Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The media villagers regularly portray our political system as "broken," blaming the two major political parties. The rise in "no party preference" voters, the media villagers tell us, is evidence that our political system is broken.
The media villagers — most of whom register as independent/no party preference to maintain the illusion that they have no political bias — put "independent" voters up on a pedestal and extoll the virtues of independent voters as being the ideal voter.
This is just the media villagers expressing their own air of superiority and disdain for us mere mortals.
An "independent" voter simply indicates "no party preference" checked on the voter registration form. This does not magically transform one into an independent thinker who carefully weighs the candidates' positions and makes a virtuous choice of the best candidate. This media conception of the independent voter is a myth, like unicorns.
The average voter spends less than five minutes deciding for whom to vote. This is what political scientists refer to as "low information voters." This voter is making a decision based upon preconceived political biases and an emotional response to negative political advertising, i.e., their "gut feeling."
This is not the kind of voter who should be put up on a pedestal and extolled as being the ideal voter. If our political system is "broken," it is because of declining civic participation in our political process. The politically disengaged are the problem, not the solution.
As I have posted previously, independent voters are not "independent," but rather are "leaners." There is only a very small percentage of the electorate who are true "swing" voters.
Larry Sabato writing at POLITICO today reaffirms this point:
While it is fashionable for voters to call themselves “independent” – both in how they respond to surveys or in their voter registration – polling data tell us that most people who claim to be independent really are not. A Gallup survey earlier this year noted that 40% of those polled identified as independents, but after “leaners” toward one party or the other were weeded out, the percentage of real independents was only about 10%. That squares with a more recent report from Ipsos’ Clifford Young, who pegged independents as 11% of the likely voters in the upcoming election. Political science research suggests that the real proportion of independents in the November electorate will be even smaller, perhaps 5% to7%.
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[T]he “swingy” part of the electorate is small, only a relative handful of every 100 voters. Most of the change from one quadrennium to another comes from variable turnout in the two partisan camps. Therefore, the key question this November will be less the destination of the hard-core independents than the relative enthusiasm of Democrats versus Republicans.
Or as I advise political campaigns, all elections are base voter elections. Close elections are not decided by "swing" voters — a favorite meme of the media villagers — but rather by which political party's base voters turn out to vote.
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Well, registering independent is a good thing, even if people do not know what it means. When the United States started, all voters were independent voters. There were no organized political parties in the United States until the election of 1800, when a political party started by Thomas Jefferson took over the United States government. George Washington predicted that political parties would be incompetent in the government of the United States, which we can see today was true. The problem right now is that they have been effective in taking away the rights of independent voters to vote and to be candidates for office, so we are in a transition stage while independent voters regain those rights.
Independent voters are not fooled by these Democratic Party shills. The Democratic Party has a vested interest in keeping the signature requirement for independent voters out of reach, the one thing they reach across the aisle to participate with Republicans in a bi-partisan effort to accomplish.
Independent voters in Arizona want the two major parties to do two things: Put the open primary back the way it was in 1998, and allow independent voters ballot access. We do not need to be paying for two primary elections just so the two major parties can prohibit independent voters from voting in the Presidential Primary. It is un-Constitutional to pass a law that prohibits independent voters who are not wealthy from being candidates for office.
The issue of ballot requirements cannot be settled at state level because the federal court system is promoting Republicans and Democrats as national parties the same way courts in Germany promoted the Nazi Party as a national party, the courts in Italy promoted the Fascist Party as a national party, and the courts in Russia promoted the Communist Party as a national party. This happened most recently in a case brought by independent voters in Alabama in which the federal district court upheld a signature requirement in Alabama similar to Arizona’s signature requirement. I have never seen evidence that since 1803, when a political party took over the United States government, there has ever been a court decision concerning election laws in the United States in favor of an independent voter. The fact remains that independent voters are subject to the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, even though they are denied their rights under that federal law by the courts who are charged with enforcing it.
All political parties are the same. There are more similarities between Nazi Party members and Democrats and Republicans than differences. There are more similarities between Communist Party members and Democrats and Republicans than differences. The purpose of political parties is to replace the voice of the people with the voice of a party which puts a party agenda in power and restricts the people in their participation in government.
I do not know who Godwin was, but claiming to pass a law prohibiting discussion of the Nazi Party has no effect on me. I do not follow party rules.
It’s been awhile since I looked at the numbers, but the 2006 election was a Democratic wave year, and GOP voter enthusiasm and turnout was lower than usual. There may be rare exceptions to the rule, but any campaign relying on being that rare exception is badly misguided and likely doomed to failure.
“Or as I advise political campaigns, all elections are base voter elections. Close elections are not decided by “swing” voters — a favorite meme of the media villagers — but rather by which political party’s base voters turn out to vote.”
There are exceptions to this. If all elections were base elections, we could never have upsets like Harry Mitchell over JD Hayworth in 2006, and far fewer states would have one D Senator and one R Senator.
But for the most part, motivating the base is where most of the action is, and it almost certainly is in Presidential elections.
There are, however, a large group of voters — relatively new voters — who are not yet permanently affilitated with either base. The Democrats have done a decent job of attracting these voters philosophically, but not such a good job outside of 2008 in getting them out to vote. Over time, this could change in a way that works to the Democrats’ advantage. Those unreliable 22 year old voters become reliable 30 year old voters one day, but their views don’t change that much. At the same time, those very reliable, very conservative, 80+ year-old voters are forced to give up their voting rights when they buy the farm. This will be followed by a counter-trend when the more liberal baby boomers start dying, but we’re still three or four Presidential cycles away from that counter-trend kicking in.
I do not say that independents are “stupid” as you misstate. There are numerous studies and polling data that establish that this group of voters are (1) low information voters and (2) are not truly independent but are “leaners” who vote their political party bias. You can ignore the data all you want, it doesn’t make it so. You also make the mistake of viewing independent/no party voters monolithically, as if they all share the same views. That is absurd on its face. And the Godwin’s law violation for resorting to Nazis renders your argument pointless.
Doug Quelland is a former Republican but I think he isn’t a good fit for what I know the Republicans claim to support. I haven’t ever heard the name Brent Fine and so I don’t know if he was a past Republican or past Democrat or a past something-else.
I think the signature requirements for independent candidates should be much lower as I think Independents are already impaired by a lack of party structure.
In 2008 I ran for US House CD 1 in Arizona against an R and a D and Brett Maupin who seemed Independent enough for my taste. He is just a wisp of history now as there is no structure to keep any “Independent” ideas in play over the long haul.
As for how many of the various Independent candidates get on the ballot it is my impression that the period for ballot challenges has already passed so all candidates listed (that qualify as Independent) will in fact be on the ballot in November.
Well, Thane, let’s wait and see how many of them get on the ballot. In the past, almost all candidates who qualified to appear on the ballot as independent candidates were party candidates who solicited contributions as party candidates and then paid petition circulators to gather signatures to appear as independent candidates. Bill Schulz, Dick Mahoney,etc. Most of these are shills for the Democratic Party to run a phony independent campaign so that lawyers representing the Democratic Party in federal court can say it has been proven that Arizona’s signature requirement is fair because these party shills were able to get on the ballot. Show me one of these people who is registered as an independent voter.
While Robert B. Winn is correct that Independent candidates face a much higher signature requirement than partisan candidates but he is incorrect that there are none in Arizona. The 2012 General election in Arizona will have at least three Independent candidates whose names can be found at:
http://www.azsos.gov/election/2012/general/IndependentCandidates.htm
Not to mention the Independent candidate for Maricopa County sheriff notwithstanding some people’s doubts as to the authenticity of his Independent-ness.
Independent voters are not as stupid as you portray them in your blog. I registered independent the first time I ever voted because I read what President George Washington said about political parties, that they would have a bad effect on elective governments, and I believed what he said. So let’s briefly go through some of the things political parties have done here in Arizona. In 1988 a bill was passed in the Arizona legislature signed into law by Governor Rose Mofford requiring that all deputy registrars in the state be recommended by the chairman of a political party. All deputy registrars registered independent were dismissed on 31 Dec 1988 and informed that they were no longer eligible to serve as deputy registrars. Even though political parties took this action, during the 1990’s Arizona became the state with the highest rate of independent voter registration in the nation. By 1998 there were enough independent voters to pass an open primary initiative. As soon as the open primary went into effect, the legislature moved the Presidential Primary to February and State Attorney General Janet Napolitano provided an opinion that since the Presidential Primary was not mentioned by name in the open primary initiative, independent voters would not be allowed to vote in the Presidential Primary. In 2005 Governor Janet Napolitano signed into law a bill to remove the option to register independent from the Arizona voter registration form with the following effect on independent voter registration.
2000-2002 107,715
2002-2004 165,771
2004-2006 26,483
As soon as Arizona citizens discovered they could still register independent with a voter registration form that told them they could not, independent voter registration increased back to near its former level, while both major parties started to lose voters in Arizona.
There are no independent candidates in Arizona because of the nomination petition signature requirement for independent candidates, about six times the number of signatures required for a Democrat or Republican running for the same office.
So I can only conclude that President George Washington was right. Independent voters have a good effect on government, while political party members have a bad effect. In any event, it is too late for the two major parties in this country. 43% of the voters are now independent. When independent voters increase by another 7%, they will outnumber all political party members in the United States. Federal courts will no longer be able to pretend that Democrats and Republicans are national parties the way the Fascist Party, the Nazi Party, and the Communist Party were national parties in European nations. Independent voters will have to be given ballot access. We will all be happy when these two corrupt major parties no longer control this government.
While I don’t think that Independent voters are the be all end all of voters I do rather think that many of them are far more ready to vote for any candidate regardless of their label than any voter who has chosen to join a political party. I would agree that there are plenty of voters who want others to think that they are Independent but are in actuality no such thing. In Arizona nearly a third of voters do not register Republican or Democrat and voluntarily either skip voting in partisan primaries or make it substantially more difficult for themselves to vote on partisan primaries. Such an effort indicates to me that such Independent voters are willing to put their effort where their registration is. I don’t dispute that motivating party members is quite important.