Why don't independent parties win elections in California, much less the rest of the country?

It wasn't that long ago third-party candidates in presidential elections made a difference, even if the electoral system is stacked against them.

In 2000, Ralph Nader, running on the Green Party ticket, may well have cost then Vice President Al Gore the presidency, by siphoning off enough liberal votes to send the election into the now famous hanging chad, Supreme Court aftermath that elected George W. Bush.

Nader, however, got far fewer votes than H. Ross Perot received in 1992, when Perot's chart-driven takes on issues of government spending and waste resulted in the independent candidate getting about 20 percent of the popular vote. Whether that led to incumbent President George H.W. Bush losing the election to Bill Clinton is still debated, but it appeared for a while Perot's "United We Stand" political movement had the financing and support to begin to chip away at the dominance of the Democratic and Republican machines.

Not so. Within a few years, the Perot organization morphed into the Reform Party, which ... well, you get the point.

Now, in 2012, despite widespread dissatisfaction with the direction the country is headed and with the two major party candidates for the presidency, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, no third-party or independent candidate has yet surfaced.

Third parties have a long history in this country, without ever gaining enough influence and stature to truly change government. Today, with the astronomic cost of running for office, third parties have even less chance of competing. The major parties are able to raise huge sums and get more media attention from their high profile primaries and then run showy national conventions paid for by taxpayers. Third-party candidates are usually shut out of national debates -- although Perot had enough support in '92 to gain entrance.

The most recent example of the fate of American third parties came when the well-financed Americans Elect was unable to persuade a candidate to take up the group's invitation to run for president.

Americans Elect actually had a plan to reform politics by first gaining access to state ballots then holding an online convention to nominate a candidate. Didn't work. In the end, no candidate was able to clear the relatively low 10,000-vote threshold to "win" the Americans Elect nomination.

Political analysts noted that to break the iron grip of the two major parties, a third party needs to be associated with either a compelling cause or a candidate who can stir the masses. Just using technology and gaining access isn't enough.

California voters sent a crushing message to minor parties in 2010 when they approved the open primary for Tuesday's election. Because the new system sends the top two finishers in state races, regardless of party affiliation, onto the November ballot, this effectively ends the chances of the Green, Libertarian, American Independent and Peace and Freedom parties in those elections.

With no statewide presence on the general election ballot, these parties will essentially be invisible to voters. And that means they'll be even more invisible to the real difference makers in American politics: Donors.

Voters who approved the open primary in 2010 probably weren't intending a message they support the ever more dysfunctional stranglehold the two major parties have on government. But that's what's happened.

Third parties nationally and minor parties in California have a purpose: To bring independent ideas and candidates to public attention. Their presence has been severely diminished, and it's a loss.