Political Segmentation

Today's WSJ had an article about Hillary's political machine, and the article mentioned the likelihood of the nomination being all but settled in February because of the number of states that have moved up their primaries.

Anyway, this sparked a thought about when/how/if politics will become more segmented like the media industries. I know this is very prevalent in regard to lobbyist groups and what not, but not so much in terms of candidate support.

If candidates are continually anointed (big donors, political machines, etc), rather than earning their place, what effect will that have on electoral politics? Will political apathy increase, leaving greater power to those with more vested interests? Or will a "revolt" of sorts take place resulting in the breakdown of the two party system?

What got me thinking about this is how come we only get two choices? Yes, there are occasionally a third, but even that is limited number of options, particularly if party unity uber alles is what matters once in office.

Action groups exist for single or thematic issues. But most of those are all subsumed to be either Democratic or Republic issues. Will the trend of personalization in other areas of life ever lend itself to the candidates? Will the desire to have representatives with qualities from column D and some from column R lend itself to the breakdown of the party system?

This would be a big systemic change, obviously, with its own set of problems (voted in with a plurality, rather than majority; perhaps an increase in pork to achieve a majority in office, etc). And this change probably wouldn't take place soon, but over the next 20-30 years, if at all.

For this to happen, though, would require a money, since that would remain a key factor to gaining support, unless name recognition from another venue can be leveraged.

I'm not sure if this is more of a demography issue or a political issue, since it's largely based on cultural/social norms that may or may not translate from one sphere of life to another.

I imagine a big tipping point would be increasing the amount of open primaries, but even that will require change. Of the states that do have open primaries, most require you to, at some point, choose a party to vote for--it's just a matter of when you make that election. Oregon has the best and most likely approach: a direct runoff in the primaries in which people can vote for their preferred candidate with top finishers moving to the general election.

So my new conclusion/point after thinking out loud is less political segmentation and more direct representation, with politicians more beholden to their constituents than their party.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?