With a woman, a black man, and the oldest candidate ever having all had a genuine chance to become president, the campaign of 2008 may have seemed like the realization of an American truism: Anyone can become president. Not so, says John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper’s Magazine. After interviewing legendary mavericks like George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, Ralph Nader and Ned Lamont, he says it’s time to notice that our major candidates have very similar voting records and are all getting money from the same lobbyists and banks. You have to be in the club, he tells Alternet in this interview: “The two parties encourage people to think there was never anything but a two-party system in the United States. The media contributes to it, because the media doesn’t really challenge the party structure. They don’t give the third party candidates much airtime. You don’t see Ralph Nader or Bob Barr at McCain-Obama debates and that is for a reason. They want to limit the choice so they can hold onto power more effectively.”