The argument was familiar. I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamned elections are we going to to have to write off as lame but 'regrettably necessary' holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between two evils?

— Hunter S. Thompson, January, 1972