"Why was the contest only between Romney and Obama?" This is why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post#Effect_on_political_parties http://en.wikipe

"Why was the contest only between Romney and Obama?" This is why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post#Effect_on_political_parties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post#Effect_on_p... "Why do you have to be uber wealthy to run in a country ruled "by the people"?" Because of the logistical costs of running an election. Though, technically, you don't need to be uber-wealthy, you just need enough donors. Obama is not that wealthy. "The U.S's primary problem seems to be that it has transformed into (or perhaps always was) a corporate run oligarchy. Except it walks around saying it's a democratic republic..." It's not an oligarchy. There's a perception that wealth is what give people a political voice but that's only true up to a point. Yes, you need money to run a newspaper, buy campaign ads, or higher a lobbyist, but that's true in any country (that allows those things.) But the fact is that politics is quite a bit more subtle. US politics is driven primarily by groups of extremely dedicated voters who vote narrowly on an a small range of cultural issues which they perceive as moral issues and upon which they cannot compromise: guns, abortion, marriage. This leads to some ridiculous factionalism, which means subtler issues get ignored.