From Keeping It Real!: American Political Party Direction - Dealignment sees a new day where it is NOT the case that "Party machines held our backs against a wall in regard to our allegiance to parties, and depending on our social status, we were ‘expected’ to follow suit...." I can't vouch for the site (it's new and there's no email or comment capability) but I'm looking forward to more independent views from Keeping It Real!
A note today on Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize from Prairie Weather "Gore and Bush: presidential has-beens"
Could Gore lead the way out of this mess? No way, says Conventional Wisdom, will Al Gore enter the race and run against Hillary. But there's another element. Some of us noticed something about Gore when he was running eight years ago: Al Gore doesn't really want to be president -- Al Gore wants to have been president. He inherited the ambition; it didn't originate with Gore himself. He later admitted it himself: he doesn't like politics.
We'll see. The poll also shows a vital new element: the growing strength of independent voters. A "none of the above" mood is sweeping the country, making it unlikely that a Republican could win the White House. But when it comes to electing a new Congress independents are leaning Republican.
The last remark originated from Glen Bolger, NPR's Republican pollster, who by some slight-of-hand turns the 2006 independent vote for Dems into support for Repubs. Well, it's a two-party system, I'll grant you that. But it's a big stretch to say that indies will vote Repub because the Dems aren't stepping up to the plate on the war in Iraq! One more note on the subject of Conventional Wisdom -- is there any such thing? I do agree that Al Gore doesn't seem to want to be president. "He doesn't like politics..." Hey, who does? But maybe he also doesn't like the Clintons... Just a thought.
Speaking of which, The Cosmic Trip says "How About Gore/Obama?" and rails against the "spineless unthinking blob" of a Dem Party... While I sympathize with the sentiment, how about not waiting for a big shot (or even a couple of big shots)? When Ross Perot, who did get almost 20% of the vote in 1992, dropped out of politics, some folks renewed their commitment to grassroots organizing and independent movement building. That's the hard work over the last 15 years that has made the question "Gore/Obama" even possible!
Here's a paradox for you: Eunomia asks "Do Ron Paul and Barack Obama draw support from the same kinds of independent voters?" I thought independent voters were independent thinkers! Well, there's just no accounting for taste....
Here's a note on the included "middle" from Tonewah's Various Curiosities: "Alabama, has sent independent voters to the Electoral College quite a bit in the last 60 years..." in Red/Blue Flip/Flop...
Philosophically speaking, you just can't categorize independent voters. Isn't that the point?
3 comments:
All independent voters can be categorized together by saying that they are registered to vote the correct way, the way that the founding fathers envisioned voters would be registered when they established this government. When President George Washington said that it was the duty of all Americans to discourage political parties, he was not talking about Republicans and Democrats when he said all Americans. He was talking about independent voters, which all American voters were at that time.
Today the only discouragement to two-party corruption is a group of voters which have little in common with each as far as beliefs, political philosophy, or ideas other than that they are all registered to vote the way George Washington thought people should register to vote.
It is a mistake to try to tell this group of voters, You should support this political philosophy or that one, this candidate or that one. What they should be told is that they are a greater protection against tyranny than political party members because of the way they are registered to vote. They still have all of their individual rights as American citizens. They have not subjugated those rights to political party interpretation. So let them make up their own minds.
Political parties have made a fatal mistake by mounting a nationwide campaign to deny rights to independent voters. They would have done far better to have continued what they did from 1800 until recently, ignore independent voters completely.
Political parties are going to reap what they have sown this coming election.
Political parties HAVE become too much like the political machines of the past. Instead of being a group of people united behind an idea, they're more like an organized crime syndicate.
Ballot access laws are repugnant. In a free country, to have restrictive laws limiting access to the ballot for public elections, is hypocrisy.
Ballot access laws are not just repugnant. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 makes them a violation of federal law. The only problem with that is that lawyers love political parties. In this federal court district I am not aware of even one ruling by a federal judge that was in favor of independent voters. The latest ruling from federal court a few weeks ago was that independent voters in Arizona could not vote in the Libertarian Party primary election after the state legislature made Arizona an open primary state in 2002. It is a mistake for independent voters to put their rights before party appointed judges like these. Every time a court ruling goes against independent voters, the parties have taken another right away.
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