2012 Presidential Race: Where Are the Independents Going?

2012

• South Carolina and the independent vote (VIDEO The Fix author Aaron Blake looks ahead to the South Carolina primary and how independent voters could play a big part. (Washington Post)
• Ron Paul's Weak Support Among Registered Republicans Will Hurt Him In Closed Primaries (By: Noah Rothman, …ology.com) The exit polls from South Carolina’s semi-closed primary do not bode well for the Paul. He mirror’s Romney’s appeal among registered independent voters; Romney narrowly won this group with 25 percent to Paul’s 23 percent. Ideologically, Paul performs very well among those that describe themselves as “moderate,” “somewhat liberal,” or “very liberal.” Among voters that describe themselves as “conservative,” between 9 and 11 percent voted for Paul.
• State of the Union Speech To Feature Sharper Tone (By LAURA MECKLER and CAROL E. LEE, Wall Street Journal) The risk for Mr. Obama, voiced by some members of his own party, is that such a tone may please only the base. "People aren't walking around saying 'the reason why my kid may not attain the American dream is because somebody else is doing extraordinarily well,' " said Jim Kessler, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. Support from independents was critical in 2008, and they "really do want to look for someone putting country over party," he said.
• The Third-Party Rail - As the donkey battles the elephant, some say: There’s got to be a better way. (By John Heilemann, New York Magazine) A contest between two incarnations of the status quo is, of course, a decent definition of what an Obama-Romney general election will be: two smart, cool, and diffident candidates, each without a populist bone in his body—though both will try like crazy to pretend that’s not the case—offering nothing that will look to millions of voters like fundamental change. An independent candidate who can offer a real alternative to them, stylistically and temperamentally as well as substantively, could be a genuine game-changer in 2012.
• South Carolina Exit Poll for Republican Race (CBS News) No matter how you voted today, do you usually think of yourself as a Democrat (4%),  Republican (71%),  Independent (25%)...
• Independents Remain One Of Obama’s Biggest Election Hurdles (Written by NewsOne Staff) The poll revealed that only 31 percent of Independents viewed the President positively, while two-thirds of Independents were unhappy with the President’s economic progress. These poll findings mean that much of the swing voter base is up for grabs, although it should be noted that most Independents also have a negative view of Republicans.

NY Times Invitation to Dialogue: Time for a Third Party?

THIRD PARTY

• Invitation to a Dialogue: Time for a Third Party? (LETTER NY Times) A centrist third party could prosper in today’s political environment and end the stalemate in Washington. There is a large body of moderate Republicans, disaffected Democrats and dissatisfied independents looking for the kind of political home that this party could provide.
• Is California Ready for a Third Party? (By Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, NBC Southern California) The implementation of California’s new “top-two” primary could allow an early test. Will candidates filing for legislative and Congressional offices choose to list Americans Elect as their “party preference” on the ballot?” Can these candidates, unlike those of California’s long-established third parties, overcome the major parties’ massive registration edge and make it into the November run-off?
• Third Party Hazy as California Smog (By Larry Gerston, NBC Southern California) The unfortunate aspect of this charade is that someone will actually appear as a candidate in states where the "party" has qualified--someone who has not gone through the public vetting process known as primaries and caucuses. In a state with a closely fought race, that person could get enough votes to sway the outcome one way or another.

Rankin: Eliminate Party Primaries for County Offices in Mississippi

Steve Rankin (Free Citizen), third party advocate and one of the country's leading experts on state party primary structures, responded to columnist Bill Minor in the Jackson Mississippi Clarion Ledger from last week "Maybe Miss. is ready to install open primary system," June 18) with a letter in which Rankin calls for nonpartisan elections at the county level.

Since the Legislature refuses to make this change, we citizens will have to do it through a ballot initiative. Why do we need party primaries for local offices anyway? [more]

Rankin says more in his post from Feb. on Free Citizen "Greater Choice For Mississippi Voters"

Nonpartisan elections are popularly called "open primaries" in Mississippi. In such an election, there are no party primaries, and all candidates, including independents, run in the same election. If no one gets 50-plus percent in the first round, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, meet in a runoff.

The Voter Choice Plan would provide greater choice for our state's voters by changing to nonpartisan local (county and municipal) elections.

We need more third party voices like this for open primaries!

Where the Independent Voters -- and Independent Candidates -- Are in 2010

You'll never see what happened last Tuesday looking through a two-party microscope! Nope. You need an independent historyscope to get this one!


I had the pleasure of hearing independent strategist Jackie Salit give her analysis of the November elections on Sunday night on her regular national conference call which is attended by around 150 activists around the country every six weeks.


Jackie is a long-time independent activist based in New York City, the president of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (aka IndependentVoting.org), the executive editor of the Neo-Independent Magazine, and the campaign manager of Mike Bloomberg's Independence Party campaign. She's someone I follow very closely -- and so should you if you care about independent politics.


A statement released by the campaign via email on Wednesday after the election said: This year, the IP delivered 13% of the total votes cast - the largest percentage ever by a minor party for a cross-endorsed mayoral candidate.


The Hankster (my blog) and Donklephant (where I am a guest blogger), in addition to The Independent View (NYC IP activist Michael Drucker's blog) and the NY Daily News' Brawl for the Hall blog seemed to be the only media outlets that even referenced this astounding result from the election. And then today, I caught Maine's independent mayoral candidate Alex Hammers' post on The Moderate Voice "Independents are a Sleeping Giant".


In the CUIP conference call, Jackie emphasized that, far from being the "margin of victory" for Bloomberg's win as an independent in NYC, the vote on the IP line was the foundation of the campaign. At a time when the votes of both major parties Dems and Repubs went down, the 15 year old grassroots Independence Party doubled its vote.


It is indeed wonderous that no other media picked this up.


But if your framework is a bipartisan -- indeed partisan -- system, you don't pay a lot of attention to the margins, no pun intended! You don't see what's happening on the horizon. You're not looking to the future -- you're looking to the past and how pollsters have been able to parse the vote based on prior elections. Polls are supposed to be predictive. They're interesting, and we all follow them. But predictive?


You'd have to have a 6-billion-person polling operation to figure that one out. And still, you'd get it wrong because what the NYC mayoral race points to is the power that independents have as an organized force. It's something like what the unions used to call "strength in numbers" when we still sang Solidarity Forever and meant solidarity forever for everyone.


Old-fashioned as it may be, independents in NYC have banded together, we have talked with each other, we have made endless phone calls night after night year after year, we have fought back against a stupid and vicious state party chair, we have constituted 5 county committees under state law that are directed by a collective 94-person executive committee, and have inched our way forward into NYC politics as players.


We just led New Yorkers to elect our first independent mayor.


In my book this is something that ordinary people can be proud of. And that ordinary people -- nonpartisans -- all over the country can learn from and emulate.


And indeed they are. Take Joelle Riddle in Durango CO, a former chairwoman of the La Plata County Democratic Party who won her post in 2006 with party support and decided to go independent in August, would have to run as a write-in candidate after inadvertently missing a deadline to change her registration.


“I seek to remedy this burden that falls unequally on small political parties and independent or unaffiliated candidates, unfairly discriminating against them and not affording them the same privileges as the major political parties,” she wrote in a statement announcing her decision Tuesday.


Partisan politics isn't the future of our country, but the search for an independent alternative might be.


You/we independents can do it. If we're organized.


NH

BlogTalkRadio Sunday night 8:30pm Eastern Time

Poli-Tea author Damon Eris, independent political blogger, talks with The Hankster about independent and third party politics, the rise of independent voters in the face of an entrenched political duopoly, and what it all means to American politics circa 2009 and beyond.

Click here to sign in to the show http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hankster/2009/08/31/Poli-Tea-Third-Party-Opposition-to-the-Two-Party-System You'll be able to access the call online and make comments, ask questions and give your opinion!

And you can also call in by phone between 8:30 and 9:00pm Eastern Time at (347) 884-8634!

Please join us!

Nancy

Join The Hankster on Sunday night 8:30pm NY Time with Poli-Tea

I hope you will tune in to a special BlogTalkRadio show this Sunday at 8:30pm Eastern Time, a conversation with Poli-Tea and The Hankster

Poli-Tea author Damon Eris, independent political blogger, talks with The Hankster about independent and third party politics, the rise of independent voters in the face of an entrenched political duopoly, and what it all means to American politics circa 2009 and beyond.

Click here to sign in to the show http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hankster/2009/08/31/Poli-Tea-Third-Party-Opposition-to-the-Two-Party-System You'll be able to access the call online and make comments, ask questions and give your opinion!

And you can also call in between 8:30 and 9:00pm Eastern Time at (347) 884-8634!

Talk or not, but please join us for the converation!

It's BlogTalkRadio!

Thanks!

Nancy

African American Independent political movements

Review of In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third Party Movements in the United States by Omar Ali on An Ordinary Person "I found myself constantly bowled over by one unexpected historical insight after another on the political activity of African Americans. More than just being passive, oppressed subjects as traditional historical accounts have tended to portray them, African-Americans have a rich history of organized, anti-Establishment political activity dating back to the days of slavery and through modern times......"

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

OREGON OPEN PRIMARIES

• Grass roots not evident in initiatives-Process has been taken over by big money and single-minded interests (The West Linn Tidings)
• Primary change is the only initiative to back-Measure 65 is worth support of voters (The Lake Oswego Review)

CAMPAIGN

• Vermonters cross river for Obama (Brattleboro Reformer) With McCain's popularity among independent voters in the battleground state, many Republicans on the border are looking to help swing New Hampshire back toward the GOP.
• Parties seeking out new registered voters (The Arizona Republic) independent voters showed the biggest gains with nearly 80,000 choosing not to affiliate with a political party.
• How desperate is McCain? Matt Welch says only a domestic act of terrorism could boost McCain out of second-place status. Kareem Crayton says McCain squandered several chances to close the door on Barack Obama.(LA Times)
• Once you’ve gone ugly, it’s tough to turn back (Andy Stone, The Aspen Times) John McCain and Sarah Palin are going flat-out crazy negative, without regard for either truth or consequences. They’re whipping some of their supporters into a frenzy of hatred, apparently in the hope that the frenzy will somehow spill over and convince those treasured, uncommitted “independent” voters.
• County independents: 'Not much new' (THE PRESS DEMOCRAT) Tuesday's debate between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain didn't appear to sway Sonoma County's independent voters as much as it reinforced what they already believed.
• Schenectady: Democrats getting bulk of area's new registrations (Gazette Reporter) So far, among the new registered voters, 3,035 Democrats have registered, 1,135 Republicans have registered; 541 have registered as Independence Party members, 80 have signed up as Conservative Party members, 58 have registered as members of the Working Families Party and 1,683 registered without any party affiliation.

THIRD PARTIES

• Nader launches 22 field offices (Third Party Watch)
• Third Party debate offers new choices (Middle Tennessee State University/The Sidelines)
• MN-Sen: Trying to Handicap This Race (Swing State Project) Not many third-party challengers come out of the starting gates with 18-19%. Most Independence Party candidates in recent years are left-of-center and very well-spoken eggheads either on an ego trip or a journey of personal discovery through their candidacies.

NEW YORK POLITICS/INDEPENDENCE PARTY/Mayor Bloomberg and Term Limits

• New steam for Mike Bloomberg's 3rd-Term Express (DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU) Lauder, who last week agreed to a one-time extension tailored for Bloomberg, was back on the fence this week because the bill called for a permanent change.
• De Blasio Goes Billionaire Shopping (NY Daily News/Daily Politics) That means the city Indys - including Lenora Fulani, who had been thinking of a run for mayor herself - and not the state, will get the final word in '09. [this links to The Hankster]
• On his terms-New York Mayor Bloomberg's attempts to let city council change term limits an insult to voters.(Houston Chronicle)
• Bloomberg's plan to extend term limits is the apogee of arrogance (Harvard Law Record)
• End term limits and their arbitrary paternalism (Harvard Law Record)
• Voters must have final say on term limits (Oakland County MI Daily Tribune)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

OPEN PRIMARIES
WA: Parties should work within framework of Top 2 primary (The Daily News editorial) State political party leaders have been battling in court ever since. They claim they are being denied their right to choose who represents the party. But that obscures the core issue here, which is who owns the primary process, the parties or the people.
LA: State to probe blocked ballots-Some couldn't vote in 2nd District race (Times Picayune) Secretary of State Jay Dardenne said he is trying to determine how many independents were wrongly barred from voting in the 2nd Congressional District primary Saturday before he certifies the results.

CAMPAIGN
Independent Voters Move Toward Obama (Wall Street Journal)

THIRD PARTIES

• Third parties: less than the sum of their parts (Iowa Independent) REG: Right. You’re in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the Judean People’s Front....
• The Race for 3rd Place (Taki's Magazine) In recent years, there has been little room for serious third-party challenges on the right. The two most successful—George Wallace in 1968 and Ross Perot in 1992—were difficult to classify ideologically and did not appeal exclusively to conservatives.

Hankster on SIRIUS Channel 110 at 5:30 ET today

If you tune in to Channel 110 Indie Talk The Blog Bunker with Joe Salzone this afternoon, you'll hear Constitutionalist Party candidate for President Chuck Baldwin, and then Nancy Hanks responding and commenting on third party politics at 5:30. Hope you can catch it!!

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• NC: New Democrats, Unaffiliated Voters Outpace Republicans (Daily Record) Election reform group Democracy North Carolina has compiled and released an in-depth analysis of voter registration during and around this year's primary election.

• “African Americans: And America’s Hypocrisy” (By Fahim A. Knight-EL, Keeping It Real) This writer canvassed many neighborhoods on behalf of Dr. Lenora Fulani taking signatures of registered voters who agreed that we needed a Third Party that differed from the two corporate parties—Republican and Democrat. This writer does encourage the Keeping It Real Think Tank audience to take a look at the Green Party’s planks; if nothing else American Democracy needs a Third Party.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• How black voters took on the Clinton machine (Lenora Fulani, The Daily Voice)
• Campaign Advice For Barack Obama: Forget About The Center? (JOE GANDELMAN, The Moderate Voice)

REFORM

• Ballot may have up to 14 initiatives (Statesman Journal)
• Activists' initiatives to dominate Oregon ballot (The Oregonian)
• Oregon “Top-Two” Initiative Submits 119,653 Signatures (Ballot Access News)
• 9th Circuit Wants Briefs on “Top-Two” Washington Primary Case, on Ballot Access and Trademark Issues (Ballot Access News)

LOCAL NEW YORK PARTY BUSINESS

• New York Republicans Might Nominate a Member of a Minor Party for US House, 13th district (Ballot Access News)
• Molinari Will Challenge Staten Island’s G.O.P. Chairman (NY Times/City Room)
• Indy Bloomberg: One Party Rule Is Even Worse Than Two (NY Daily News/Daily Politics)