By NBC's David Murphy
The American political experiment was never meant to be packaged as a two-party system – far from it. In fact, just four years after this new nation was born, founding father John Adams told his wife he feared such a circumstance would do exceedingly more harm than good. Adams wrote “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties… This is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” However, within 100 years, quadrennial stand-offs between Republicans and Democrats had become the norm and third party candidates were largely relegated to the sidelines. But that doesn’t mean they can’t make their presence felt, especially in the battleground states.
