As Arkansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania go, so goes the nation?

We've had two days to mull over the results of the primaries in AR, KY, and PA. In Arkansas, Democratic incumbent Blanche Lincoln has nearly been beaten by lieutenant governor Halter, and now must face him in a runoff round on June 8. In Kentucky, Rand Paul, the son of libertarian Congressman Ron Paul of Texas and self-proclaimed Tea Party member, trampled establishment candidate Grayson for the Republican Senate ticket. Finally, longtime Republican-turned-Democrat (in 2009) Arlen Specter was defeated by former Navy Admiral Sestak.

We all know of the anti-incumbency movement that's been rife since the "meltdown" of September 2008 and the following bailouts.

It's coming to fruition now. And in classic American style the process has become a botched half-measure.

Let's be open about this. The Tea Party movement, whether you love it or hate it or have no opinion whatsoever, is a legitimate, and, for U.S. standards, a well-organized protest movement, in that it seems to have widespread grassroots support as well as momentum. Those who identify with the movement normally also identify as Republicans (though disgruntled they are), and certainly have a role in Paul's victory, or rather Grayson's defeat, in Kentucky.



What can we make of the coup d'etat Democratic primaries, however? Tea Partiers may have played a role in Halter's challenger campaign in Arkansas' open primary as tactical voters who want a leftist candidate who can be defeated more easily by their Republican candidate, though I think this is greatly overestimating their numbers and organizational strength. Pennsylvania has closed primaries, so it was Democrats who decided en masse that Specter's move into the Democratic camp last year wasn't sincere enough.

The anti-incumbency mood affects both parties, in this case, though the protesters have chosen, in a sense, to temporarily hijack the Democratic and Republican parties to let their angst be known. And then in the next election cycle in 2012, they will have forgotten all about what made them angry two years before. Or, if they they turn out to have some kind of staying power, maybe they'll get a favorite son candidate nominated for president in the next presidential election. Then what? It's back to business as usual.

If the parties don't feel compelled to change their ideas and actions in order to get your vote or my vote, then they simply will not change for the long term.

If only the protesters would decide the best way to shake up the false dilemma system we currently have by forming a viable third party. It seems ridiculous, though, doesn't it, suggesting the possibility of having just one more plan from which to hole-punch your ballot in the voting booth.

And that's a huge problem. Viable third parties which are able to express differing and nuanced opinions exist in almost every other single democracy on this planet. They don't work here because both major parties in the United States are corporate dependents, and with a first-past-the-post presidential electoral system, the odds are stacked entirely against other parties from entering the fray and being able to compete on even a highly unfair playing field.

The first step must be thorough, fundamental, systemic reform. It will take more than an economic recession, bailouts, and health care laws to shock the American electorate, notorious in their apathy, into positive action.

A few new faces in Washington playing for the same two teams won't change the way the ballgame is played.