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The saddest truth is that, unless you can pull votes equally from both parties, the current system will reward the party with greater loyalty. That's why we're in a two-party system to begin with. EVERY time in US history a third party had a significant candidate, th party without the split-vote won (Bull Moose party anyone?).

The US is in a two-party system because its congressional elections are winner-takes-all. In a proportional representation system, where each party gets a number of representatives proportional to how many votes it got, smaller parties can exist, with a small but non-zero number of representatives. In a winner-take-all system, the only party that gets any representation at all in any given area is the one that gets the most votes, and in the long run that leads to just two parties.