[Chathamization]

Pretty much this. In this day and age, it's easy for people to ignore the advertising and simply search online for the candidates positions, their history, which groups support them, etc. This probably takes less than an hour.

Granted, most people don't, and most people probably don't even know the names of the people running besides those in the biggest races (they might know the presidential or mayoral candidates, but they often don't know the state senate or state party candidates).

I disagree about third parties though - it usually makes much more sense to try to make changes during the primary, then trying to make them with a third party (there are a few exceptions, of course).