Local Third (LT) parties are a way to capture the mojo of the tea-party movement that helped the Republicans to win so many seats in the last election.
LT parties would be third parties that specialize in contesting local winnable elections(like 3(or 1)-seated state assembly elections or 3(or 1)-seated city council elections). They do not attempt to rival the two major parties or contest statewide or presidential elections. Instead, they vote strategically in them as a part of their ongoing commitment to Gandhi/MLKjr-like issue-advocacy. IOW, this is a new kind of party, one that doesn't try to rival the two major parties or capture the political center. Instead, they would collectively work to make our system give more voice to more people on more issues!
A growth in LT parties would not be at the expense of the support of the democratic party if LT parties were more successful in persuading non-voters to vote with them. If the number of LT parties proliferated so that there were 2-3 of them per state district and they were composed of like 8% of voters each then they might be the 20% of voters who decide major single-member elections. And if LT parties were most likely to decide the course of an election then they could demand that the major parties' candidates debate the(ir) issues and avoid empty slogans geared towards the manipulation of low-info voters. However, a higher turnout would generally shift things to the left to the benefit of the Democratic party, which would then make the Republican party need to moderate itself to remain competitive. Another positive spill over would be that the rise in number and popularity of LT parties could abet the adoption of a caucus system, not unlike the MN DFL caucus system, in both major parties in most states. It goes without saying that a souped up caucus system would force the parties to pay more attention to their activist bases when their bases have reasonable goals that are slanted to appeal to most voters (ie, this would not be true for the radical theocratic right of the Republican party).
This is something that Kossacks ought to at least debate and hopefully push for, as a circuitous way to improve the quality of Democrats elected. As mentioned above, LT parties would not contest major elections and so progressive/liberal LTs would help, not hurt, the Democratic party if it listened to them.
dlw