One entrenched argument about campaign and election strategy is that any election victory is predicated on a candidates carefully charting a course through the mushy middle that appeals to "moderate Independent voters" who hold the keys to the kingdom in their indecisive, uncommitted, iffy hands.
This truism is the underlying foundation to the entire focus on moderation, centrism, New Democrats, DLC, Third Way and other similar group thinks that have permeated Democratic policies since the Jimmy Carter Era through until today. Centrism, at its core, can be reduced to the quest of a candidate to obtain the vote of the elusive, uncommitted, moderate, Independent voter, even if it comes at the expense of alienating their own base.
I personally have always thought that this portrait of a large tribe of nomadic voters roaming the countryside in search of half a loaf was an urban myth, and finally, I have tumbled upon someone with expertise in this area, who confirms that suspicion -
Gentle Readers, I offer up for discussion this article by Amy Walter in the January 15th edition of The Cook Political Report:The Myth Of The Independent Voter
As Walters points out, the crux of the matter is that a very large percentage of those who define themselves as "Independents", 42% of Americans(!) are largely made up of disaffected members of both parties who when pressed, will admit that they "lean" towards either party. When taken together as likely voters for each party, the total of Republicans plus Republican leaning voters is 41% and the similarly arrived at total for Dems is 47%. Walters makes the point that this is why a Republican can carry the Independent vote and yet still lose an election
In reality, the truly Independent Independents who are not prone to vote with a partiality towards either Party are a minority of 10% of the Independent population. If a Party or a politician is tempted to build their entire campaign around this 4.2% of the public (10% of 42%) this decision comes with the built-in hazard of alienating their core constituents plus the percentage of voters who already have a predilection of voting for them anyway.
Now here is the most important central fact in Walter's piece (I added the bolding)
More important, however, is the misconception that these voters are embracing an "independent " status because they want their party to pursue a more moderate agenda, or to move to the middle instead of catering to the extreme. In fact, there is evidence that they are abandoning their party labels for the exact opposite reason: they see the party as moving too far from its core values.
A recent paper for the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy by Kimberley Norman and Zachary Zundel, found that "the majority of Independent voters have political opinions that align with one of the two major parties at least as well as party members." In fact, they write, "independents who "leaned" toward one party or the other actually had stronger alignment than those who identified as "not very strong" in the same party. Additionally, their results were far more similar with those who identified themselves as being "strong" in their party."
In other words, those who call themselves "independent" may actually be closer to the views of the core GOP or core Democratic policy positions than even those who identify themselves as a party member.
To extrapolate, any Democratic candidate who wanted to maintain the core constituency and appeal to the Independent voters they were most likely to sway, would tailor their campaign to be more identifiably partisan and appealing to so-called core values, not less so.
Hello? Hello out there? Calling all Democratic politicians! Would you like to actually use that victory speech you practiced?
Will you please for God's sakes stop talking and promoting (if you have) Simpson Bowles Austerity "entitlement reform" and the "hard choices" that will have to be made? Will you stop pushing secretive trade agreements that can't be allowed to see the light of day down our throats? Will you stop promoting nibble around the edges incremental and centrist reforms that won't ultimately slow down a single American from swirling the economic drain as so many of us are now doing? Will you be bold enough to become an identifiable, unapologetic Democrat expounding Democratic ideals of working for and promoting those policies favorable to the 99% over the 1%? Who knows? You just might start winning again.