Many Americans have a hard time differentiating either of the two major parties from a horse’s hind end. Quite a few feel that the two-party system is broken, perhaps beyond repair.

So what’s a disgruntled American voter to do? Most will deal with our frustration in one of two ways. We’ll either hold our noses and throw our lot in with the party that, in the final analysis, has offended our sense of decency the least, or we’ll simply find something else to do on Election Day.

But is there a third way? Do those of us who can stomach neither Republicans nor Democrats have somewhere else to turn? Of course we do! This is America after all. We demand options, and by golly we get them.

There are more third parties out there than you can shake a stick at, and I thought it might be interesting to briefly discuss some of the more successful ones and give readers a pointer to where they can find more information if they’re interested. I’ll list them alphabetically, to avoid the appearance of favoritism.

¢ The Constitution Party (www.constitutionparty.com). This party provides a refuge for conservatives who feel the Republicans have drifted too far to the left. Constitutionalists wear their evangelical Christianity on their sleeves, and they believe in a very literal reading of the Constitution as it pertains to the permissible scope of the government’s power.

¢ The Green Party (www.gp.org). The Greens are sort of the mirror image of the Constitutionalists. Democrats who feel that their party just isn’t liberal enough will find a welcoming home here. Greens are strident environmentalists, pacifists and multiculturalists, and they tend to lean toward socialism.

If you want to have fun at a party, invite a Green and a Constitutionalist. Then get them together and enjoy the fireworks.

¢ The Libertarian Party (www.lp.org). The Libertarians are the elder statesmen of the third-party movement and have been around for more than 30 years. You could sum up the Libertarian philosophy of government this way – we need a lot less of it. Think Constitutionalist but without the moral cheerleading. Libertarians want the government to stay out of our personal affairs as well as our pocketbooks.

¢ The Reform Party (www.reformparty.org). Anyone old enough to remember 1992 knows that Ross Perot created this party as part of his crusade to fix America’s problems using business savvy and common sense. The party has declined significantly in prominence and membership since the heyday of Perot and Jesse Ventura, but it still has a pulse. Reformers promote balancing the budget, term limits and increased ethical standards for all elected officials, and moving the financial problems of the Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security programs to the front burner.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the Third Parties active in America today. You can find a much more complete list, along with helpful links where you can find out more about the parties listed, at www.politics1.com/parties.htm.

Personally I find something to admire in all of the parties listed above, and I wouldn’t rule out voting for a candidate from any of them if they appeared on a ballot. I have, in fact, voted Libertarian on a number of occasions, including the last three presidential elections.

Given the “quality” of the candidates the two major parties have provided in recent years, I’m surprised more people haven’t done the same.