No one’s going to read this or comment on it, but I feel duty-bound, since I slammed him for what I considered a less than candid approach on his bumper stickers. Evan Falchuk’s new TV ad explicitly says (to paraphrase), “Independents are the majority, we need our own party.” And he names the party.
Of course I dispute the argument; independents are supposed to be independent. But props to him for being direct.
Please share widely!
JimC says
Thanks Bob.
HR's Kevin says
Once you belong to a party you are no longer independent.
And it is not at all clear that all unenrolled voters share common values and concerns.
Trickle up says
At least the Greens stand for something.
jconway says
And I think I found him
Pablo says
Well worth clicking on jconway’s link!
AngusJennings says
But, I can assure you as the actual running mate to Evan Falchuk, that we do stand for something.
I just put up a post here on BMG if you’d like to read more.
jconway says
Technically he remains unenrolled until the UIP gets ballot access. Technically there are no ‘independents’ in MA since they are called unenrolled. Why are they called that? Precisely since ‘independent’ means to most people a swing voter, disaffected centrist, or Perot backer-while in truth, many unenrolled I know are left of the Democrats.
Even if he got access, you would call a member of that party an Independent, no? As you would call Baker a Republican or Coakley a Democrat, with a capital R and D. I am sure Coakley endorses our republican form of government and is quite independent when it comes to making decisions for herself, she is also very democratic when it comes to her desire to get elected by the people and quite Democratic in her approach to early childhood education while rejecting Republican attacks on womens rights and seeking Independent votes.
JimC says
I’m not sure what the origin of “unenrolled” is as a term.
But my point is different. He could run independent and remain independent, but instead he’s running independent with the express aim of start a third party. That’s a whole different kettle of fish, and I’m glad he’s being direct about it.
jconway says
That is a big distinction and he’s up front about it. We will see if it gains any traction.
jkw says
I believe it is to distinguish between people who choose to have no party affiliation and people who are part of the “Independent” party. As far as I know, the Indepedent Party in Massachusetts existed to collect people who were confused when registering to vote and wrote that they were independent. Because of this, people started using the term unenrolled to clearly indicate that they were not talking about members of the Independent Party (and the current voter registration form makes it easier to say that you are unenrolled than to claim membership in the Independent Party). And now there is also the “Unified Independent” party, just in case the terminology wasn’t confusing enough.
fenway49 says
But jconway’s right. The biggest group is called “unenrolled” simply because they’re not enrolled in any party. They’re not all “independents” by any stretch. Some are centrist, some left of the Dems, some right of the GOP, others would fit just fine in a party but like being able to pick their primary ballot based on where the action is. Relatively few of them are the kind of “independent” who’d join a party like the one Mr. Falchuk seeks to build. And a true “independent” wouldn’t be interested in joining any party.
JimC says
But isn’t 5% the threshold for official recognition? I don’t think he’ll get that, but if he did, his voters would be building a new party and should know that.
fenway49 says
My complaint’s with his contention that such a party is needed or desirable because “independents” are the majority in MA. Sure, it’s better he doesn’t hide from his voters that he wants to reach that threshold to build the new party.
Al says
or independent doesn’t mean that they are an entity distinct from the two major parties. All it means is that they are not on the rolls either of those two major parties. They still have well defined tendencies in their voting patterns, and are probably fairly reliable votes for one side or the other. For much of my 40+ year voting life, I was an unenrolled or independent voter, even though I voted primarily Democratic. It’s only in the last 10 years that I joined the party.
ykozlov says
This is ignoring the fact that the majority of eligible voters DO NOT VOTE. What kind of reliable vote is that?
Much of this discussion is deep in the mindset that 2 (party) sizes fit all and people who doesn’t participate are just lazy or don’t care.
Falchuk’s point, and Stein’s and others who give similar shpiels, is that most of those people have a good reason not to vote for either of the two “viable” choices. It is a reasonable claim that if a good leader with <some set of views> were to stand up and overcome all the electoral obstacles and get his name out there, a large portion of those voters would come out and vote. Is Falchuk such a person? Does he hold the right views and ideas? That’s up for debate. Has he gotten his name out there? Not well enough, but perhaps better than others who’ve tried to work without the major party machine. In any case, jimc, he has stated from the beginning of his candidacy that his goal was to build a party to cater to those voters. The dismissal of the idea that there is a hunger for such a person and party strikes me as narrow minded.
It’s also bad for the Democratic party. How will you get someone like Berwick elected in a Democratic primary if his constituency don’t see themselves as and don’t register as Democrats?
How does that make them not independents?
One thing I will agree with here is that Falchuk’s choice of party name is confusing. It’s also meaningless as a party name, but so are “Democrat” and “Republican”.
Christopher says
…is a lazy catch-all term for anyone who for whatever reason is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. You’ll notice that Bernie Sanders is usually called independent by the media, even though he is an avowed Socialists, consistently caucuses with the Dems, and votes to the left of many of them. Absolutely no assumption should be made that independent means you like some, but not all, of the platforms of both major parties.