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pawelk1986
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01 Jan 2014, 7:21 am

I'm Polish, but i'm very curious about American presidential election?

I'm know that in every election is challenge between Republican (conservative) and Democrats (liberals).

I was wondering does ever in history, someone won the presidential election who is not a representative of these two parties?



GGPViper
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01 Jan 2014, 7:28 am

The first US president, George Washington, did not have a party affiliation.

The 10th US president, John Tyler, was elected on a Whig platform, but was expelled from his own party during his presidency.

First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral systems - like in the US - generally have a tendency (yet not uniform) to create two-party political systems, as per Duverger's law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law



trollcatman
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01 Jan 2014, 7:42 am

Here's a list of presidents with their vice presidents and party affiliation (once there was even a president with a vice president from a different party):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_us_presidents



pawelk1986
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01 Jan 2014, 9:43 am

I wonder if american choice someone who is independent does this would be end of the world :D

PS.
If I were an American, you probably would choose a Republican,

Here in Poland I always voted for the liberal Civic Platform, the next parliamentary and presidential elections I'll vote for the conservative Law and Justice party/

This whole political correctness sick of me, the Liberals want to loosen laws on abortion and enter the electoral parity for women, so that 50% of the seats in parliament, and 50% of the seats on the supervisory boards of public and later private company were reserved for women. In my opinion they totally crazed up, In Poland there is no oppressed ethnic, national, or religious, minority national, so they must create it to be able to fight for its imaginary rights.

I am against giving anyone special treatment.



naturalplastic
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01 Jan 2014, 10:18 am

One third party candidate did make it into the oval office.

America was dominated by two big parties: the Whigs, and the Democrats.

Then in 1854 a new fangled anti-slavery party emerged, and actually got its guy into the Presidency. It was called "the Republican Party", and it was a guy named Abraham Lincoln. The Whig party then died out and the GOP has been one of the two major parties ever since.

No other third party has ever become a major party since.

It hasnt always been the same two parties, but US politics tends to rely on the presence of some two major parties to put forth candidates. If Im not mistaken Britian also tends to have two major parties. In contrast: countries on the continent of Europe tend to have dozens and scores of little tiny splinter parties. But these parties form adhoc coalitions that function much like our two big parties in the USA (as I understand it).