First, the hidden agenda in the Ryan Budget, what they could mean for the US and how the campaigns keep them hidden.

  • Thomas B. Edsall is professor of journalism at Colombia Journalism School. He is the author of numerous articles and many books including, “The Age of Austerity”,  “Building Red America”,  and “Power and Money: Writing About Politics.”  He is currently writing an online election-year column for The New York Times.  His articles have appeared in American Prospect, The Atlantic Monthly, Dissent, The Nation, The New Republic,  The New York Review of Book and others.

Then, on the Scholars Circle, throughout US history, third parties have had a profound impact on policy, governance and voter turnout. So why are we still in a two-party system?

  • Scot Schraufnagel is Director of Graduate Studies of the Department of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. His many publications include, Third Party Blues: The Truth and Consequences of Two-Party Dominance and  Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress
  • David J. Gillespie, is Professor of Political Science at the College of Charleston and the Citadel. He has provided testimony in federal and state ballot access cases, and has written extensively on third parties including recently published “Challengers to Duopoly: 
Why Third Parties Matter in American Two-Party Politics,” and “Politics at the Periphery: Third Parties in Two-Party America.”
  • Omar Ali is Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he teaches the history of independent black politics. He is the Director of IndependentVoting.org, a national strategy and organizing center for independents. His many publications include, In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third Party Movements in the United States and In the Lion’s Mouth: Black Populism in the New South.

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