Lois Romano’s Analysis of Independent Voters in 2012 Election

Lois Romano spent 28 years at the Washington Post as a political reporter and analyst. Now she is a senior politics reporter for Politico. Here is her lengthy analysis of who independent voters are and how they affected the 2012 presidential election. She mentions data that shows many independent voters are not moderates. Thanks to The Independent View for the link.


Comments

Lois Romano’s Analysis of Independent Voters in 2012 Election — 15 Comments

  1. As the author of The Independent View, I should point out she missed the point that the independent movement is growing and we do vote the candidate not the party.

    To answer the questions “What is the Independent Movement Future”, check this out:

    Saturday, February 16th, 2013
    NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

    On February 16th, 2013, hundreds of independents will gather from all across the country to take stock of a growing movement that is reimagining America along nonpartisan and developmental lines.

    The independent movement is raising a broad social reform question; should political parties be the singular vehicle for political participation and representation, or do we need new forms of political expression—forms that transfer political power from the parties to the people?

    Go to: http://conferenceofindependents.org/ for more information.

  2. #1, thanks for your comment.
    CUIP has been having hundreds of attendees at its annual gatherings for over a decade. What is the evidence that CUIP is growing?

    The question raised by CUIP, asking “should political parties be the singular vehicle for political participation” seems to set up a straw man. Ever since 1976, all states have permitted independent candidates to get on the ballot. Two US Senate independent candidates were elected last month. Just because parties exist, it does not follow logically that people can’t run for office outside of parties. Also the overwhelming majority of elected positions in the United States are non-partisan elections. Two of the three most populous cities in the U.S., Los Angeles and Chicago, have non-partisan elections. The suggestion that under current laws, people must participate in political parties in order to express themselves is not true.

  3. #2-Where do I start. Being independent should be the start of the journey, not the end. The voter must learn how to use the power that step gives them. Just showing-up at the General is not the answer. I look at this as the beginning of the long road back to the Peoples’ House. As you know, Ballot Access is a two-sided problem. The system needs to change so anyone who wants to be on the ballot as a candidate has that equal opportunity. The other is all voters should not be locked out od the candidate selection process. For me, that is the ability to vote for a candidate, not a party.

    As for our growth, here is the new list of independent orgaizations in the US:

    Independent groups

    CUIP is motivating, training and supporting an activist network of independent leaders who are building throughout the country.

    AL, Independent Alabama

    AZ, AzIndependentvoting.org

    CA, IndependentVoice.Org

    CT, Independent Party

    DE, Independent Party of Delaware

    FL, Florida Independentvoting.org

    GA, Georgia Independent Voters

    GA, iMove

    IA, Independent Voters of Iowa

    ID, American Independent Movement

    IL, United Independents of Illinois

    KY, Independent Kentucky

    MA, Massachusetts Coalition of Independent Voters

    MD, Independent Voters of Maryland (IVM)

    MI, Grand Valley State College Independents

    MS, Committee for Open Primaries

    NC, North Carolina Independents

    NH, New Hampshire Independent Voters

    NV,Independent Voters of Nevada (IVON)

    NY, New York City Independence Party

    PA, Independent Pennsylvanians

    SC, Independence Party of South Carolina

    SD, South Dakota Voice of Independents

    TN, Independent Tennessee

    TX, Independent Texans

    UT, Utah League of Independent Voters

    VA, Virginia Independent Voters Association (VIVA)

    WA, Washington Association of Independent Voters (WAIV)

    WI, Wisconsin Group for an Independent Voice (WiGiv)

  4. CUIP does not run Independent Alabama. Most of the people involved with that organization are Libertarian Party members, and Green and Constitution Party members have also been involved. The meetings have been at the Libertarian Party office.

  5. Factions / parties — since Greeks and Romans

    See Federalist No. 10.

    NO such thing as an *independent* / *moderate*

    MORE or LESS control freak govt power over life, liberty and property.

    Gee — which New Age robot party hack gangs are the MORE or LESS ??? Duh.

  6. Bobby Friedman is involved with Independent Alabama, as is Mark Bodenhausen, who is the state Libertarian chair. Never heard of the lady that’s with them. If CUIP is trying to imply that Independent Alabama backs top two primaries they are barking up the wrong tree. Bobby Friedman does, but he’s probably about the only one.

    As for why they are listing groups the way they do? It’s pretty obvious, I don’t have to ask them. They are trying to look bigger than they really are. Duh!

  7. The Republican Party will not recover from its defeat in 2012. This has happened three times before in American government, in 1816 when the Federalist Party went defunct, in 1828 with the demise of the National Republicans, and in 1856 when the Whig Party held a convention but did not nominate a candidate. The difference this time is that the Democratic Party will prop up the Republican Party as long as it can to avoid the appearance of one-party government, which is what we now have. The Democratic Party was always the dangerous party in American government, and they have now reached their full potential. Like the Tory Party of England, they had an access to power in government that no other party could obtain. The Tory Party, the English political party that started the American Revolutionary War, based its power in English government on the divine right of kings, while the English Whig Party based itself on economic and political theory, enabling it to accomplish abolition of slavery in England and its colonies, but afterward having no ability to stop what caused its demise as a party, the increasing national debt of England.
    The Democratic Party is now in position to do what many European parties have done, financing of one party government through borrowing money on national credit while depriving its opposition of the same advantage. This is all very European and exciting to the kind of people Americans have become. I would equate their present political excitement over Democratic Party success to the excitement over party success in Italy and Germany before World War II.
    The reason the Democrats were the strong party in American two-party government was because they have always had a connection to government power their opposition did not, resulting from a Supreme Court decision in 1803, Marbury v. Madison. Upon obtaining control of the American government in the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson’s Republican-Democrat Party immediately sought supremacy through judicial review, an unconstitutional intrusion of the judicial branch of government into legislation. The reason England was able to abolish slavery in England in 1834 by a vote of Parliament while the United States could not abolish it until 1864 and could not do it without a Civil War was because William and Mary,upon assuming the throne of England, stopped all interference with Parliament by English courts, something that had been encouraged under the Stuart kings. The only role English courts had in the abolition of slavery in England was to enforce the law after it was passed by Parliament and the king. In America, the Democratic Party was able to enforce slavery on the United States through Supreme Court decisions still in effect up until the time Confederates fired on Ft. Sumter, starting the Civil War.
    The way judicial review affects independent voters, the voters created by the writing and adoption of the Constitution, is that they are the only Americans today the courts do not recognize as being protected by the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Independent voters cannot vote in elections they pay for. They cannot be candidates for office unless they are billionaires because party politicians write state election laws to prohibit the participation of independent voters as candidates through excessive nomination petition signature requirements for independent candidates and other electoral burdens designed to keep independents off from the ballot.
    What independent voters need to start recognizing is that the Democratic Party one-party government now in place controls federal court decisions relating to these unconstitutional state election laws, and they are going to be made more, not less oppressive for independent voters. As I have said from the beginning, the only remedy for party control is independent candidates for office. Independent candidates do not need to receive publicity, do not need to solicit money, do not need to make expenditures, and do not need to be elected in order to have a good effect on elective government. All they need to do is exist. Independent voters are what remains of the free and open elections that existed when America started. While those first elections may not have been completely free and open with regard to who could vote, they were free and open compared with elections of today with regard to who could run for office. Any person who could meet the residency, age, and legl requirements for candidacy could be a candidate. That is not true today. Only party members with party backing have the practical means of being candidates, and only party members can be elected.
    The danger of this kind of party government is what the Democratic Party has done all along, the use of the judicial branch of government to impose a party agenda. At its beginning, the Democratic Party was imposing slavery. Today it is still imposing political slavery, especially on independent voters. The only way to break this hold is through candidates for public office. Republican candidates after 2012 will be like Federalist candidates after 1800. They will exist in a declining party. Independent voters need to decide whether they want to participate in this government or just accept what Democrats are going to give them.

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