Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com
There’s a general consensus out there that partisans suck and are everything that is wrong with politics, so it would stand to reason that having candidates who don’t belong to parties would bring a refreshing perspective and a practical focus on issues to elections. Yet “independent” politicians, with notable exceptions like Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders, generally fail to catch on and are tend to act as spoilers when they make it to the ballot, whether or not that was their intention. In Kansas, however, Senate candidate Greg Orman, a former Democrat who now belongs to no party, polls well against incumbent Republican Pat Roberts for this year’s election when the Democrat is not in the race. MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki interviewed him on Sunday morning.
It may just be the partisan in me talking but I’m not too impressed by this guy. First, he spouts the grievously wrong “extremists on both sides” false equivalence repeatedly and then proceeds to refuse to identify which party he’d caucus with if elected (which is kind of an important bit of information) and to refuse to even say who he’s voting for for Governor, citing privacy (which is simply ludicrous). Yeah, I get that it’s a tough state for Democrats to win so this might all be necessary posturing on his part, but it does go to show that “independents” are as likely to be hacks as their partisan counterparts. At least with the partisans you have a better idea of what you’re getting.
All I see of Independents is that they have no strong opinions of their own on any subject and no committment to issues. They can’t make up their mind what they are for or against, so they take the “no opinion” route. Most of my experience with Independents is that they hate both Parties, but can’t tell you what they’d do different, but mostly they don’t bother to vote.