When you say "all parties do this", I assume you mean "all two", because what you're saying certainly isn't true in the UK. I live in a conservative stronghold yet there are always several candidates to choose from and all the prominent English parties represented.
I wasn't spinning anything, I'd say the same of any party in any country, with a few exceptions such as "putting yourself up for election will likely result in you being maimed or killed", and even then, idealists will put themselves up for election because they feel their cause is that worthy.
Election time is about putting forward an ideal and standing on that platform. If you don't think you have an ideal worth standing for, then don't stand for it. If you do, then do so. Acting like votes are one's only currency is a sure-fire way to ensure that one's values will be utterly corrupted in the process, because then it doesn't matter who one panders to in order to accumulate the necessary number of votes. I can't believe anyone who has actually fought for something truly worth fighting for would have an attitude of "if I don't win then there's no point", nor can I imagine how on earth a party thinks they might ever possibly get to have any say in how that state is run if they don't bother to say anything at all.
When you mention Hillary, I assume you mean about her choosing which states to visit, which is a completely different form of prioritisation and reasoning than a local candidate bothering to stand.
The funny thing is, the UK has strict laws about how much funding can be used in elections yet the prominent parties have no problems fielding candidates for every seat. On the other hand AFAIK the US has no such rules, the big two parties pump millions to their campaigns, neither are at risk of going broke, yet you're arguing as if the situations are reversed.