No but don't be niave. We do not have proportional representation in our elections. We have "winner takes all" elections. Due to that, third party coalitions tend to be wasted votes because they rarely demonstrate the ability to build a winning coalition/constituencies. For all their faults and failures the two major parties do have that ability.
When, as a Republican, I became alienated by the disproportionate power and authority that the far right wing of the Republican party had co-opted I first decided to go third party and as those of us who voted for Perot remember that was a big mistake. So I went back to voting Republican hoping I could help build a rational voice of sanity in the party. Then Bush was elected and things went to hell real quickly then.
The reality is, if you go third party that you can do one of two things. You can build a winning coalition that will unseat one of the existing political parties (that has happened twice before in our early history) or you can accomplish nothing. With out proportional democracy you are limited to those choices and the first choice, obviously, is not very viable.
That leaves you with the other alternative, focus on one or more of the coalitions within one of the existing parties and work towards positive change within either for those coalitions.
To me that became the more sound and affective choice and is why I switched from being a moderate Republican to being a Blue Dog Democrat. I lost hope of the right wing Republicans being brought into some semblance or proportionality unless certain coalition members of the Republican party would abandon the party and thus place them into the political wilderness as a minority party. That's the only affective way I can see of bringing change and reform to the Republican party.
As for third parties, agian, as long as we do not have proportional representation in our country, third parties are, in general, a waste of time and effort.
