The other day, we had a little fun with Tom Friedman, who believes that a third-party run for the presidency by Michael Bloomberg is the only way to save our republic from the horrors of actual politics. I am regularly reproved by people who tell me that the only real hope for me is to support the Green Party — the current presidential candidate of which, Jill Stein, is actually an acquaintance of mine; our sons used to fence together — in its attempt to wrest the White House from the corporatists. I am sympathetic to the latter notion, and continue to find the former one completely hilarious. And things like the hedge-fund cowboy's wet dream, Americans Elect, are not third parties but, rather, privatized political vanity productions concocted by the deficit hysterics. (AE is still romancing David Walker, longtime frontman for Pete Peterson's attempt to toss Social Security into the Wall Street casino.) I am not unsympathetic to the notion of third parties, but third parties can't build enough political clout to affect actual change as long as we have winner-take-all voting.

Which brings me to Lani Guinier. Whom Bill Clinton threw under the bus because the Wall Street Journal yelled at him, and because timid liberals in Congress didn't want a fight. Thanks again, y'all.

Guinier is a longtime proponent of the idea of proportional representation, a system employed in a number of democracies around the world. There are a number of arguments for and against the notion, but there's little doubt that a third party cannot succeed in this country without a change in the way we elect our representatives. Anything else is simply what Lewis Lapham once called the wish for kings.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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