Do We Need a Third Political Party to Challenge the Dems andd the GOP?

Thomas Friedman has an op-ed in the New York Times that hits on a topic that seems to require serious consideration: a serious third political party that can challenge both the Democrats and the Republicans. The GOP has become a sectarian party controlled by those who want to bring back the days of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. Meanwhile, the Democrats have proven themselves incompetent to govern and usher in needed change even when controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress (Obama's spinelessness and pandering to members of the far right who'd as soon shoot him as look at him has made the problem even worse). Frankly, I find myself disliking BOTH of the two national political parties and wish there was a third option. The LGBT community has received largely nothing from either party nor our "fierce advocate" in the White House. Friedman thinks it could happen in the run up to 2012. In many ways, I hope he's right. Something needs to happen because otherwise the USA seems headed for a repeat of Rome's collapse - and the acceptance of homosexuality has nothing to do with it regardless of what Robert Knight and Tony Perkins would have the sheeple believe. (MEMO TO KNIGHT: some historians blame Christianity as one of the causes of Rome's collapse). Here are column highlights:
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[D]escribing Rome's decline: Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly lacking, long before the barbarian invasions had done their work, long before economic dislocations became serious, was an inner go. Rome’s life was now an imitation of life: a mere holding on. Security was the watchword — as if life knew any other stability than through constant change, or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks.”
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I continue to be astounded by the level of disgust with Washington, D.C., and our two-party system — so much so that I am ready to hazard a prediction: Barring a transformation of the Democratic and Republican Parties, there is going to be a serious third party candidate in 2012, with a serious political movement behind him or her — one definitely big enough to impact the election’s outcome.
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I know of at least two serious groups, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, developing “third parties” to challenge our stagnating two-party duopoly that has been presiding over our nation’s steady incremental decline.
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The best our current two parties can produce today — in the wake of the worst existential crisis in our economy and environment in a century — is suboptimal, even when one party had a huge majority. . . . “We basically have two bankrupt parties bankrupting the country,” said the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond. Indeed, our two-party system is ossified; it lacks integrity and creativity and any sense of courage or high-aspiration in confronting our problems.
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We have to rip open this two-party duopoly and have it challenged by a serious third party that will talk about education reform, without worrying about offending unions; financial reform, without worrying about losing donations from Wall Street; corporate tax reductions to stimulate jobs, without worrying about offending the far left; energy and climate reform, without worrying about offending the far right and coal-state Democrats; and proper health care reform, without worrying about offending insurers and drug companies.
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We need a third party on the stage of the next presidential debate to look Americans in the eye and say: “These two parties are lying to you. They can’t tell you the truth because they are each trapped in decades of special interests. I am not going to tell you what you want to hear. I am going to tell you what you need to hear if we want to be the world’s leaders, not the new Romans.”