I have always found it interesting to find out through conversation that most of my friends who identify with a political party do not necessarily agree with everything the party stands for. The most common responses I hear are along the lines of “Well… I am socially liberal but fiscally conservative.”

Thus, their inability to find a candidate who fits their ideology subsequently forces them to focus on the most important issues and identify with the best fitting party. It is unfortunate that with today’s leading political parties, it is almost impossible for a presidential candidate to emerge who doesn’t say exactly what the base of their parties want to hear.
 
Political parties are like stores at the shopping mall. The candidates in this analogy are the producers of the products in the stores. They have a product they are trying to sell — their ideas. The candidates want their ideas to reach the hands of the American people just like producers want their product to reach consumers.

Here is the caveat: the only way the candidate can handle the distribution costs of delivering their “product” to the consumer is through stores that refuse to sell the product unless they can re-label it, redesign it and call it their own.
 
Lets take GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to demonstrate my point. When campaigning to be Massachusetts’s governor, he was filmed on various occasions saying, “I defend a woman’s right to choose.” The then-seemingly social liberal, yet fiscally conservative governor had no problem beating a democratic candidate in one of our nation’s most liberal states, 50 percent to 45 percent. However, just years later, now that he is running for president and needs the support of the conservative voters in the Republican Party, he vows to be the pro-life candidate.  
 
Let us assume for a second that Romney is pro-choice in reality but vows to be pro-life to gain support from the conservative party. My question then becomes: Why does he need to do that? Can’t he just run on his own, without a party, maintaining his own beliefs and being elected because the majority of the American people will likely agree with him?

The answer to these questions, as of now, is no. Today, it is still necessary to gain the support of political parties because the distribution costs still remain too high. Candidates still need to rely on the financing and publicity made available by the political parties mostly because of the elderly population, which still hasn’t completely jumped on the internet bandwagon.
 
With that said, there is certainty hope for the future. Thanks to the internet, producers everywhere (of both ideas and products) can get out their ideas cheaply — without intermediaries. A shoe company can sell its product directly to the consumer without the stores in the mall, and political candidates can now distribute their messages without the use of political parties. The opportunity finally exists for candidates to start sharing their ideas without having to conform to those of political parties.

This is why candidates who maintain their own ideologies are starting to garner attention on large scales. It is no wonder that most of Ron Paul’s supporters are under the age of 30. He receives little support from the GOP base because of his different ideologies and, therefore, isn’t seen as a viable candidate by the news media.  Yet, he is still more than capable of winning delegates and building a solid foundation of support.
 
My prediction: in about 30 years from now when even great-grandparents will be both literate with and dependent on computers, the influence of political parties will subside. People will finally have the freedom of voting for the best candidate — not just the best conformists in the Republican and Democratic parties.    

Follow The Red and the Blue on Twitter: @redandblueDP.