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Write ins are fine, also there is usually 20 or so Political Parties on the ballot in my state, Michigan, as well as most states. It's the nature of our Electoral College system and Federal Campaign Financing that pretty much insures only a Democrat or a Republican will be elected.

There will be 6 presidential candidates listed on the Michigan ballot. The first hurdle 3rd parties face is gaining ballot access. The second hurdle 3rd parties face is maintaining ballot access. 3rd parties typically have to spend so much time & effort gaining ballot access that it makes it even that much more difficult for them to ever get elected. I'm not a huge fan of Gary Johnson, but his positions align more closely to mine than Clinton or Trump, and I'd really like to see the LP get major party status in Michigan, so they don't have to keep on going through the same ballot access cycle every 2 years.

I suggest you stop pointing out how ignorant you are, especially about politics.

Political fundraisers are well aware of how to find people that contribute to politicians, and they don't have to pay money for lists.

Top 5 Contributors, 2007-2012, Campaign Cmte

Alliance Resource Partners
$40,650
Koch Industries
$17,000
Mason Capital Management
$16,800
Murray Energy
$14,613
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030836

Even more:
http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00462069

YOU need to wake up to the fact he wants to turn everything over to unregulated corporations.

Do we need a 3rd party? yes. heel a 4th and 5th party!
That does not me we should blindly jump on board anyone who shows up as 3rd party. Since you are ignorant of who donate money to them, I don't think it's not too far of a stretch to say you are blindly jumping on his bandwagon simply because it's a new band wagon.

The question is: Have you rapped yourself so emotionally into the Paul's that you won't change your view in light of the new evidence?

John Paulson, hedge fund manager, Bob Mercer, Renaissance Technologies, Bill Koch, member of Koch family, and various other hedge fund managers and private equity LBO firms, etc.

John Paulson was the hedge fund manager who made an estimated $5 billion one year betting on the economic meltdown thanks to a supertanker-sized amount of insider information. (Remember that when Alan Greenspan left his position as chairman of the Federal Reserve, he went to work for Paulson at his hedge fund.)

To illustrate the direct wealth transfer in action: Paulson buys a credit default swap (CDS) for $1.4 million, which later pays out $100 million --- and he does that any number of times.

Paulson and the other banksters and hedge fundsters, now have their billions and A.I.G. and Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, et al., “must” be bailed out by the taxpayers --- who later lose their jobs and homes or residences, and must go on “austerity” programs because Paulson and Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase and GE bought those CDSes and AIG and the others who sold them didn’t have any capital on hand to back them up.

Bob Mercer’s Renaissance Technologies is an institutional investor in the major banks and oil companies which were heavily involved and responsible for the global meltdown as they speculated – or financially manipulated – the prices of oil, energy and commodities – jacking up the paper market price of oil to 13.8 times higher than the actual physical market by May of 2008 by super-selling oil futures to each other, forcing the price upwards.

They used the same scheme to jack up the prices of refinery-involved chemicals and oil transportation costs (using forward freight futures to raise the price of supertanker rental and bulk carriers, etc.)

Mitt Romney’s Fortune

Born into wealth, Romney would accumulate even more by selling debt, loading companies with debt and more debt by taking out loans against companies in leveraged buyout deals to reward himself.

He accumulated even more money by avoiding taxes; utilizing offshore finance centers in the Caymans, Switzerland, and other locations. (The leveraged buyout structure itself is predicated on tax avoidance and shifting the burden of taxation onto the workers due to the tax deductibility of debt payments.)

This is what plutocracy looks

like!http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/01/Romney.jpg

(And his Super Pac individual donors)

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00490045/763780/sa/11AI

Did you even bother to read the complaint?

From the complaint: Moreover, in the Fox 35 interview, when the interviewer said "so your goal is to unseat him [meaning Grayson]" Ms. Langley's response was "absolutely, that is our entire goal"

If you can provide reference to one single instance of that PAC promoting any candidate instead of tearing down Grayson (which is easy to do, the guy is a moron) I will concede your point. But as of right now, Mycongressmanisnuts.com promotes no candidate. Besides, what politician would want to be affiliated with Mycongressmanisnuts.com? Someone not familiar with the controversy would definitely get the wrong idea.

As for the rest, all she has to do is give money to more than one candidate and she's off the hook.

Somehow I doubt that. The FEC sent them a letter requesting clarification. You would think that if they were going to change things, the would have done it by the deadline on that letter, which is the 17th.

The fact that she's not raised a ton of money is an unavoidable practical defense on her part with regard to that.

I fail to see how that applies to misrepresenting the purpose of the PAC.

You can read the Statement of Organization on the FEC's website. Note that Grayson has accused Mycongressmanisnuts.com of checking box f instead of box c, thus misrepresenting the function of their PAC and violating the law. Additionally Grayson has alleged the PAC is in fact a connected committee due to her status as the former head of the Lake County Republican Party. They will haul you away if you file your taxes improperly, and this isn't any different. The FEC even gives you a guide to filling out the paperwork, which believe it or not is actually pretty simple for the relevant form.

The applicable instructions read as follows:

Line 5. Type of CommitteeCheck box (f) if the committee supports or opposes more than one federal candidate. Box (c) applies if the committee supports or opposes only one candidate. (These are the only boxes on Line 5 applicable to nonconnected committees.)

I think the problem they would have here is demonstrating intent. Nevermind the political idiocy of it. I think that filing the complaint was ok, but specifically asking for jail time was a bit much in my opinion.

That link might have saved you a -1, Troll...at least if I were the moderator. That changes your post from inane ranting to something based on fact. Like a lot of people, I don't read Slate. Slashdot posters seem to assume we all read the same trash as each other and we're on the same page.

On the other hand, what they were discussing was not Howard Dean, but this complaint: http://eqs.nictusa.com/eqsdocs/000061C1.pdf
I tend to agree with their decision, in absence of the information you provided in that link. With it taken together, I suspect they really ARE overstepping their bounds. Why not write your own complaint? Assuming you would do the same if it were a right-wing website taking money for activism. (i.e. because you believe in the rules, not because you want to smackdown the lefty)

I'm not really sure how I feel about those rules. Wealthy people have wealthy friends, all who act together to scratch each others backs in ways that don't cause money to change hands in regulated ways. The little guy still gets screwed.

I always think it's fun to look at who gives money to candidates that make decisions like this. I've always disliked Feinstein, and stuff like this just reenforces my opinion.

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/com_rcvd/C0031517 6/ (slow server)

I know this is a full contribution history, but here are the names I picked out as having opened their checkbooks.

ASCAP
RIAA
MPAA
AOL/Time Warner
MGM
Viacom
Sony
Disney

OK, I've read the typical array of bashing connected to any MS story. While I don't disagree that MS has made some sleazy business choices, this does not mean that their competition is any more angelic. Here are a few tidbits of food for thought:

Eric Kriss is a busy man. As well as his heroic efforts on behalf of the people of Massachusetts, he is also quite the entrepreneur. Along with his boss, Governor Mitt Romney, he founded Bain Capital a 17 billion dollar capital management firm that owns pieces of such widely diverged companies as Staples, Dominos, Burger King and Toys-R-US. Bain also tried to buyout the entire NHL and partnered with the Chinese in the attempted buyout of Maytag. He also worked for previous Massachusetts Governor William Weld. He took some time off to start a couple of companies of his own before continuing in public service. Workmode offers a web-based subscription model project management application called iProject. Follow the link and notice to what competitor he compares his product. Anyone want to take a guess before they click? Kriss started MediVision, Inc and was CEO of MediQual Systems, both health care companies. MediQual is especially interesting since it deals with medical information and documents - like web forms submitted to a state government. Yes sir, I bet they can make your practice compliant with that new format for billing documents pretty darn quick. When was the last time you believed a health care company was on the side of the people? Finally, take a look at this, looks like MediVision wanted to cover their butts before paying some government office holders an honorarium at a political fundraiser. Hey, I'm not saying that there is anything WRONG with any of this. Just that factors other than "because it is an overriding imperative of the American democratic system" may be involved in the decision. What I'm saying is: a wolf in geeks clothing is still a wolf.

You can call OpenDocument an 'open' format, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have to be licensed. The XML format is actually provided by Sun and a license IS required. There are some interesting terms involved in the license, including cancellation if the licensee sues the licensor over ANY "infringement of claims essential to implement any W3C Recommendation" and the granting of reciprocal licenses. MS might have some legitimate hesitations about acquiring such a license. By the way, you need a license for PDF as well. And Reader STILL takes forever to load.

This whole discussion is about forms used by a state government for internal AND external use. Meaning the forms used to communicate with the citizens by the government. This can include informational presentations (possibly multimedia), online registration for services (motor vehicles, voter registration, unemployment, schools, etc.) and yes, maybe even embedded VOIP (click here to leave a voice mail for your city councilman). Why would a company spend time and money to develop gee whiz technology and willingly support a standard incapable of its implementation? How willing will companies and individuals be to toss out their tried and true Office routine and switch to apps that even most zealots describe as 'catching up' and 'almost as good as' Office? And that's not taking into account Office 12, due in '96, and, you guessed it, featuring improved XML. Do you call the government forcing you to quit using the overwhelmingly most popular business document tool if you want to communicate with them a good thing?

So what I'm saying is: there ain't no fre

It'll never work, unless you are a political contributor to Senator Santorum's political campaign.

The good news is, it's cheap! Only $3550.00 for the favor.

(Thanks to BooBoo at Fark for the link)