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Some Questions for Independent Voters, Democracy Advocates and Third Parties

By Nancy Hanks | Related entries in News

Is it possible to have political organization that isn’t a political party? Can people impact policy without being organized as a voting bloc? How do you fight the power of entrenched corrupt partisan organizations without becoming one of them? Where does the issue of power come in? How can independents break out of paralysis? What is “personal democracy”? Isn’t democracy by definition collective, and thus requires organization? Why do most minor parties object to open primaries? Wouldn’t third parties be well served by inviting independents to participate in their candidate selection process? Is the Tea Party independent, or a right wing faction of the Repubs hoping to push the RP to the right?

  • Of note:

    • Politics is People, Not Parties (Future Majority/Craig Berger’s Blog) Linked on Third Party and Independent Daily yesterday, this article is also posted with commentary on Wire Tap Mag

  • NOTE: Author of the quoted text is Alejandro Ribo, who seems to be the European (Spanish) version of techPresident, which “was started by Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry as a crosspartisan group blog covering how the 2008 presidential candidates were using the web, and vice versa, how content generated by voters affected the campaign.” Rasiej and Sifry host a yearly conference called Personal Democracy Forum centering around issues of communications technology, open internet policy, and government “transparency” that draws 1000 techies from across the country. Independent Mayor Mike Bloomberg was their keynote last year.

    • For more see The Hankster

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    This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    2 Responses to “Some Questions for Independent Voters, Democracy Advocates and Third Parties”

    1. Agnostick Says:
      January 17th, 2010 at 9:32 pm

      How is “Independent Party” not an oxymoron…?

      Agnostick
      [email protected]

    2. Paul Says:
      January 18th, 2010 at 8:00 pm

      True Independents will vote the way they want to.

      Often this means their power will be dispersed. That’s ok, since an independent voter is not primarily looking for power, but is voting h/h personal conscience.

      But sometimes, unpredictably, they will converge. The great thing about this is that it’s a natural expression of free opinion, not political bullsh*t. A big independent vote is much more to be respected than a robo-dem or robo-rep vote.

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