For more than 200 years, the United States has operated under basically a two-party political system. The parties have changed and even flip-flopped over the years, but the basic premise of one side versus the other has always remained.

I attended the Tallapoosa County Republican Party annual dinner last week, and guest speaker Steve Flowers, who is considered the leading political columnist in Alabama, discussed this two-party system a bit. He said only eight states really matter in the presidential election because so many states are so entrenched in their single party.

Lizi Arbogast Gwin is the managing editor of Tallapoosa Publishers.