Americans: How much do you approve of the Obama administration?

[Minimalist]

Or even just plain independents.

Being an independent does no good whatsoever as long as their are no viable options.

Study the laws on a state by state basis which any third party candidate would have to navigate and you'll soon see that the deck is stacked against them. Perhaps fatally.

Ballot Access Laws

Each state has its own ballot access laws to determine who may appear on ballots and who may not. According to Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, the authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of federal elections is up to each State, unless Congress legislates otherwise.

The primary argument put forward by States for restricting ballot access has been the presumption that setting ballot access criteria too low would result in numerous candidates on the ballot, splitting the votes of similar minded voters.

Oddly, in a democracy it would seem that the state should not worry about that...but then, we don't live in a democracy. We live in a klepto-plutocracy.