What's the appropriate number of presidential contenders per party?

[Renew Deal]

I've been thinking about the legions of candidates for 2008 and wondering how many is too many? This is for each party. What does DU say?

[HereSince1628]

1. A better question for the dems is how many can be run by each faction.

If we limited it to 1 each then there would be a dozen or so, who mostly hate each other. :(

[StrongbadTehAwesome]

2. well, we had 9 to start out with in 2004,

and those debates were quite interesting. I'd say anywhere from 6 to 10.

[Renew Deal]

4. If we could use instant runoff voting...

It wouldn't matter. Unfortunately people are forced to make bad choices.

[silverweb]

3. As many as want to run.

The field thins out pretty quickly and who knows but that a dark horse will emerge when least expected.

[Infinite Hope]

5. Whoever wants to run...that's democracy. n/t

[loyalsister]

6. I agree in principle

But when someone wins with 22% of the vote- it's luck.
I personally am not convinced that luck reflects democracy well.
I think that narrowing the field to a point where the population is actually making a choice by numbers is a worthwhile objective.

[rep the dems]

7. I'm kinda tired right now.

So yeah, I don't know.