instantly catapulted into the chairmanship. It seems I was the only active member. On me fell the responsibility to locate members, candidates, and funds. It turned out to be a golden opportunity to find out firsthand the power of the Two-Party Myth.
        I started by searching for candidates and party members among my friends in the anti-war movement. I soon found out, however, that many people who are active in political protest view electoral politics as boring and ineffective. It is not that they have no interest in political issues, but rather that they feel elections give them no real power. You cannot change the system from inside, they said. You have to change it from the outside--with protest, demonstrations, direct action, or even revolution. That was the path to take. Running for office and voting were perceived as a waste of time. I was starting to get discouraged until Mary Neilson threw her hat into the ring as a candidate for the Hawaii State House of Representatives. She had worked actively, as had I, with catholic Action of Hawaii and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Two other members of AFSC, Charles Bollingmo Smith and Dexter Cate, helped run the party. The three of us rotated in office as Treasurer and Co-chairpeople.
        As summer progressed three more candidates seemed to appear from nowhere. Floyd Natchway, a back-to-nature hippy drummer who suspended cymbals from the branches of a banyan tree for one memorable concert, filed nomination papers for the United States Senate. He wanted to change the Hawaii State flag to be a rainbow on a white background. It was not a very ambitious or practical platform to my mind. So it was with some relief that I picked up a call from the Lt. Governor's office and then talked with a man on the island of Kauai who also wanted to be our candidate for U.S. Senate. I okayed his party membership thus clearing the way for his candidacy. Although James Kimmel was arrested years later for growing large quantities of marijuana as part of his own Eastern-style religion, at that time he was simply an unknown political entity. A fourth candidate filed nomination papers to run for Mayor of Maui County.
        Once we had a handful of candidates our most important task became that of publicizing the existence of our party and trying to get people to register so they could pick up our ballot in the October Primary Election. In Hawaii a voter's party affiliation was whatever party's primary election they had last voted in. Thus all veteran voters were either Republicans or Democrats. In order to change their party affiliation and be able to vote in the People's Party primary election, they would need to file a form. New voters were still unaffiliated and could pick up any party's ballot at the polls. Attracting voters to a political party that was as weak as ours proved to be extremely difficult. The Democratic Party was so much stronger than even the Republican Party that the real competition for most elective offices took place in the Democratic primary elections, not the general elections. Many Republican primary elections went uncontested. On occasion a Democratic candidate would avoid the stiff competition of the Democratic primary election by switching parties and becoming the Republican candidate.
        Voters naturally wanted to vote in a primary election that would "make a difference". We were therefore fortunate to have two candidates running against each other in the state-wide election for U.S. Senate. This gave our few voters, regardless of the district they were in, a chance to do more than simply rubber stamp our tiny slate of candidates. They could actually vote against someone. This sense of conflict is important to the election process, giving it meaning. Our race, however, was not exactly a hotly contested one. Watergate was very much in the news as the investigation closed in on the excesses of Nixon's 1972 campaign. Vice President Spiro Agnew furthermore had already left office in disgrace for accepting bribes when he was governor of Maryland. Nixon soon followed. The cumulative effect was to give politics such a dirty reputation that Kimmel decided to quit politics. He tried to pull out of the election, only to find out that he could not. Then, in a strange twist of fate and to his own surprise, he beat Natchway in the primary. Reluctant at first to accept the nomination, he was eventually persuaded by Dexter Cate to make a compromise. He would not campaign, but would if elected accept his seat in the United States Senate. Since there was no Republican candidate, in the general election he went head-to-head against the popular Democratic incumbent Senator Daniel Inouye.
        On the day of the General Elections in November the People's Party was very fortunate. Our reluctant candidate, the mysterious James Kimmel, received 42,000 votes, roughly 20 percent of the total. Since he had not campaigned nobody knew what he stood for, only that he was running against Inouye. Many of his votes may even have come from staunch Republicans who thought that the P (for People's Party) after his name was or should have been an R (for Republican Party). Ironically, the wall of silence surrounding the People's Party in general and Kimmel in particular may have contributed to this favorable tally. This bit of luck assured our party of a place in the next elections and encouraged the creation of other third parties. By 1976 two more "third parties" filed petitions and were granted ballot status. The addition of the Libertarians and the Independents for Godly Government gave Hawaii five political parties.

        With the Vietnam War over, ecological issues and groups such as Green Peace and Life of the Land became the voices for change. They provided some serious political contenders for the People Party's slate of candidates. Dexter Cate, now heavily involved in founding and organizing the Green Peace organization in Hawaii decided that a run for the U.S. House of Representatives might help him promote his political and ecological ideas, while well-known activist Tony Hodges signed on as our candidate for the U.S. Senate. They took advantage of the various public-speaking opportunities afforded to all candidates for elective office. Charles B. Smith worked on a slide show presentation.
        Becoming a candidate was relatively easy. It took the signatures of twenty-five voters plus a filing fee of a hundred dollars or less according to the office sought. That got a candidate's name on the ballot, but getting name recognition among the voters required a major ad campaign, newspaper and television advertisements that could run into thousands of dollars for minor offices and millions for the big races. Donations came from individual supporters, companies, and other groups. Here again third parties are at a distinct disadvantage. In Hawaii, two large corporations, American Factors and Dillingham Corporation generously donated $15,000 each to the two major political parties. Honolulu's newspapers reported these as "non-partisan contributions to both parties"--both parties--as if there were only two. The other three parties were completely ignored by business and the mass media. In response, Dexter Cate led a delegation of us to pay a visit to the two companies, point out that Hawaii had five legally recognized political parties, and ask for an equal contribution to the People's Party. Company president Lowell Dillingham himself personally met with the group, but declined to make any contribution whatsoever, saying that he supported the "two-party system", which, as explained above, does not exist. Some executives from American Factors also met with us, promised they would consider making some kind of contribution in the interest of equality and fair play, but never followed through with any concrete support. Our only consolation was a newspaper article about the event (Burris, 1976, A-6) with a photo of Dexter holding a large bag with a dollar sign on it, symbolizing the contributions our party never got.