Many observers expected the collapse of the two-party system in 2008. Lou Dobbs of CNN wrote a bestseller called “Independents Day,” predicting an “independent populist” would win the presidency.  

There’s scant prospect of any viable third party, however, when potential fringe contenders have an air of “round-up-the-usual suspects”—Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Mike Gravel, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin. Soaring turnout in primaries shows no mass desertion from the two-party system, and the Gallup Poll of under-30 voters notes a scant 8%—unchanged from four years ago—who consider themselves “independents.”  

The predicted “independents day” never materialized because likely nominees McCain and Obama, both of them once considered underdogs, give a fresh flavor to each party and show  the best way to work for change is within—not outside—the system that served us reasonably well for the last 150 years.