A new, comprehensive study of independent voters by the Washington Post in collaboration with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University has bad news for both parties, but better news for the Democrats:
(1) The Republicans continue to lose independent voter support.
(2) Independent voter unhappiness with Washington and both parties could bolster a strong independent, third party candidate.
The details:
The study is a comprehensive examination of a broad segment of the electorate — about three in 10 voters call themselves independents — that is poised to play the role of political power broker in 2008. Independents split their votes between President Bush and Kerry in 2004 but shifted decisively to the Democrats in 2006, providing critical support in the Democratic takeover of the House and the Senate.
The new survey underscores the Republican Party’s problems heading into 2008. Fueled by dissatisfaction with the president and opposition to the Iraq war, independents continue to lean heavily toward the Democrats. Two-thirds said the war is not worth fighting, three in five said they think the United States cannot stabilize Iraq, and three in five believed that the campaign against terrorism can succeed without a clear victory in Iraq.
So can the Democrats breathe a sigh of relief? Not really:
The power of independents could also be felt in other ways next year. The survey found frustration with political combat in Washington and widespread skepticism toward the major parties — perhaps enough to provide the spark for an independent candidacy by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
Seventy-seven percent of independents said they would seriously consider an independent presidential candidate, and a majority said they would consider supporting Bloomberg, whose recent shift in party registration from Republican to unaffiliated stoked speculation about a possible run in 2008.Strategists and the media variously describe independents as “swing voters,” “moderates” or “centrists” who populate a sometimes-undefined middle of the political spectrum. That is true for some independents, but the survey revealed a significant range in the attitudes and the behavior of Americans who adopt the label.
Please note that we’ve repeatedly said this about reaction to this site: being a “moderate” or “independent” does NOT mean coming down lockstep on an issue with other moderates. Some may be center, center-left and center right and vary, depending on the issue. And there is not an opinion poll that shows that independent voters and/or moderates think totally alike on any given issue.
The study underscores this diversity of independent and moderate thought as well:
The survey data established five categories of independents: closet partisans on the left and right; ticket-splitters in the middle; those disillusioned with the system but still active politically; ideological straddlers whose positions on issues draw from both left and right; and a final group whose members are mostly disengaged from politics.
What they share is an aversion to party labels. As Adele Starrs, an editor from Columbia, N.J., put it, “I can’t go down either side.”
My personal experience:
I have been in both parties and at different times in my life on the left and on the right. I was recently asked by someone to affiliate with an independent movement. My reply was that at this point, having been in both parties, I’m going to remain independent and won’t even sign up for that. I’ll even remain independent of belonging to an organized independent group.
BUT this doesn’t mean that I look down my snoot at people who ARE Democrats, Republicans, proud liberals and proud conservative.
And there is a TRAP that independents (and moderates fall into).
Jonathan Chait, writing the TRB column called “Bloomsday” in The New Republic, calls this the “partisanship scolds.” They’re people who feel there is an intrinsic value in not affiliating with parties and that it makes them superior to those who belong to parties.
And that is indeed a WRONG and short-sighted attitude: to each his own. Because Democrats, Republicans and independents all see things through their own filter — and each side thinks it’s right. Elections are to sway enough to one side so that one side can prevail.
Chait writes, in part:
Bloomberg has thus become the most prominent example of what you could call partisanship scolds. These are people who believe that disagreement is the central problem in U.S. politics, that both parties are to blame in equal measure, and that rejecting party ties or ideology is synonymous with the demonstration of virtue. While partisanship scolds believe that they stand in bold contrast to Washington, they are probably more heavily represented among the Beltway elite than any other demographic.
Chait is particularly critical of Unity 08. But his more general observations about the “partisanship scolds” includes these:
Unfortunately, when the partisanship scolds get a little more specific, things tend to break down. The first problem is that they can’t agree on whether partisanship is making Washington pay too much attention to public opinion or too little….
He gives some examples and then mentions:
The second problem is that the partisanship scolds are extremely vague about which chunk of Americans is being left out by the growing extremism in Washington. It is true that some broadly popular views are underrepresented in national politics. A detailed political typology released by the Pew Center in 2005 showed that Democratic voters are not as socially liberal as their leaders and Republican voters are not nearly as economically conservative. So there is a sizeable base of socially traditionalist, economically populist voters to be had. Unfortunately, the partisanship scolds invariably cater to exactly the opposite demographic: elites who favor free trade, open immigration, cutting entitlements, and social tolerance.
And then he adds a comment that will make many conservatives who distrust moderates and independents smile a big smile:
Third, in the age of George W. Bush, the substance of the partisanship scold ideology is no longer, by any reasonable definition, centrist. They are moderate Democrats who don’t want to admit it.
He says Bloomberg’s politics are to the left and that he’s “an out-and-out social liberal.” He adds: “But for Bloomberg and his admirers to admit that their views do have a home in a major party would destroy the basis of their self-image. Thus they must maintain at all costs the pretense of transcending ideology.”
He points to the Time Magazine cover hyping Bloomberg and our own California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who is angering California Republicans now to the point that they are angrily opposing him on many issues).
Partisanship scolds oppose the GOP agenda, but rather than acknowledge and confront those ideological differences, they assume them away.
Indeed, the premise that ideological extremism has left no room in either party for moderates like Bloomberg is belied by Bloomberg himself. There are many things keeping Bloomberg from running on a conventional party ticket, but the alleged extremism of the two parties is not one of them. A longtime Democrat, he switched his affiliation for his initial mayoral run in 2001, but only because running as a Republican offered him a clearer path to the nomination. Bloomberg’s ideology today places him firmly within the Democratic camp.
If Bloomberg took the honest route and switched back to the Democrats to run for president, he’d be condemned as a transparent opportunist. Instead, he disingenuously renounces party altogether and is praised as a visionary.
Fair enough.
But Chait makes an error in his piece, too.
Not all independents and moderates who may criticize parties from time to time are “partisanship scolds.”
Some are people who’ve BEEN THERE, DONE THAT and had once been faithful and trusting Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives. They were bitterly disappointed by their leaders, ashamed by the behaviors of some in their own camp, or concluded that political parties really don’t believe what they say they say they do as much as wanting to claw their way to power.
Some are people who feel BURNED.
So their attitude now is:
Convince me. Prove it to me. Don’t just say “trust me.” Because I don’t anymore.
And do it on the substance of the issues and your arguments, not on how you don’t stink to high heavens as much as the other guy.
But no matter what the study and Chait’s piece point out a fact:
The election won’t be just determined by both parties in 2008. There are others out there.
And they can’t be merely written off.
ALSO READ TMV Assistant Editor Michael van der Galien’s post on this study.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.