The Democrats will win again in 2016

Typical sneers from you. By your criteria, there were no national parties in 1860.

But i'm sure you're right, Bubba, you're always right . . . at least that appears to be your opinion.

I don't see that the post you link, from four years ago, in a thread on a different subject, is something i ought to have had in mind when posting.

While your view in that post is compelling, i think it is ovesimplistic. I think it can equally well be explained by the behavior of an electorate in what is essentially stable, complacent societies (as is said earlier). But even then, it isn't entirely predictive. I've already alluded to the Canadian experience. In England and in France, the lives and times of political parties have been and are much more fluid and unpredictable than is the case with the United States.

I was from the outset objecting to the first past the post position taken by RG, or at least as i understood it to be the position he had taken.

No. Though it certainly contributes enormously, the primary reason for the two party system is not the winner-take-all electoral vote distribution in place everywhere except Maine and Nebraska but the first-past-the-post part of the system and even if the electoral college were abandoned entirely, making each vote count on its own, the first-past-the-post systems inherently favor the large parties and disfavor the small parties, inevitably trending toward two-party duopolies.

But like Joe said, nothing is going to change on this front anyway.

Your criterion of being registered in all states is a pointless quibble--whether Douglas or Breckenridge, the Democrats won no state that was not a slave state. Bell won the only slave states which weren't won by a Democrat. Lincoln won all of the free states. Obviously the important issue was slavery, and the vote divided along those lines. Who was registered on the ballot where seems to me to have had little significance. I don't know if the Republicans even bothered to try to get on the ballot in slaves states--but whether they tried and failed, or just didn't bother, is not important. I don't consider that you've made a case that the Democrats were the only national party. After all, Ross Perot in 1992 was on the ballot in all the states, but failed to win a single state in the Electoral College. Being on the ballot doesn't mean anything if it doesn't get to your goal.

I learnt this about DUVERGER'S LAW in High school because I was a student in a Pa city that had a noble history of electing third party candidates for mayor in the early 20th century.

a new bill from Sen. Charles Carrico, a Virginia Republican from the rural -- and increasingly out-voted -- southwest part of the state. I talked to him today about the strategy, which starts in earnest when the legislature returns on January 9. "We'll introduce the piece of legislation, and we'll be hearing from both sides," he said. "From those that are critical of it, from those that are positive. It comes down for me, as a rural legislator, to a fairness issue. I'm making sure the people of my district are represented."

Carrico argued that the electoral vote split wasn't "really a partisan issue," and "could cut both ways," depending on who was winning a state. "George W. Bush won the electoral college and lost the popular vote." And the most head-scratching part of his proposal, which would assign Virginia's two statewide electorals to whoever won the most gerrymandered districts, was negotiatiable. "We're still not sure we're going to leave it at that," he said. "If we tweak the legislation somewhat to allow those votes to the statewide winner, the metropolitan voters may understand that their vote is going to be heard."
Source

That's cool, i'm not out to bust anyone's gonads . . .

That's cool, i'm not out to bust anyone's gonads . . .

In either case, "four years is an enternity in American politics" is a truisim.