She writes:
As Republicans sift through the wreckage of the presidential election and Democrats brace for the 2014 midterms, there is one clear point of agreement between them: Independent voters no longer decide elections.
In 2012, Mitt Romney became the first presidential candidate in recent history to decisively win the independent vote — yet just as decisively lose the election. Pollsters and campaign strategists — particularly Republicans — are scrambling to understand what happened — and more important, what it means for future campaign strategies.
Strategists in both parties now believe that the Romney campaign and the GOP in general completely missed a significant new reality: Many voters who chose to remain unaffiliated with either party are no longer shifting their allegiance from election to election, candidate to candidate. Instead, they are becoming increasingly partisan and predictable. That means that in order to win, each party must be far more ambitious in cementing its base — as Team Obama did — to win elections.
“This model is less likely to work in off-years where turnout is generally lower because there is no high-visibility contest at the top of the ballot,” said University of Michigan political scientist Michael Traugott. “The presidential campaign team usually has less interest in these contests as well. Just look at what happened in 2010 in the Republican sweep.
“So I would say that Obama expanded his OWN base, but not in a way that helped many other Democratic candidates in the off-year. This is a puzzle that remains to be solved.”
To read the article, CLICK HERE
As an independent activist, this misses what happened in 2012. The GOP had a bad candidate, bad issues, and had no ground game in the swing states or with the deciding voters, Hispanics and Women. In the 21th Century, many of the registered voters do vote the candidate not the party, want to remove the barriers to taking part in the candidate selection process through Open primaries for all voters and giving all possible candidates an equal opportunity to get on the ballot.
Toward this end, the independent movement will meet in New York:
National Conference of Independent Voters
Saturday, February 16th, 2013
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
On February 16th, 2013, hundreds of independents will gather from all across the country to take stock of a growing movement that is reimagining America along nonpartisan and developmental lines.
The independent movement is raising a broad social reform question; should political parties be the singular vehicle for political participation and representation, or do we need new forms of political expression—forms that transfer political power from the parties to the people?
For more Information, CLICK HERE
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us 
2 comments:
It is not true that independents comprise 40% of all registered voters. Registration data for October/November 2012 for all states shows that independents are 25.7%.
I removed the % value.
Post a Comment