Right now, take a coin from your pocket and flip it after making the following pledge:
"I will register as a Republican if it comes up heads; if it comes up tails, I will register as a Democrat. I will register in time to participate in - and I will participate in - the next primary election offered by my party."
But why?
As things stand now, with most Independents on the sidelines during the all-important primary elections, by the time you vote in the general election, it will be too late to make a difference. Most Independents know their choices in the general elections are not much to their liking, which is why a significant number of them avoid those elections. So, it's time to change that by giving more moderate and independent candidates your support before and during primary season.
Sure, you're an Independent and proud of it. Perhaps you're not much of a joiner, though you'll occasionally contribute to some worthy cause. But that's about it. So you won't be comfortable joining a party - let alone one of the two majors. But your participation in the GOP/Dem parties will actually enhance your independence by diluting their strength. That is, with more potential centrists/moderates joining the ranks, the more extreme factions will find it harder to control their party's overall direction.
Without your participation, Hillary Clinton will most likely steamroll/bankroll her way to the Democratic nomination with only token opposition. On the GOP side? Hard to tell, but their right wing is in no mood to settle for another Mitt Romney. They'll want one of their guys in charge, which could be someone like Rick Santorum who is currently campaigning under the radar via his website. But equally important are the races for the House and Senate - not to mention for the various state-level positions. And these races are very vulnerable to primary infiltration.
Low Primary Turnout
The key to my strategy lies in how poor the turnout has been, historically speaking, in the primaries for both Democrats and Republicans. And that there are so many unactivated Independents out there. According to http://www.people-press.org :
"In more than 13,000 interviews conducted so far in 2012, 35% of registered voters identify with the Democratic Party, 28% with the Republican Party and 33% as independents."
And that's just among registered voters! Lurking out there is a great army of people who don't even vote since they're disgusted by our whole "participatory" democracy. If this group starts to suspect that there's a strategy that can break our current adversarial deadlock, we'll start seeing some real change you can believe in.
My firm belief is that the system of primaries conducted by both parties is their gravest weakness in terms of maintaining their considerable power. Consider the following quote from:
http://www.localelectors.org/2012/05/22/why-turnout-in-the-presidential-primaries-was-dismally-low/ :
QUOTE:
...when Rick Santorum suspended his campaign on April 10th [2012], the contest was effectively over, with Mitt Romney being the clear winner....
On April 10th [2012], 25 states with 40 percent of the U.S. population had not even held their primary election or caucus. ..
The bigger story, however, lies in the 25 states that did have a say in who the winner would be. In those states the turnout rates were dismal. Few people realize that the winner was determined by 9.8 percent of the people who were eligible to vote in those states, amounting to a mere 5.2 percent of the people who were eligible to vote in the U.S. as a whole.
[and]
Since there was no contest in the Democratic party, those numbers are undoubtedly smaller than they would have been had Barack Obama been challenged. If he had, the percentages might have doubled. But even a 20 percent turnout is dreadfully low.
Nearly all recent primary elections have had a similarly dismal turnout. Turnout for statewide primaries (U.S. Senate and/ or governor) is typically even lower—usually less than 20 percent and often less than 10 percent—particularly in mid-term and off year primaries.
:UNQUOTE.
The majors have an Achilles' Heel in the form of our primary system. It's time we shot a whole bunch of arrows at it.
But why the flip of a coin?
As I stated at the beginning, flip a coin and let that determine which party you will "join." It doesn't matter if you lean Democratic or Republican in your thinking. What matters is that both parties start to see a large increase in their numbers that could only be attributed to an outside campaign to infiltrate/undermine their idea of business as usual. The popular press and numerous propagandists might succeed in being able to demonize one party more than another. But the truth is, both parties need to be made more accountable and that can only happen with an influx of new people they can't quite figure out.
Predictability is a huge factor in governing the activities of the Dem/Pubs, especially when campaigns start to rev their engines at the beginning of primary season.
Suppose you have a distaste for the GOP (for example), but your coin-flip dictates that to be the party of your "choice." Just look at your ability to vote in their primary as a way to check the mischief caused by its Tea Party extremists who, really, are in the minority. Besides, in the general election, you could vote Democratic if you wanted to.
You might wonder why I focus on the chancy approach of coin-flipping. Wouldn't it be better just to urge Independents to join a party based on whatever reasoning they happen to come up with as individuals? I would say no to that. With coin-flipping, you'll get a 50-50 split which will drive up the number of new members in both parties equally. The effect would be felt more by the Republicans since they have fewer voters registered than do the Democrats. But at the moment, I feel that GOP extremism is a threat larger than Democratic biases.
In any event, it's important to infiltrate both parties and I couldn't think of a better or easier-to-remember formula than flipping a coin.
Some stats to consider
I hope the following will paint a picture of just how awesome an opportunity is presenting itself for Independents to take over and reshape both of the major parties. This in turn will pave the way for true independents to get elected, or at least (for the present) deny extremists from exercising disproportionate influence.
From a Huffington Post article posted on 10/9/13:
"A poll released Wednesday found Americans' approval of Congress dropping near all-time lows as the government shutdown continues with no solution yet in sight.
"The Associated Press-GfK survey found that just 5 percent of the public approves of the job being done by senators and representatives, while 83 percent disapprove. 11 percent said they neither approved nor disapproved."
This kind of stat tends to drive down the numbers who vote in general elections, which in turn gives greater power to those who do vote. And the same could be said of primary participation as well.
Senator Green-Eggs-and-Ham
During the 2012 GOP primary in Texas, Ted Cruz beat his one opponent by winning 56.8% of the vote - for a total of 631,316 votes. During the general election, he beat the Democrat by winning 56.46% of the vote - for a total of 4,440,137 votes.
Put another way, 8.25% of Texans who voted in the general election were the deciding factor in Cruz's primary victory. And, remember, in both the primary and the general election, he won with a little over 56% of the vote. Even though a margin of 5% is considered a landslide, his margin was very vulnerable to an infiltration of independents who could have denied him the GOP nomination.
Blake Farenthold of Texas
Blake Farenthold, Republican, of Texas's 27th congressional district illustrates the vulnerability of primaries, even though his was a gerrymandered district drawn to suit GOP preferences. BF won 56.75% of 212,651 ballots cast in 2012 in a district with a population of 702,804 residents. But in the GOP primary, he won in a field of 4 with 71.4% with a total of 27,733 votes. That's right - 27,733 primary voters, which equals a little over 13% out of the total votes cast, snared the nomination for Farenthold. Like Senator Cruz, BF won by about 56% of the vote - again, a figure that galvanized Independents could easily overcome.
Disclaimer
Texas has an open primary system, which means voters don't have to be registered members of a party to vote. So it would seem (perhaps) that Texas's GOP isn't worried about cross-over voting, though of course it could decide someday to change its system depending on (shall we say) external threats. Texas and other open-primary states might be unique cases, but I still believe there are enough Independents who could make a difference if they decided to participate. As for the states (30 out of 50) with closed-primaries, they are the most vulnerable to the infiltration I'm proposing.
End Note
The GOP in particular is the most successful in using gerrymandering to create safe districts for its congressmen. But even in those cases, the influence of determined Independents can still be decisive.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Steven Searle, former candidate for US President (in 2008 and 2012)
Founder of the Independent Contractors' Party
"If we Independents fail to seize this opportunity, which has really been there all along, we'll only have ourselves to blame" - Steve.
Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com
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