Editor's Note
What we tend to see as historic are the dramatic, the explosive (as the world bears witness to events unfolding accross North Africa and the Middle East). Historical transformations, however, take (and have taken) other forms--less perceptible in their intensity, with equally uncertain outcomes.
What we tend to see as historic are the dramatic, the explosive (as the world bears witness to events unfolding accross North Africa and the Middle East). Historical transformations, however, take (and have taken) other forms--less perceptible in their intensity, with equally uncertain outcomes.On February 12, 2011, 460 independents from over thirty states gathered in New York City for a national conference entitled “Can Independents Reform America?” Jackie Salit, president of IndependentVoting.org and a national independent political organizer and strategist, gave the keynote address--a detailed analysis of the independent movement over the past twenty years. The presentation was aired several times on C-SPAN.
The current issue of the The Neo-Independent features an edited version of Salit's analysis--food for thought for anyone interested in better understanding the emerging national independent political movement. Salit's edited presentation is followed by an interview with CNN contributor and political analyst John P. Avlon, a participant at the national conference of independents and a longtime advocate for non-partisan reform.
The current issue of the The Neo-Independent features an edited version of Salit's analysis--food for thought for anyone interested in better understanding the emerging national independent political movement. Salit's edited presentation is followed by an interview with CNN contributor and political analyst John P. Avlon, a participant at the national conference of independents and a longtime advocate for non-partisan reform.
Enjoy the latest issue of The Neo!
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CONTENTS
Can Independents Reform America? By Jackie Salit
Interview with John P. Avlon By Phyllis Goldberg
PREVIOUS ISSUES
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Can Independents Reform America?
By Jackie Salit
How fitting and fortunate that this conference on bringing political reform and non-partisan democracy to our country takes place as the people of Egypt are making a democracy revolution in theirs. Let’s begin with a look at the American story: Independent voters are now 38% of the national electorate, a growing constituency of Americans who want an alternative to partisan politics and partisan government. In 2008, independents voted for Barack Obama in huge numbers – 19 million – because we wanted a post-partisan president: someone who could move us beyond politics-as-usual; an independent who could bring change to America.
The excitement and the national pride over Obama’s election was historic, but it was also short-lived. Obama found himself face to face with a devastating crisis. The American economy and the banking system – its lifeblood – were unraveling at an alarming rate. The auto industry stood on the brink of bankruptcy. And Wall Street took a plunge that was nearly fatal. How did the government respond? And what choices did Obama have?
The scenario presented by Wall Street was dire: The end of the world. Obama had to act. But, in acting to save the financial system, giving hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts to the banks, the president and his new government aroused deep conflicts and suspicions within the American public and created an opening for his political opposition.
The independent who had been elected to change the country’s priorities in favor of the American people, found himself taking extreme steps to save the country’s elite. As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, “It put the government of the
Americans were confused and angry. Some of that anger surfaced as a media fascination called the “Tea Party movement.” It was part grassroots protest and part rebirth of the conservative wing of the GOP. The Tea Parties launched a series of anti-government protests only three months after Obama took office, arguing to politicians “you are spending money we don’t have, on social programs we don’t need, to solve problems that you have caused.”
The Republican establishment decided to ride the Tea Party momentum, with a two-part strategy. First, use the Tea Parties to energize the despondent Republican base. And second, channel their anti-establishment anger into a magnet for independent voters who had supported Obama, but who were upset about the path the president – and the partisan Congress – were taking.
Republican leaders understood that winning the 2010 midterms meant breaking up the Independent and Democrat coalition that swept Obama into office. They gambled that if Republicans said NO to everything, Democrats would move ahead without them, using their congressional majority to pass legislation when no bipartisan consensus could be reached. The most dramatic example of this was broadcast on national television, when House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi led the passage of health care reform with a straight party line vote.
This display of partisan muscle was unpopular with many independents. And Obama seemed either unable or unwilling to resist it. Republicans and their Tea Party allies were actively working to divide the Obama coalition. But the Democratic Party was remarkably passive. Maybe they believed independents would stand by them or stand down while they flexed their partisan muscle. More likely, they believed that the Democratic base was solid – it was up 5 points after 2008 – and independents, once so crucial, were no longer needed.
At IndependentVoting.org we were alarmed by this. Obama had been elected by independents to govern as an independent. But the most partisan Democrats were calling the shots. We’d seen the early warning signs of this eclipse when his team decided to fold their independent campaign organization – Obama for
It was as if the Obama team had forgotten that independent voters fueled his primary challenge to the Democratic Party machine, carried him to the nomination, and enabled him to win the Presidency. In the 2008 campaign, 33 states allowed independents to vote in their primaries and caucuses. Most of IndependentVoting.org networks supported Obama in those contests. Without the backing of independent voters, Hillary Clinton would have been the Democratic Party nominee. But now, Obama had only Democratic strategists and congressional leaders talking in his ear. Maybe they wanted that history swept under the rug, but we didn’t.
We wanted that history told and understood, and so 111 leaders of our networks from 35 states wrote personal letters to the president urging that he reconnect with independent voters. One, by Ginni Treadwell of
Dear President Obama,
I am a crabby old lady that has sunk so low in hope that I damn near stayed home from voting for the first time in almost 50 years. So much has changed in the last two short years since I joined thousands of independents to cast a vote for your message of hope and change. We did not expect miracles. We knew you needed time.
We were nervous when you kept on the “old guard” – many who have been more a part of the problem than the solution. We were shocked when Wall Street reform was a slap and did nothing to prevent the monstrous greed that has nearly taken this country down. When you had no interest in keeping the public option in the health care bill, we were just plain scared. But we calmed our nerves and watched and waited…only to be sooo disappointed when you gave so little attention to open primaries that offer a beginning to end the partisanship.
Ginni Treadwell, Troy , Vermont
Obama had lost his connection to independent voters and we tried to intervene to repair the damage. I wrote “Obama Can Win Independents Back,” published in dozens of papers across the country which spelled out what the president could do to keep his connection to independent voters, including learning the history of the independent movement; we appealed to the president on national television with Omar Ali, IndependentVoting.org spokesman, delivering the message of independents on CNN:
“If President Obama wants to do something about picking up his numbers, especially among independents, he’s got to find out more about what animates independents. The bottom line for independents is opening up the process and dealing with the bi-partisan and partisan nature of our electoral system.”
But the White House wasn’t listening. Then came the midterm elections. The Democrats lost 63 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate. After election night, the GOP controlled the House with a 49 seat margin.
It was, in some respects, ironic. The Tea Parties, which built their momentum in closed primary states where independents couldn’t vote to choose the Republican nominee – like Kentucky , Delaware , Pennsylvania , Nevada and Florida
Everything we’d said to Obama was on point. But, if we are to be honest, we have to acknowledge that in spite of what we said, we could not be heard. We were too small. We were too under-funded. We were too outside-the-box for the White House to hear us.
Nonetheless, independents were determined to make a statement. The core change that Obama had built his presidential campaign around, and that independents had supported, was eliminating partisanship. But on this, he did not deliver. So, independents gave control of Congress to the Republicans – making it impossible for Obama to govern as a partisan. It’s fair to say that independents liberated Obama from the partisanship of his own party. However, the swing by independents, while dramatic, wasn’t an endorsement of the Republican Party or of a conservative “Tea Party” vision. Gerry Seib of the Wall Street Journal wrote the day after the election: “The very fickleness that independents demonstrated in these two midterm elections means there's no guarantee they'll remain loyal to the GOP, any more than they stuck with President Obama and his Democrats.”
The latest polling numbers bear this out. Gallup America
Let’s briefly consider that history: In 1992, a major national independent political movement took shape in the presidential campaign of Ross Perot. In the spring of 1992, in a three-way race for the presidency, Perot stood at 40% in the polls. The country was poised to send an independent to the White House. But eight years later the Perot movement, and the Reform Party it gave rise to, were on the brink of non-existence.
In the early days of the Reform Party, our base in the black, Latino, gay and progressive communities – known as CUIP, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party – organized a coalition with Perot’s “radical white center.” This coalition for grassroots democracy became so powerful inside the Reform Party that in 1999 the ruling Perot clique was overthrown and a new national leadership team – backed by America
But before the newly-elected Democracy Coalition could consolidate its position, the Perot group brought a well-oiled social conservative machine into the Reform Party, led by Republican Patrick Buchanan, to supply the ground troops needed to overthrow us. Perot’s inner circle wanted control of the movement back in their hands. But Buchanan and the conservatives wanted more. Having been rejected by their own (the battle for conservative control of the Republican Party did not start with the Tea Parties), they wanted to turn the Reform Party and the independent movement into leverage for a right-wing agenda. Two things prevented that from happening. After a brief effort at a coalition with Buchanan, the party’s progressive wing – that’s us – marginalized him.
CUIP Founder Jim Mangia, the National Secretary of the Reform Party, spoke out at the split nominating convention in Long Beach , California
The defeat of the Buchanan juggernaut was completed by the millions of independents and others who had voted for the populist Perot but rejected Buchanan’s conservative alternative. Buchanan got less than half a million votes for president.
With the collapse of the Buchanan bid, which took the Reform Party down along with it, the independent movement was, for all intents and purposes, dead. But the deep mistrust of the political parties was not. Thirty-five percent of the country were still independents on the day the movement died. So we went out to rebuild – not as a party, but as a response to the third of the country that was disillusioned with traditional partisan politics, yet as a practical matter, had no way to express it.
We reached out, cold calling lists of registered independents, standing on street corners, going to county fairs and surfing the net, looking for independent voters who wanted change in a system that had become addicted to partisanship. That effort became known as IndependentVoting.org. And for a decade, we have been the only force in the country organizing independents to challenge the parties for the right to a nonpartisan political process.
Defining the independent movement – defining its principles – is a crucial part of building the movement. The battle inside the Reform Party defined our wing of the independent movement. It also set in motion a series of attacks and counterattacks that led to the Reform Party’s demise. Apparently, when push came to shove, no one in the establishment really wanted an independent movement for political reform, led by progressives, which crossed ideological and racial lines.
But if one episode of outside intervention to disrupt the independent movement isn’t enough to convince you of this, take a look at the New York Independence Party, where this same pattern was repeated, but with different results. The New York Independence Party was founded in 1994. It became a ballot status party off of the votes a billionaire, Tom Golisano, polled for governor. Our New York
Not unlike the Reform Party, where Perot and his lieutenants wanted tight-fisted control from the top, Golisano and his team wanted complete dominance over the Independence Party. But, the rank and file had a different idea. We wanted a system of local control where power was disbursed to local chapters, rather than concentrated in the hands of a party boss.
And so in 1999 and 2000 we joined with other independents from around the state to vote out the Golisano forces and rewrite the party rules to install local control. We elected Frank MacKay chairman of the party. MacKay’s job was to guide the party to become an influential reform force in New York New York City New York City
Four years and 17 court battles later, the New York City Independence Party is alive and well. Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani (the targets of much of the attacks) are very much in the picture, along with the four thousand party members who serve on local governing committees. MacKay, who controls the Independence Party everywhere but New York City
“I’ve been involved in independent politics since the very beginning. One thing that’s happened on a national level in Minnesota, in Connecticut, all over the country, one thing that’s happened is that many, many people who think that this is just a bunch of swinging people who go back and forth, they say ‘well I can swing too, I’ll use them, and then I’ll abandon them.’ That’s been the standard pattern, from Minnesota to Texas to California
Bloomberg shook Newman’s hand and then walked to the podium. He said “Fred, I will never forget what you said. And I hope I’ll live up the standards you have annunciated.”
Two days later, the Independence Party polled 150,000 votes for Mike Bloomberg, 30 percent of his total vote and the highest independent vote in New York City
When independents are organized, they can act as a mighty force to move beyond partisanship and reform the system. But in most cases, independents are still struggling to make their statement. Politically speaking, the country is still split 50/50. But now – instead of reflecting that 50/50 split, as they had done since the collapse of the Perot movement, independents are swinging. They swing against the party in power because they want a kind of change that neither party has been able to deliver. They want a kind of change that supersedes any set of issues or ideology. They want a change in how the political process operates and how our government leads the nation.
The Tea Parties say that we have to take our country back. But that doesn’t really make sense, because we are the country. We don’t have to take it back. But we do need to take control of our democracy. This has been hijacked by the political parties. And it is the mission of IndependentVoting.org to take back our democracy and to revolutionize it into a creative self-governing activity that includes all Americans, with or without a party.
Today the independent voter is a coveted partner. And so the pressures and demands on different forces in the independent movement—on us!—are increasing.
We have carved out – to borrow a business term – an identifiable political brand. We are the progressive wing of the independent movement. We stand for radical structural political reform that enables the American people to regain control of the democratic process. Our issues are open primaries, nonpartisan elections, non-political redistricting, open debates, the right of independents to call themselves independents (not undeclareds, decline to states, or “other”) and that the rights of the people should take precedence over the privileges of the parties.
We believe that all people – regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or economic status – should have the necessary opportunities to grow and to prosper. We believe government has a role to play in that process, but to play that role it must become less partisan; it cannot remain captive to party interests. It must represent the national interest. It is not enough to demand bipartisanship in government. We must have non-partisanship in government.
The private sector, which is seeking new opportunities for growth, must line up with that nonpartisan direction. The business community must support civic partnerships that foster new forms of democratic participation and new approaches to development for all, including the poor. Here is our simple truth: the calcified and controlling party system is holding back progress. The president spoke in his State of the Union Address about innovation and infrastructure being the key to American strength. That must include innovating our political process and creating a new political infrastructure that can handle the demands of the new politics of the 21st century.
That is why we have worked hard to make structural reform of the political process a front burner issue.
We have played key roles in political reform battles over the last several years in California , Oregon , Washington State , Idaho , Wyoming , Utah , Arizona , Colorado , South Dakota , Oklahoma , Texas , Illinois , Kentucky , Tennessee , Ohio , Alabama , Georgia , Florida , South Carolina , North Carolina , Delaware , Pennsylvania , New York , Massachusetts , Rhode Island , New Hampshire and Maine California
We won big in California America
These ups and downs are the nature of the business we are in. We have found a sweet spot that is also a sore spot: Fighting for a nonpartisan election process. This activity attracts both allies and enemies. In California South Carolina
In Kentucky Idaho and South Dakota New York City
“Some people think the problem is basically structural. We need to do some redistricting; we need to do a little campaign finance. I’m a journalist and I cover these people, to me, that’s not the main problem. They may be important but the structure is not the main problem…The main problem is good people stuck in bad social relationships… So what do we need? To my mind we probably don’t need a third party. I don’t think this is about a third party. We need a social movement under the parties.”
No Labels is highlighting some important concerns. But it is a mistake to think that bad relationships, as they suggest, can be overcome without changing the structures that shape them. The answer is not a third party. And a movement that is underneath the parties but not independent of them, won’t put a dent in partisanship. It will only produce a kinder, gentler form of partisanship.
So, we must ask ourselves, why has the battle for partisan control of the American government intensified over the past twenty years—that is, since the brief but dramatic rise and fall of the Reform Party? Is it because a certain fabric of American society that we relied on, as a nation, is unraveling? Is it because the center, the political center, which was anchored by a broad social compact, has fragmented, and political polarization combined with hardening partisan control from the top has come to take its place?
`12 years ago, just as the strength of the Reform Party was cresting, Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani discussed these issues on their weekly television show with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, the progressive economist who had recently served in the Clinton
We no longer understand that we are in the same boat. But what if the problem is even more acute than that? What if that boat, and the premises on which it was constructed, no longer float? What if the boat – the infrastructure of American politics – needs to be rebuilt based on a new set of premises that are neither the old New Deal nor the old anti-New Deal? These old political approaches and old battles are still embedded in the two parties and in the party system which protects and preserves them. How do we get beyond all that if we can’t release ourselves from their institutional control?
Our premise – the premise of our wing of the independent movement – is that the boat needs rebuilding if we are to safely navigate the waters of a post-modern world. That is why we bring democratic political reform to the forefront of our independent movement. New ways of thinking, new ways of governing, new ways of solving problems are needed. This is what independents want. This is what people all over the world want! When you turn on the TV to watch the news, you see democracy and development are intimately connected in today’s world. Are open primaries or nonpartisan elections the “be all” and “end all,” the absolute cure for what ails us? No. But are they a step that takes us outside the box of old power relationships that preserve the old order? Independents believe they are.
And so, with your permission, and hopefully, with your full support, let’s continue to build our democracy revolution.
On to a nonpartisan America
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Interview with John P. Avlon
By Phyllis Goldberg
John P. Avlon, CNN contributor and author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijaking America, is among the most respected analysts of American politics in the United States. He previously served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor of The New York Sun. In addition to his work at CNN, Avlon is currently senior political columnist for The Daily Beast and recently co-founded the non-partisan political group No Labels.
Avlon has been a longtime advocate of non-partisan municipal elections. As chairman of the Charter Task Force established by Citizens Union – New York City’s preeminent good government organization – to make recommendations to the 2010 Charter Revision Commission, Avlon was instrumental in Citizen Union’s decision to support the reform measure that it had previously opposed.
An ardent independent who describes himself as “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” – others have called him a “radical centrist” – Avlon is one of the few journalists on the political scene who views the emerging independent movement not in terms of what it can do for the major parties but as a potent force with the capacity to transform how politics in America is done.
Several weeks ago he took part in a panel at the national conference “Can Independents Reform America?” organized by CUIP/IndependentVoting.org. At the conference he argued that the two major parties have effectively “rigged the system” in their own favor and pointed out that the political dialogue that takes place on most talk shows usually takes the form of a debate between Left and Right, as if independent voters and centrists do not exist.
Avlon has been a longtime advocate of non-partisan municipal elections. As chairman of the Charter Task Force established by Citizens Union – New York City’s preeminent good government organization – to make recommendations to the 2010 Charter Revision Commission, Avlon was instrumental in Citizen Union’s decision to support the reform measure that it had previously opposed.
An ardent independent who describes himself as “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” – others have called him a “radical centrist” – Avlon is one of the few journalists on the political scene who views the emerging independent movement not in terms of what it can do for the major parties but as a potent force with the capacity to transform how politics in America is done.
Several weeks ago he took part in a panel at the national conference “Can Independents Reform America?” organized by CUIP/IndependentVoting.org. At the conference he argued that the two major parties have effectively “rigged the system” in their own favor and pointed out that the political dialogue that takes place on most talk shows usually takes the form of a debate between Left and Right, as if independent voters and centrists do not exist.
Earlier this month he paused between meetings to answer some questions put to him by The Neo.
NEO: Were you born an independent? If not, how and when did you get to be one?
JA: One of the problems with our politics is that political affiliation tends to be handed down, as if it were genetic: you’re a Democrat or a Republican because that’s what your parents were. Politics has become like a religion – not just ideological but theological … it’s not filtered through reason. I’ve always had an independent streak.
What’s driving American politics is a new generation that’s grown up with lots of choices. Yet our politics is still operating on an analog model – the only choice is between A and B. But that doesn’t fit with how people think now, with how they live. The parties don’t want to leave the Industrial Age. They can’t reach out to independent voters because they don’t understand who independents are and what they’re demanding, which is about choice and individuation.
NEO: Now that No Labels has been launched, what role are you playing in taking it on the road?
JA: Before the launch we did a listening tour. We wanted to find out if what we were trying to organize resonated with people. Next week I’m going to the University of Iowa to continue the tour. Our purpose is to help folks in the center make their voices heard. The extremes have done a good job in making their voices heard. That’s not good for democracy, and it’s dispiriting. The Founding Fathers recognized this …Washington, of course, warned against parties, most famously in his Farewell Address. But most of them, including Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, were wary of parties. James Madison was very concerned about factions.
I always like to say that I’m proud to be a Yankees fan, but I love baseball more. Parties are not the purpose of our democracy. The parties seek to rig the rules in their own favor – as the Republican Party is doing now in South Carolina [where the Republican Party has brought a lawsuit against the state to close the primaries] – but that’s not in the interests of democracy.
NEO: In an interview in The Economist a few months ago, you noted that “Younger generations have grown up with a multiplicity of choice on every front, which can be tailored to suit their individual beliefs.” Would you say more about why you think young people are politically independent and why it’s significant that they are?
JA: Statistically speaking, independents are the largest sector of the electorate, and they’re also the youngest. That’s part of a conscious trend – a choice they’re making. Pollsters often act as if it isn’t. When someone says they’re independent, pollsters will say: What are you really? Independence makes sense in the Information Age. Young people now aren’t joiners in the way that earlier generations were. Historically, African Americans, for instance, were overwhelmingly Democrats. I think it’s a sign of health and historical perspective that young African Americans are becoming independent.
There are ten states where registered independents outnumber Republicans and Democrats – including New Hampshire and Iowa, where the earliest presidential primaries take place. And New Hampshire is an open primary state…that’s very important. The growth trends over the past decade in states like Arizona [from 17.8% in 2000 to 31.6% in 2011] and Florida [from 14% to 20%] is something no party can match.
Independents have been on the move over the last few years. Now they’re moving back to President Obama. The Republican Party has painted itself into a corner. The further to the right they move, the more they alienate independents.
NEO: At the CUIP conference you said that “The independent movement is one of the most exciting, dynamic things happening in American politics today.” In The Economist interview, you imagined a near-future scenario in which vast numbers of fiscally conservative, socially liberal independents would leave the major parties to form a third party at the center. But most independents aren’t party animals – they explicitly dislike parties – and they tend to reject labels – “conservative,” “liberal,” “centrist.” Do you see other ways that independents might organize themselves to give expression to their independence and to have an impact on public policy?
JA: That was a scenario, not a prediction! Social media gives independents a way to aggregate outside parties. The parties would kill for the growth rate that’s taking place among independents. But it isn’t going to happen, because they have no idea how to market themselves to independents. Politicians may use the word – like members of Congress who call themselves “independent” – but they’re not. The parties are polarized, but the American people are not. Even when it comes to issues like abortion, the American people aren’t polarized. That gap between the parties and the people creates distortions in our politics. Independents need to start showing up and pushing for election reforms like open primaries and redistricting reform to create a level playing field.
NEO: Where do you think the fight for open primaries in New York City goes from here? What’s your thinking about strategy and tactics for the next round?
JA: It’s been around twice and didn’t make it – once in 2003, when a referendum on nonpartisan elections was on the ballot, and again in 2010, when the Charter Revision Commission decided against a referendum. But I’m an optimist – like Lincoln, who said he was an optimist because he didn’t see what else there was to be. We have to be persistent and consistent on this fight. I think a referendum for nonpartisan elections needs to be on the ballot in a high turnout cycle, when the people who come out and vote are representative of the whole electorate. Nonpartisan elections isn’t a radical idea – 80% of our cities have them. In 2013, when the next mayor of New York City will be elected by just a handful of voters, it should be a wakeup call for people.
NEO: Thank you, John, for taking the time to talk.
JA: It was my pleasure.
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