To illustrate how the current system works, a would-be reformer named Peter Ackerman recently showed me a diagram that estimates party affiliation: “Democrats: Less than 30 percent,” “Republicans: Less than 30 percent,” and in the middle, “Unaffiliated: Greater than 40 percent.” He argues that if you include left-leaning and right-leaning voters in the “moderate” camp, they make up two-thirds of the electorate.

Yet as we head toward the presidential nominating season, the voice of this broad center is barely audible. Politics is pulled toward the left and right by campaign-finance rules, redistricting and other issues discussed in countless essays and op-eds. This centrifugal force seems to increase in every election cycle, with a resulting paralysis in Washington.

Ackerman has launched a campaign dubbed Change the Rule to address one piece of this puzzle of American political dysfunction. The rule in question is imposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which the two major parties created in 1987 to administer the televised debates that are the nexus of modern presidential campaigns. Ackerman argues that this rule, as currently applied, prevents the emergence of an independent candidate who might empower the underrepresented middle.