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Thanks, CNN! (Independents are Dumb)
For our core, target audience at TMV, I’ll just start your weekend off with something to perk up your spirits. My friend Ed Morrissey at Hot Air makes a disturbing catch of a segment on CNN letting us know just what they think of Independent voters. Apparently, indies are like “feathers in the wind” and are simply starved for attention. Does anyone else find it odd that a “journalist” would make such comments about the voter group which decides pretty much every election, is growing faster than any registered party, and will without question determine how the chips fall in the 2010 mid-terms across pretty much the entire nation?
Contrary to popular dogma from either side of the aisle, independents are the most likely to “throw the bums” out when things are going badly. (Much as they seem to be right now.) If the GOP is in power, we throw them out. Does this mean we’re in love with Democrats? Tune in this November to find out if the gubernatorial races in NJ and VA, along with last week’s Mass. Senate race didn’t give you a clue. Independents may be “feathers” in the minds of some, but they won’t be tickling your fancy as long as a majority of the country thinks things are still on the wrong track. Video follows:
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22 Responses to “Thanks, CNN! (Independents are Dumb)”
[...] Jazz Shaw wonders why CNN wants to alienate the people who will decide the 2010 [...]
I tend to be a center-right person in my life and in my voting. But I don't believe in a blanket endorsement of someone just because he's a Republican. I respect the independent voter, perhaps more than other Democrats or Republicans. It would be my hope that I could persuade the independent voter, when the situation is especially important, to see things my way. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out what advantage there is for liberal Democrats in absolutely excoriating the independents! One need not pander to folks to make one's case, nor is condemnation an effective tool. Rabid insults are never persuasive, and independents would do well, in my view, to give serious consideration to which party currently is more likely to embrace their opinions respectfully.
Morrissey's point is a good one. The media were in love with the independents when independents favored Democrats. They used independents as a club to demand Republicans stop being so 'partisan' and join with Democrats and independents in a Kumbaya fest.
Now that independents have swung toward Republicans, CNN does a segment stating they are flighty, unthinking, and compares them to a stereotypical mobster.
So, you try to sort over 300 million people into two buckets, and some don't fit. Why does this guy think that you can say anything about the remainder? I'm quite solidly opinionated and, like most people, those opinions don't change easily. The parties are the ones who's make-up and positions are changing constantly.
The news media probably doesn't like independents so much, they don't generate nearly the number of headlines that the further left and further right do.
It certainly comes from all sides. Rush Limbaugh famously remarked that Independents are either liberals in disguise or, if not, have no spine or core beliefs.
Sounds like a Fair and Balanced assessment to me! (applause)
Yup, whether it is Rush Limbaugh on the extreme right condemning moderates, or Ezra Klein slandering them on the far-left, the fringenuts on both sides hate moderates.
I've neither heard nor seen a good definition of “moderate”. So I wonder if these guys even know who they hate?
The question is not how you describe yourself but how willing you are to face reality. Obama has been in office for one year and came in facing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Democrats in the House have been fractious and the Blue Dogs certainly can't be counted as some kind of loyalist Democratic group. In addition the constant claims that the Democrats had a 60 vote filibuster proof majority was never true. If they move too far to the right in his opinion Sanders doesn't vote with them. Anything that any Republican can describe as liberal (Which includes pretty much everything that doesn't come out of their party.) almost certainly won't get the votes of Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson or Max Baucus. Has Lieberman voted with them on anything since Obama came to office? Remember, in spite of how they've tried to put a nice face on it, Lieberman was a Republican campaigner throughout the 2008 elections. How does this make him part of a 60 vote supermajority? It doesn't. No way, no how. And the Republican Party votes in complete lockstep against virtually any Democratic proposals.
So do those who identify themselves as independent consider any of those factors in terms of ability of the existing majority party to accomplish things? In spite of it constantly being in the news do they really realize what trying to get 60 votes in the Senate requires? I don't see any evidence of it.
If the democrats interpreted recent events as cause to move further to the right, then they would be aping the same fickle and unprincipled behavior of many so-called independents. Real independents (meaning ones worthy of the name) are issue oriented and are not easily given to waffling based on whatever shaky information comes down the pike. I think we need a new name for those “independents” who blow around with the wind.
I consider myself “independent” because I vote for people, not parties. I look at the candidates positions, judge their honesty, and choose according to who best matches my ideology on the issues I believe they are honest about.
I guess some people can't understand why some of us do not suscribe to the political lines drawn by others.
Exactly. That is where the rubber meets the road.
From Jim_S
“In addition the constant claims that the Democrats had a 60 vote filibuster proof majority was never true.“
I absolutely never get tired of hearing this complaint, nor does it ever fail to make me chuckle. When the Republicans held all the cards with a narrower majority they constantly had to contend with the Maine Sisters, Arlen Specter and others, cut deals with Blue Dogs and what have you. You had SIXTY! Pray tell us, exactly how many seats in the Senate do you think the Democrats require before you'd feel like you actually had a “majority” and could get something done? Eighty? All one hundred? Would that be enough?
When on party gets in the majority, it is the job of the leadership (and the President, if of the same party) to do the hard work and bring the members in line to accomplish things. If they can't manage that, don't blame the rest of us. It's just a case of ineffective leadership.
Jazz, you are absolutely right here (man I hate it when I agree with Jazz LOL). If you can not pass legislation with a 60 seat majority, then what the leadership in congress is 1) either incompetent, or 2) trying to push something so unpalatable to congress, and their angry constituents that it will never pass, or 3) both. I'm thinking both.
The Democrats control 2 of 3 branches of government, and the only thing they have been able to pass is the generational theft act of 2009, disguised as a stimulus. I'm all for throwing all the bums out, and that includes a hell of a lot of Republicans as well.
Love it when the media are regularly exposed as the biased snarky frauds that they are.
They are democrats, they would need at least 120. =P
Independents are fickle and mostly interested in results. It's not that complicated.
One year is not enough to turn around our economic situation, yet it's an eternity if you've lost your job or are fearful about losing what you've worked hard to obtain.
The economy is like a very large boat–it takes time for it to turn around, and we're all frustrated at the speed of rotation. But it is turning. All the signs point to a better 2010 and then in 2011 we should start to see some real results.
But nobody wants to hear that that's how long this whole thing is going to take to shake out.
Instead, it's RAH, RAH Red Team/Blue team. It's not a freaking football game.
More comedy I see. When republicans are playing dress up as moderates ya just gotta laugh.
I am a new Independent. I am Independent because my Party for over forty years is not the same Party I joined years ago and it no longer represents my interests and viewpoints. I won't join the other party because it still represents some interests and views that I can not abide. There is no Independent Party or Independent candidate for me to vote. Independents must choose each election which Parties nominee to to support; which in many cases may be for the lesser of two evils. Independents by nature will seem to move from one side to another for no two candidates are equal. The many Independents I know are not fickle when it comes to their opinions or beliefs they just vote for whoever seems the best candidate. This is in opposition to Party faithfuls who vote a straight ticket and in many cases know very little about the candidates for whom they vote.
The segment just seemed very silly and not very well thought out.
Like it or not, Lieberman couldn't be counted on for hardly anything. Have you actually forgotten that in fact there were only 58 Democrats? Is there some problem remembering when Lieberman was saying that he'd vote against cloture and uphold the Republican filibuster?
I am an independent, and I don't have any trouble telling what I believe. I believe the same thing George Washington believed: Political parties are destructive to freedom and should not be supported by the voters of a free nation.
The fact that political parties of today take unimaginable amounts of money from public revenues and give it directly to the news media in return for exclusive promotion of the candidates of their “two-party” politics is not going to convince me that Republicans and Democrats are giving us good government. I have tried to run against their corrupt candidates. Here in Arizona I have to get more than 25,000 nomination petition signatures in order to get on the ballot for statewide office. A Republican or Democrat has to get 4,000. This signature requirement has been upheld as Constitutional in Federal District Court on numerous occasions on the basis that independent candidates should be required to show a “modicum of support”. My question about this is, If I have to show a “modicum of support” as an independent candidate, why isn't a Republican or Democrat required to show a “modicum of support” when they run for the same office?