you're doing it wrong.

i'm sort of, in a rather desultory manner, watching the coverage of the inauguration on television, and i can't help wondering why only the tea party is doing it right.

i voted back in november.  there were at least 5 candidates for president on the ballot in my state (that i remember), representing 5 different parties for president.  but there were only 2 parties represented in all the other races, 3 if you count the tea party separate from the moderate northeast republicans.  i was just watching discussion of the president's stated immigration goal, and it sounds like the republican party is headed for a split between the very far right nutcases and the rest of the conservatives.

what is going on?

for some reason, the tea party is working the system right.  i wish the left in this country would stop chasing their damned egos and start paying real attention to how a multi-party system is working in this country.  it is working because whoever is financing the tea party is smart.  instead of waiting for 2012 and blowing all their money on the ridiculously expensive presidential campaign, they started in 2010 with the congressional races and especially with the house of representatives.

we have this famous check-and-balances situation in this country which forces the president to have to work with the legislative branch.  what would be the point of getting a hard-right president in power, or a green party president in power, and having no support for them in congress?  better to spend your money on those small, unglamourous legislative campaigns that will get voters in your corner and get legislative support in congress so that there is ready-made support for your presidential campaign.  not only that, but it will force true multi-party functioning in this country. 

if the greens and the communists are smart and more than that, serious, about affecting politics in this country, they should start finding house of representative candidates now and fund their runs for the 2014 congressional elections.  stop blowing your money on your presidential run ego, stop being fixated on "the presidency" and "the president of the united states" and get going with really getting the worker bees into the government.