>Great point, Al. So the amount of truth coming out of a candidate is inversely proportional to their chance of winning? Very astutue, pal.
>
>>>My wife and I discussed this whole thing tonight and we're seriously thinking of going back to our political roots and voting for Bob Barr, Libertarian. I'm just getting more and more disgusted by the pandering, lying major candidates.
>>
>>Only when a candidate has zero chance of winning, can he/she afford to tell the unvarnished truth. It's been this way for so long, there must be a political science theorem that describes it.

Up here, our federal governments have always been either Liberal or Conservative. A third, left-ish party, the New Democratic Party (NDP) would tell (its version of) the unvarnished truth during federal election campaigns and as a result would pick up a few seats. Entertaining to watch, and occasionally they'd come up with something to embarrass the other parties.

The last couple of elections the NDP has been in, or near a "balance of power" position in minority or near-minority governments. They've liked this taste of power, so they've moved their platform towards the center and are playing politics.

Our nascent Green party (fairly far left up here) has now taken on the mantle of truth-teller (again, as they see it) even as they try to win their first-ever Parliament seat.