Sorry about not publishing for a while.  I took a break from political blogging.  There are some changes afoot for this blog, so stay tuned.

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A few years ago, I somehow stumbled into an argument.  A man who identified as an independent was arguing with me about the Bush Administration and about his not liking then presidential candidate John McCain.  I kept telling him McCain wasn’t Bush and that a McCain presidency was not going to be Bush, part 3.  He kept on talking about everything that had gone wrong over the years; the Iraq War, torture and a whole mess of other issues.

After a while, I started to realize this guy wasn’t an independent by any stretch of the imagination.  I finally told him that if he was upset at the Republicans and didn’t want to vote for them, that there is candidate and party that he can vote for.

I guess I wasn’t interested in playing this game with the gentleman.  For better or for worse, he had chosen who he was going to vote for and I wasn’t willing to play the charade.

Every so often, there is a some writer talking about the growing number of political independents, or folks that decline to state a party.  Some of these writers conclude this is a big movement that could change everything in the coming years here in America. It was the next big thing.

But the thing is, as many times as I’ve heard how independents are ready to break out and become a major force in some way, nothing ever really happens.  There’s no major candidate or third party or anything that seems to make independents a major force in politics. Last summer Alan Abramowitz wrote that maybe independents may just not really be independents:

There they go again. The presidential campaign season is barely under way but already pundits and pollsters are making misleading claims about independent voters and the role they play in presidential elections. Here are some of the things you’ve probably read or heard in recent weeks:

• Independents make up the largest segment of the American electorate.

• Independent voters are up for grabs in 2012.

• Whichever party wins a majority of the independent vote will almost certainly win the presidency.

These beliefs about the crucial role of independent voters in presidential elections have become the conventional wisdom among the Washington commentariat, reinforced by groups like “No Labels” and “Third Way” that try to promote centrist solutions to the nation’s problems. Recently, the Pew Research Center provided additional support for this theory with a report claiming that independents constitute a rapidly growing and diverse group of voters who swing dramatically back and forth from election to election.

It sounds convincing, but when it comes to media commentary about independent voters, you shouldn’t believe everything you read or hear.

It’s true that independents are a diverse group. But that’s mostly because the large majority of independents are independents in name only. Research by political scientists on the American electorate has consistently found that the large majority of self-identified independents are “closet partisans” who think and vote much like other partisans. Independent Democrats and independent Republicans have little in common. Moreover, independents with no party preference have a lower rate of turnout than those who lean toward a party and typically make up less than 10% of the electorate.

Now, there have been articles knocking the independent voter, as long as there have been articles about the rise of independents.  But I think that Abramowitz’s take is more in line with what I’ve been seeing over the years; that people who claim they are political independents are really closet partisans.

If there really was this third force out there it would at some point coalesce into a real political movement with real positions on issues that would probably differ from the two major parties.  The movement then would become a third party or be co-opted by the other two parties.  But no such movement has ever taken shape.  I know there are structural issues that might keep third parties from rising, but even in states that have allowed third parties to take shape the third force is hardly a factor.

What I’ve noticed over time is that most of the people who claim to be independent choose one of the two major parties at some point.  They may never say it out loud, but in their words and speech it’s pretty clear which party they like or dislike more.

Solomon Kleinsmith recently commented that it might be best for David Frum to give up on changing the GOP and become and independent.  It won’t surprise me if Frum ends up leaving GOP, but if he declares himself an independent, I would bet that what would remain unspoken would be that he had chosen the other side, the Democrats and not some kind of third way.  He may never say that out loud, but it will be present in his speech.

As the song goes, we all have to serve somebody.

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I recently lauded David Frum for his latest assessment on the state of the GOP, but I think he made a big booboo in a column for the Canadian newspaper, the National Journal.  Frum said that he thought the two best GOP presidential candidates were either former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman or former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.  He then ends the article with this:

The Washington, D.C., primary is set for April 3. I’ll probably cast a vote that day for Huntsman, if only to show support for a brave and independent-minded candidate — and in hope that a strong Huntsman showing will be interpreted as a call for a more modern and inclusive Republican party.

If Mitt Romney emerges as the ultimate nominee, I’ll place my hope that the Romney who enters the Oval Office will be the innovative, solutions-oriented Romney 1.0 — and not the placate-every-GOP-interest-group Romney 3.0 we’ve seen on the 2011 campaign trail.

Any other nominee would gravely test my commitment to the political party I’ve supported since I entered the United States as a college student in the fall of 1978.

There are so many things wrong with this passage.  First and foremost it tends to contradict what he wrote in his New Yorker piece, about fighting for the future of the party.  The closing words of that essay was centered on hope and on a cause worth fighting for.  This passage sounds like a whiny kid that will jump if he doesn’t get his way.

The other problem is that it paints moderates as hypocrites.  We ask conservatives to be more tolerant and accepting, but if things don’t go our way, well we take our blocks and go home.  I’m not saying that if say, Rick Perry got the nod, that moderates should just supporting him, but there are ways of not agreeing.  If your goal is to make the party more moderate and to persuade others to see your point, you don’t do it by proclaiming you aren’t going to support the party if candidate X is chosen.

Finally, issuing threats aren’t going to get you very far.  There are a lot of folks on the right who are okay with Frum leaving the GOP and really don’t care.  Moderates tend to think that if we threaten we will leave the party, that someone somewhere will freak out and plead for us to come back.  Newsflash: no one cares.

Like Frum, I support both candidates and I agree with his frustration concerning the other presidential candidates.  But this isn’t the way to do it.  I think this column pretty much undid all the smart commentary from his New Yorker article.

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If you are a religious person, please keep James Joyner in your prayers.  If not,  just keep him in your thoughts.  Joyner reported today that his wife, Kimberly, died in her sleep.  She was 41.

I’ve followed Joyner’s blog for a few years now and have enjoyed it.  He was able to write a short, but moving tribute to his partner in life:

We met in August 2004 and were married on October 8, 2005. She had just turned 35 and I was a few weeks shy of 40 but neither of us had been married before. We shared religious and political worldviews but very different personalities. She was extroverted, sunny, and patient to my introverted, grumpy, and antsy. I almost certainly got the better of that bargain.

Kim was my partner, helpmate, and confidante. Her passing leaves a gaping hole in my life.

It’s sad to hear of this.

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