Burr Deming on Independent Voters: Fair and Unbalanced

Nancy Hanks at The Hankster still embraces independent voters as the key to a better national future. She presents voting results in California as evidence..." by Burr Deming's Fair and Unbalanced

The independent and moderate voters in California took matters into their own hands during the last general election and passed Proposition 14, which allows independents to vote for any candidate during the primary election. Proposition 20, which will replace the current gerrymandered district boundaries so incumbents are no longer guaranteed re-election, was also passed.

Independent Voters: Centrist or "True Independents"?

h/t to Burr Demming for inspiring this post... (if you haven't checked out burr Demming's blog FairAndUnbalanced, please go now!)

From my vantage point, the distinction between "centrist" and "independent" is the single most important distinction we can make right now. The AP piece, written by Liz Sidoti, calls independents "fickle" and then "warns" Pres. Obama (Liz might have an application in to Fox News?) not to move further to the left "lest they turn off middle-of-the-road voters whose support was critical in 2008 and will be important in upcoming elections..."

Hmmmm.... What's wrong with this picture?

Two words: Partisan politics!

What Liz Sidoti (and her editors at the Associated Press) doesn't understand is that, far from "fickle", independent voters in our country not only HAVE NOT changed their ideology to suit the times (see the recent Pew Research study), they also feel that the "fickle" ones are the politicians (and the journalists who never seem to interview and quote real independents, but who just regurgitate the message that their bosses tell them to.... -- For a more nonpartisan take on current political trends, see independent stratagist Jackie Salit's "How the Independent Movement Went Left by Going Right"--an important analysis of where the independent movement came from, where it is, and where it might be going...)

Ideology is dead. Long live activity!! As Mother Jones said, Don't mourn, organize!