I was talking with Michael Lewis, founder of Independent Kentucky, recently about an author writing a new book about independent politics. "What's her angle," I asked. Michael replied: "Not sure. But she doesn't know anything about me."Michael is a very smart guy who earlier this year took on the Kentucky legislature in a fight to win open primaries. We lost due (in this case) to fierce opposition from Democrats who control the Assembly. Michael has a way of putting things that hit the nail on the head. "She doesn't know anything about me" describes all those pundits and political professionals opining on the 40% of Americans who can't stand the political parties and are now independents. They don't know anything about us.
Let's leave aside the obvious point that many of them don't know very much about most things they write about, speak about, and go on TV to discuss. For example, they think the Tea Party movement is something new and explosive as opposed to being the latest incarnation of repeated social conservative takeover attempts of the Republican Party.
Surely, the Tea Party movement is unnerving to those who think that the "political center" is where America is really at. But who knows where America is "really at?" and who knows if there is a "center" anymore? Is there really a space "between" two parties that the American people don't trust? Or, does there need to be a more sweeping reform of the practice of partisan politics altogether?
Right now, it's very hard for the American people to express themselves. The media has molded politics into a blood sport. And the political system channels everything into a left/center/right, Democratic/Republican paradigm that undermines progress and rewards division. Independents are trying to make a statement about all of that. But even so, we barely register as "real," even though, paradoxically, we now decide many important elections.
I, for one, don't mind that the system doesn't know what to make of us. Being misunderstood, underestimated, and/or miscast gives you room to grow and that's exactly what we're doing. We are focused on the fundamentals of American democracy and changing the ways that our electoral process has been bent to the will of two parties and more generally to "partyism."
When Michael Lewis lobbied the Kentucky legislature for open primaries to allow the state's independents into first round voting, he was told by one state senator (a former governor) that if he didn't like the system the way it is, he should "move to another country." But with independents now the largest bloc of voters in America, we are the country. Trouble is, the current engineering of the political process often locks independent voters out. (Little known fact: Tea Party candidates are winning Republican primaries mainly in closed primary states where independents can't vote).
And the partisan system allows the parties to function as quasi-governmental institutions. In my mind, if we want to shrink the size of government, we can start by shrinking the unchecked power of the political parties. That's why California voters passed Proposition 14 in June and abolished party primaries. Non-aligned voters we mobilized through our California affiliate IndependentVoice.Org, carried the day. They simply didn't want the political parties controlling the show anymore.
Much is made in the press nowadays about declining support for President Obama among independents. And since that decline may result in support for Republicans in the Congressional midterms, there is a generalized conclusion that independents, having backed Obama in record numbers in 2008, are disillusioned with the Democrats and are now embracing the Republicans. My problem with this analysis is that it turns a vote into a political identity and then compounds the problem by defining identity as Democrat or Republican.
Pollsters love to insist that most independents are really "leaners," and thereby not really independents. I don't get the logic. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is no less a tower for the fact that it leans. Similarly, an independent is no less an independent for casting a ballot for a Democrat or Republican, especially in a winner-take-all system such as ours.
Obama expressed a post-partisan vision in his 2008 campaign, which is why independents (including many of us!) supported him. (Need we add that the vote was to put him, not the Democratic Party, in the White House?) To the extent that he has fallen away from that vision, into the partisan clutches of a polarized Congress with an unstable Democratic majority, independents are unhappy. I'd like to think, though, that we're not among the disillusioned. That would mean we had illusions about Obama to begin with. Some political movements-Left and Right-did and still do. We didn't and don't. We're striving for the opportunity to show Obama a roadmap to regaining the confidence of independents.
That said, the midterms are approaching. The Democrats will lose seats (as the majority party always does), maybe even majority control. No matter the outcome though, the fundamental concerns of independents about the nature of the political process itself remain constant. We need deep and radical structural reform of our elections. And when the powers that be understand that, they will know who we are.
Most Sincerely, Jacqueline Salit
As one of the financial supporters of Michael Lewis, I have been part of the movement for open primaries. As the webmaster for Jackie's The NEO-INDPENDENT Magazine website, we are committed to giving all voters the opportunity to select their candidates, especially for the 40% of independent voters.
With the country divided be left, right, and center, we really have a many party political system. Most major and minor parties are not pure but represent a diversity of interest. Then we have the independent who belongs to no party but many different and the most diverse group. Some call them swing voters but I call them sway voters. Most vote today for the candidate not a party.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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