My Gran's response 2 the question of Why Party...

There was a time when a "Party" really expressed the ideals of a distinct portion of the nation and people voted straight tickets in order to put that group in power in order to get legislation passed which helped them. Eugene Debs had great programs for the Socialist Party, probably too far ahead of his time, but US citizens thought his ideas were too "European"(many of those programs have become fact today). The Libertarian Party has some good ideas but many of their programs would not work in today's world, so their candidate gets some air time but not much support. It's really a waste of a vote to mark one's ballot for any but the two major parties. Voting a straight ticket is ridiculous and a no-brainer; there are good and not-so-good candidates within both parties and doing one's homework to select the best person is the hardest job of the voter, but must be done in order to have checks and balances within the system. No need for term limits if the public does their job and gets rid of incompetent politicians.