LFS2, I admire your persistence and envy your ability to believe in miracles, I really do. But you shoot down your own argument in your very first sentence. If voting third-party is truly a serious alternative, then battle-ground state voters should be encouraged to vote third-party there as well. Sorry, but a protest vote in a non-battleground state means as  diddly little as voting( or not voting at all) for one of the ordained candidates.  That is reality. What needs to be changed is the voting system. In the case of the presidential election, that would mean tossing out the Electoral College for a start.