Dear President Obama,
The Partisan Revolution is over. The time for partisanship and factionalism has passed. Whatever the midterm elections “reveal”, real progress for our country cannot be made under the current partisan system. I am writing to you as part of the campaign by CUIP/ independententvoting.org to encourage you to support structural political reform [such as open primaries, ranked voting, nonpartisan elections, etc.] as a way forward for our country and the whole world.
I’m sure I am only one of many people who called my daddy on election night November 4, 2008, to celebrate a moment of magic. I got home around 11:30pm to Sunnyside Queens from Harlem New York, after the clear and decisive numbers were announced. Voices resounded from kids in my neighborhood yelling “OBAMA” out their windows as I lingered on the stoop to my apartment building. “I never thought this would happen in my lifetime” my dad said to me.
My father and I are both transplanted Arkansans:
He now lives in Richmond VA
I’m a New Yorker
He’s a Kennedy-Clinton Democrat
I’m an independent
He was in charge of a unit of the Arkansas State Guard that was mobilized under Pres. Eisenhower’s federal authority in Little Rock in 1957 that effectively tested the integration of public schools in the South
I helped put Lenora Fulani on the ballot in all 50 states in 1988, effectively testing the possibility of an independent run against the Democratic and Republican parties for President of the United States of America. 
(My daughters Lucy and Rena, who were 8 and 6 years old respectively in 1988, were a great source of support and inspiration to me then, and continue to be so now.)
I worked for you as a volunteer on the streets in Harlem during the February (closed) Dem primary when every black elected official in NYC was supporting Hillary Clinton. I received emails from your campaign that pegged me as a Hillary Clinton supporter. (I’m female and over 50.)
I urge you to reconsider — and get to know — who independents are.
As Jackie Salit said in her most recent conference call: President Obama, We mean you no harm but we will press ahead to build our movement and pursue the structural reforms that will create more uncertainity for your party and for the Republican Party and you may not like it….”
America needs to change. Independent voters are growing in numbers and organization. We need structural political reform. I STRONGLY urge you to get to know and support the independents in the independent movement.
History demands it. And America could use your leadership to develop.
In solidarity,
Nancy Hanks
Provocateur/ pundit/ organizer Nancy Hanks is a long-time activist in the independent political movement who’s done it all: petitioning to put independent candidates on the ballot from New York to Texas and points east, west, north and south; fundraising for the independent think tank, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), and its online counterpart, IndependentVoting.org; running as an independent for New York City Council from Queens, New York City’s most diverse borough; serving as the current Treasurer of the Queens County Committee of the Independence Party of New York (of the IP NYC Organizations); conducting research for the Neo-Independent, a magazine that addresses the concerns of independent voters.