Berger starts out with asking Wheelan how the current system is failing. Wheelan says that our two-party system gives too much power to the extremists in each party and that in a lot of states independent voters are unrepresented in choosing the top two candidates that end up on the election ballot. He then says that on the House side, they're gerrymandering electoral districts. This means that they are dividing states or counties into election districts to give one political party a majority in many districts and the other party fewer districts so that they can control the voting strength. He says that because of this gerrymandering, the Congress is always protecting their more conservative or liberal side.
Next, Berger asks what the Centrist Party's goals are. Wheelan argued that the Centrist party would stand for principles that take the best of each party; or in other words, keep what we like about Republicans and Democrats and cut of the tails. After this Berger continues to ask what the Centrist's position would be on gun control which you are welcome to look at but I would like to keep the attention on the two-party system.
The interview continues with talking about the possibility of a Centrist candidate winning an election and how that would happen. Wheelan believes that the Electoral College makes it nearly impossible for a third-party candidate to win the presidency but also believes that it would be possible to win a spot in the Senate. He also thinks that Centrist candidates, if they made it in the Senate, would be in a very powerful position.
In conclusion, Wheelan talks about how many people that think the system is broken but instead of talking about how unhappy they are about our current system they need to actually act on it. It is all about doing things in a different way.
I chose this source because I feel that Charles Wheelan is qualified enough to know what he is talking about in politics when it comes to our two-party system in the government. Wheelan is a professor of public policy at Dartmouth College and studied public policy for a long time. He spent some time as a speechwriter for a Republican governor and covered politics for The Economist. He also ran as a Democrat in Chicago, where he says he was the most conservative candidate in a Democratic field. He has many experiences that qualified him to write his book.
Citation
Berger, Brooke. "Breaking the Hold of Two-Party Politics." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 2 May 2013. Web. 01 Sept. 2016.
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