I think the recent appeal of third-party candidates is that they’re “more liberal than ‘liberal’”, so to speak. That is, the Democratic party is the party for change, radical new ideas, tolerance, (and big gov’t)… at least, they are in comparison to the Republican Party. But both parties and their candidates/leaders strive to keep power for their own party, and I think (this is only an opinion, so if you ask for a cite, I’ll call you names) that we commonfolk are beginning to realize that. Hence the shift to Reform or Libertarian.
Having just started voting (I’m only 18… eek, I’m a young, pretentious bastard, ain’t I?), I really haven’t molded a political opinion system for myself… I’m leaning towards Libertarians, but I wanna wet my feet a little 'fore I go in.
Just for the record… I like the Approval Voting system that Gilligan mentioned. Sure, it’d have it’s problems, too… but I challenge anyone to show me a single political system that DOESN’T have problems (in a 300 million person population, that is).