Third Party and Independent Candidates for Office 2010

I just updated Poli-Tea's list of third party and independent candidates for office in 2010. The list focuses on declared third party or independent candidates for governor, US Senate and House with active websites, and now links to almost 250 aspirants in 42 states! Noteworthy this time around were the high number of Green Party candidates in Illinois and the large slate of Libertarian Party candidates in Texas.

Because of the focus on candidates with active websites, the list is not entirely comprehensive. It was compiled with the help of the 50 State Pages at Politics1 and the Green Papers' extensive election pages. If you are interested in finding out about all the candidates in your state or district, those two sites are a good place to start.

Cross-posted at Third Party and Independent Daily.

Mutual Misrecognition and the Independent Surge

Mutual mis-recognition is a defining characteristic of today's overarching duopolist ideological formation. Consider these findings from a recent Rasmussen survey of Democratic and Republican voters. Among Republicans:

Fifty-four percent (54%) of GOP voters say the average Republican congressman is more liberal than they are, while 23% say their views are about the same. Just 20% believe the average GOP representative in Congress is more conservative than the average Republican voter . . . The survey also shows that Democrats don’t understand how the GOP base sees things. A solid plurality of Democrats (42%) believes that the average Republican in Congress is more conservative than the average GOP voter.

Among Democrats, on the other hand:

The plurality (47%) of Democratic voters . . . feel the party’s average member of Congress shares the same ideological perspective that they do. The rest are evenly divided: just 26% consider the average Democratic member of Congress more liberal than they are, while 25% say the average Democratic congressman is more conservative . . . most Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party think Democrats in Congress have lost touch with the party’s voters nationwide. Seventy-two percent (72%) of Republicans and 61% of unaffiliated voters think the average Democratic member of Congress is more liberal than the average Democratic voter.

Of course, taking the views of Republicans and Democrats into consideration only accounts for three-fifths of the story. Nancy Hanks relays a comparative graphic of independent identification as surveyed by Pew Research:

How the Infiltrators become the Infiltrated

A story in the Chicago Reader relates how the Independent Voters of Illinois – Independent Precinct Organization was effectively hijacked by Democratic Party operatives, but it also demonstrates the power of even small scale independent political organizing:

On December 29, a group of north-side members of the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization gathered to endorse attorney Dan Farley as their candidate in the upcoming Democratic primary for 11th District state representative. This was a coup for Farley, a first-time office seeker. North-side candidates covet the group's stamp of approval, which gives them an aura of machine-fighting progressivism popular with voters.

The joke of it all is that there was hardly a real independent in the room that night. In fact, leading the charge for independence was none other than 47th Ward alderman Eugene Schulter, one of Mayor Daley's most loyal north-side City Council allies . . . Schulter didn't have to establish a record of independence to engineer Farley's backing from the IVI-IPO. He just got members of his Democratic ward organization to take it over . . .

Across the city many of the rank-and-file IVI-IPO members are willing to speak up against Daley and his initiatives. It was the IVI-IPO, for instance, that filed suit against the city and state over the parking meter deal, claiming it was illegal. The group has also called for a moratorium on new TIF districts. But they have to figure out a better way to protect their organization from invasion by party regulars . . .

There are about 700 IVI-IPO members citywide, according to Elder—hardly a force that can contend with powerful ward organizations that have more members, more money, and more clout. As a result, the group's endorsement typically doesn't make any difference in races featuring an entrenched incumbent. But in a tight race the IVI-IPO endorsement can tilt the scales, especially on the north side, where politicians, even the regulars, are obligated to at least pretend they have an independent streak. [Emphasis added.]

This is a perfect example of how an organization aimed at reforming the Democratic and Republican Parties from the outside can be transformed into a tool of the duopolist order. The infiltrators become the infiltrated.

The Co-Dependency Caucus: to Be a Republican or a Democrat is to be a Tool of the Democratic-Republican Party's Corporatist Agenda

As a counterpoint to the previous post on Utah's independent candidates for Congress in 2010, it should perhaps be mentioned that not all independents in Utah are all that independent. At the Examiner, Kathleen Baker profiles the Independence Caucus, which describes itself as "a Citizen's movement to take our government back from the "Big Money" Special Interest groups." At the Examiner, Baker writes:

A group of ordinary citizens from Utah shocked the political world last year [i.e. 2007] by defeating a six-term incumbent and replacing him with a fiscally conservative candidate who was outspent six to one by his challenger. Now they are taking their model nationally with chapters in 45 states, including Colorado. Fed up with politics as usual, these citizens founded the Independence Caucus to replace politicians financed by special interests with fiscally responsible candidates who support Constitutional principles.

That congressman was Jason Chaffetz, who defeated incumbent Chris Cannon for the Republican nomination. That is no inconsiderable achievement. Unfortunately, however, the Independence Caucus' intention to "take our government back from the big money special interest groups" is immediately undermined by its explicit support for two of the largest "big money special interest groups" in the United States, namely, the Republican and Democratic Parties. Baker writes:

This organization does not view itself as a third party movement. It considers itself a caucus, working within the two-party system to return control of each political party to the voters. Since third party candidates historically receive less than 2% of the vote, the Independence Caucus views it as a waste of money to endorse these candidates. They believe the way to reverse political corruption is to work within the existing two-party system.

I happened to come across an explanation of this policy at Jane Q. Republican, who relayed a message from "Frank Anderson of Independence Caucus," from which one can only conclude, if it is authentic, that the group is nothing more than a front for partisan Republicans. Its defense of duopolist political strategy makes for cringe-inducing reading:

Anyone who disagrees with our policy on not endorsing 3rd party candidates, please consider this: Remember, not a single founding father wanted political parties, yet we saw 4 of the founders – John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison – lead the development of 2 parties into existence before Washington even completed his first term.

Please Note: Those 4 founding fathers all wanted NO parties, but they immediately developed TWO parties…but not 3 or more parties. Think about that: Why would that be? They wanted NO parties…they could have set up as many parties as they wanted to…but they ended up with just two. Just like today…hmmm… Why would that be? It’s because of “ Duvergers Law.” Bottom line: Whenever “50% of the vote plus 1 more” wins EVERYTHING, people will eventually coalesce around 2 parties even when they DON’T want to do so…it’s “Duvergers Law” and it’s almost as unchangeable as gravity. [ . . . ]

we proved in 2008 that we CAN act as a caucus within the 2 existing parties, and we CAN root out the compromised incumbents from WITHIN the party…and we CAN take back control of the party from the RINO’s. We will do it in 2010 all over the country because of all of our members just like you [ . . . ]

To … anyone … who is unhappy with our policy: Are you saying that if YOU decided to run in a Republican primary, and we got behind you and we helped ELECT you and sent you to Washington…are you telling me you would somehow turn into someone who would be un-constitutional and fiscally irresponsible just because you won as a Republican or a Democrat? Of course not. [Emphasis added.]

It is difficult to know where to begin in response to such a text, or whether any response is even justified. But I have already come this far. So, in answer to the final question above, I would reply only that one is known by the company one keeps. As for Duverger's Law, it is nothing like the law of gravity, of course. To equate the two is to endorse a most vulgar form of political determinism. As I've noted before, Duverger's "Law" is no more a law than the Federal Reserve is federal. With respect to the founding fathers, in this context one might reference those early factions which confound the simplistic binary thought beloved by duopolists, such as the Tertium Quids, or consult Washington's oft-quoted Farewell Address, in which he likened duopolist-style government to nothing less than political tyranny:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.

Assuming that the above message does indeed reflect the group's position toward independent, third party activism, we can safely conclude that, given its deterministic outlook, its historical revisionist tendencies and its embrace of duopolist despotism – not to mention the contradiction immediately entailed by its support for the Democratic and Republican Parties: the Independence Caucus might be more reasonably termed the codependency caucus.

Anybody's Game: Utah's Independent Candidates for Congress 2010

Though it is considered a Republican Party stronghold, the state of Utah is noteworthy for its high percentage of registered independents, who constitute a majority of registered voters. As Richard Winger reported at Ballot Access News last year:

The Utah state elections office has released a registration tally. The results: Republican 589,326; Democratic 132,011; Libertarian 3,181; Constitution 2,203; independent and other, 772,997. The percentages are: Republican 39.30%; Democratic 8.80%; Libertarian .21%; Constitution .15%; independent and other 51.54%.

This year's electoral contest in Utah's 2nd Congressional District will put its independents to the test. The district is currently represented by Democrat Jim Matheson, who defeated his Republican challenger by a wide margin in 2008. Besides Republican Casey Anderson, Matheson will likely face two independent challengers this November: Ryan Kelly and Dave Glissmeyer. (In order to appear on the ballot in Utah this November, as far as I am aware, independent candidates must pay a filing fee and submit a petition signed by 300 people by mid-March.) In his campaign statement, Glissmeyer underscores the corrupting influence of corporate lobbyists over the Democratic and Republican Parties:

Everywhere we turn, our political system is plagued by fiscal madness, partisan bickering, and inadequate leadership . . . the road back to political sanity has to start somewhere, so here’s what I’m offering. First, I will pledge not to take a single dollar from any corporate interest and to accept money only from individuals, with no strings attached. Standing clear of the corporate power brokers, I think I will be free to listen more closely and act more forthrightly on behalf of my constituents and America’s national interest. Second, I will pander to no group or individual, no matter how powerful. Third, I will commit to publishing a diary, blog or history of my doings on no less than a weekly basis. This will allow you to keep tabs on me and what I am trying to accomplish. It will also allow me to point out the obstacles and arguments standing in our way.

Kelly, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of voter participation and the problem represented by consistently low voter turnout. From his mission statement:

We the people have a duty to our country to defend our liberty and our right to choose what is best for ourselves. This is why I seek to be elected to our Federal government. I feel that few in our government now are willing to defend our rights as they should. They have stopped listening to us, and rather than use our power to vote to remove these people from office, almost half of us stay at home and let them do things for us. America needs a Congress that remembers they are chosen by the people to represent them to the rest of the nation. America needs people who remember that when government fails in its duty to represent the will of the people, we must use the power of the vote to replace those elected with people who will do as we ask them.

Kelly is right to stress the importance of voter participation and the need to increase voter turn-out in the Beehive State. Earlier this week, I contacted Randy Miller, president of the Utah League of Independent Voters, who pointed out that Utah ranks 42nd out of 50 in Fair Vote's voter turnout rankings (averaging 52% participation), and that it comes in 49th in terms of voter registration. As the Desert News reported last summer:

The Census Bureau estimated that 56.8 percent of U.S. citizens living in Utah were registered to vote . . . only Hawaii, where 46.8 percent were registered, had lower numbers.

Heading into the 2010 campaign season, Miller is optimistic about independent candidacies of Kelly and Glissmeyer, stating via email: "In Utah, Republicans seem to be the only game in town, but in reality, it's anybody's game."

Progressive and Conservative Declarations of Independence from the Democratic and Republican Parties

Responding to an article at Op-Ed News by Howie Hawkins asking if it is "third party time for progressives and independents," Alan Maki states at Thoughts from Podunk:

What is needed is some kind of "Declaration of Independence" from the Democratic and Republican Parties.

In fact, independently minded progressives and conservatives have already issued their declarations of independence from the Democratic and Republican Parties. At Docudharma, Rusty1776 issued a progressive declaration of independence from the Democratic Party last summer:

When in the course of Democratic betrayals it becomes necessary for Progressives to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with the Democratic Party, and to establish ourselves as a New Party in the political system, our respect for the Constitution and the rule of law compels us to declare the causes which impel us to this separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that the Democratic Party is complicit in war crimes, that it is complicit in illegal NSA spying, that it is complicit in massive Wall Street fraud, that it no longer believes that all men are created equal, that it serves only the corporate masters of America, that it has granted them unalienable Rights, that among these are the right to plunder the Treasury, the right to control the media, the right to subvert the banking system, to corrupt the electoral system, to ravage our economy and reap the illicit profits of shock doctrine capitalism.

To enable the voices of citizens to be heard in the corridors of power, political parties have been instituted among Men, deriving their power from the support of their members. Whenever any political party becomes destructive of these ends, its supporters have the right to withdraw their support, and to establish a new party. As Progressives, we have no choice left but to establish a new party, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in accordance with our responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the progressive values upon which it was founded.

Among conservatives, the Florida Tea Party has issued a declaration of independence from the Democratic and Republican Parties:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for citizens to dissolve the political bands which have heretofore connected them with the two, major, existing political parties and to assume among the powers of the earth, a new political party, with the separate and equal station which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitles it, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, political parties are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of their members, That whenever any political party becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of those members to separate themselves from it, and to institute a new party, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that affiliations with existing political parties long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by separating from such political parties to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations by both major, political parties, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce the American public under the absolute Despotism of the Federal government in Washington, D.C., it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off their allegiances to such parties, and to form a new political party for their and their children’s future security.

If you are not independent, you are co-dependent.

Update: As Ross points out in the comments, "Hawkins is a New York Green Party stalwart." Indeed, he is a co-founder of the party and ran for District Councilor in Syracuse in 2009, garnering 41% of the vote. From his website:

Thank you to all the volunteers and contributors to my campaign. You are Greens, Socialists, independents, some die-hard progressive Republicans, and a growing “Democratic Underground” in the district supporting the Green policy agenda.

41 percent is a higher vote than a Green candidate has ever received in Syracuse. We've never done the kind of doorstep and phone canvassing, voter ID, and GOTV that we did this time. Our street presence on Election Day surpassed every other campaign in the city.

Alan Maki is also a long-time socialist activist.

Profiles: Political Perspectives, Taxation is a Crime and Revolutionary Independent

Over the past few weeks, I have come across a number of blogs that might be of interest to regular readers here at Poli-Tea and are definitely worth checking out:

• Political Perspectives is maintained by Stephen Lahanas, who is running as an independent candidate for US Senate in Ohio. In the site's mission statement, we read:

Our focus for the magazine is to present a spectrum of Independent, partisan and non-partisan viewpoints on a wide variety of issues from outside of the Beltway. We believe that "business as usual" is no longer a viable strategy for American Governance - it's time for a real change; a change not just in personalities but in political process.

Lahanas has recently begun a series of posts on populist legislative initiatives. He writes:

Reform may start with Lobbying and Campaign Reform, but there is much more to a Populist agenda or platform than that. The New Populism recognizes that the government must work with and for the people, not against them.

• Taxation is a Crime is a relatively new blog, begun last October, which holds that "taxation violates the non-aggression principle." The site calls for numerous political reforms, including voting reform, and makes a strong case for proportional representation based on reasoned critique of plurality voting:

First Past The Post means we must vote for a party we don't like . . . If power transfers to one party, exclusively, the rest of the population is at their whim. With a majority, they rule absolutely. Proportional Representation would mean that even the dominant parties would be required to compromise when in power. And voters would be better able to ensure that the party (philosophy) that they support is heard. Many votes go to the main parties that are cast by persons that do not share complete agreement with the party. Cast reluctantly, with regret in the hope that the recipient, the party, does not act too far outside the expectations of the voter.

• Finally, Revolutionary Independent wants to "take the politics out of politics" and calls for "revolutionary democracy":

Revolutionary Democracy sees the multinational corporations, imperialism and a new form of colonialism as the harbingers of a world crisis. It is time for the people to take control of their lives and their country. The people must demand and get accountability from their representatives, something they have none of today. Time for the people to step up to the plate and learn to play ball; to take the decision making out of the hands of millionaires and put into the hands of the people. A time for participatory democracy, where all lead and all govern.

The Duopolized Dialogue: Corporate Media and Corporatist Government

Via Bob Morris at Polizeros, Matt Taibi explains the set of relations between the corporate media and the Democratic-Republican duopoly system of government at True/Slant:

what we’ve learned in the last few years as one scandal after another spilled onto the front pages is that the bubble economies of the last two decades were not merely monstrous Ponzi schemes that destroyed trillions in wealth while making a small handful of people rich. They were also a profound expression of the fundamentally criminal nature of our political system, in which state power/largess and the private pursuit of (mostly short-term) profit were brilliantly fused in a kind of ongoing theft scheme that sought to instant-cannibalize all the wealth America had stored up during its postwar glory, in the process keeping politicians in office and bankers in beach homes while continually moving the increasingly inevitable disaster to the future.

That is a terrible story and it is also sort of a taboo story, since we don’t really have a system of media now that is willing or even able to digest that dark and complicated truth. Instead, our media — which has always been at best an inadvertent accomplice to these messes — is basically set up to take every revelation about the underlying truth and split it down the middle, feeding half to one side of the political spectrum and one half to the other, where the actual point is then burned up in the useless smoke of a blame game.

The essentially complicit nature of the two ruling political parties was in this way covered up for decades, as the crimes of the Democrats were greedily consumed as entertainment by the Limbaugh crowd while the crimes of the Bushies became hot-selling t-shirts and bumper stickers for the Air America listenership. The abiding mutual hatred the red/blue groups shared consistently prevented any kind of collective realization about the structure of the overall scheme.

Ballot Access Discrimination: Some Candidates are More Equal than Others

An editorial in the Denver Post calls for uniformity in Colorado's ballot access law, which effectively discriminates against independent candidates for office:

Unaffiliated candidates running for public office in Colorado must declare their independence well in advance — more than a year — of an election. No other political party, whether major or minor, must follow the same stringent rule. It's an unfair situation.

Joelle Riddle, a La Plata County commissioner, switched her party registration from Democrat to independent in August 2009, intending to run for re-election in 2010. Late in December, state Rep. Kathleen Curry left the Democratic Party and registered as unaffiliated, also planning to run for re-election.

But under Colorado law, the only way the candidates could be placed on the Nov. 2, 2010, ballot was to declare their unaffiliated status by June 15, 2009, the last day the required petition could be filed with the Secretary of State. Now both will have to appear as write-in candidates in the general election. Riddle has filed a lawsuit and Curry plans to introduce legislation to overturn the current state law.

While we don't believe the rules should change specifically for Curry or Riddle, we do believe ballot access should be the same for all candidates regardless of party or non-affiliation.

Founding Principles of Political Independence: Arresting the Cycle of Duopolist Despotism

The reactionary mentality of lesser-evilism is one of the primary ideological supports of the two-party state and the duopoly system of government. During the Bush administration liberals and progressives rallied behind Democrats not primarily because of what the Democratic Party stands for, but rather because of what the Democratic Party supposedly stands against. Today, the very same fixed idea grips conservatives and libertarians who support the Republican Party not because Republicans are particularly conservative or libertarian, but rather because they are not Democrats. Ironically, however, while Democrats and Republicans grandstand against one another, fundamentally they stand in support of the same ideal: the maintenance of the Democratic-Republican political duopoly and the reproduction of the global warfare and corporate welfare state. The result of this dynamic is indistinguishable from tyranny. But don't take my word for it. From George Washington's oft-quoted Farewell Address:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

There is but one way to arrest the cycle of duopolist despotism: extend the sphere of representation. As Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 10:

The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. [Emphasis added.]

Site Launch: Third Party and Independent Daily

One of the reasons I started up Poli-Tea almost a year ago was because I had grown tired of reading the same old discredited arguments from the same old discredited commentators in support of the same old discredited politicians and policy positions, and finally decided that if I desired to read sustained commentary in support of alternatives to the two-party state, the duopoly system of government and the ideology that supports them, I was going to have to write it myself. Since then, however, I have discovered a great many blogs and websites dedicated to the very same project, and have become acquainted with numerous third party and independent bloggers from across the political spectrum who are equally devoted to exposing the sham that is the duopolist order and share an interest in supporting third party and independent candidates for office. Clearly, though, this aim is inhibited to some extent by the disjointed character of the third party and independent web.

A number of friends and readers have written to me in the past suggesting the creation of a group blog dedicated to third party and independent news and commentary that would serve as a forum for debate and discussion and provide another home for third party and independent activists on the political web. I have therefore taken the liberty of starting up Third Party and Independent Daily, which I launched on January 1st. Obviously, the site is a work in progress and is somewhat sparse as of yet, but I have already created a number of news aggregation pages attached to it, and have been in contact with some of you who have expressed interest in contributing to just such a project. Allow me, then, to take this opportunity to extend an open invitation to friends and readers who might be interested in becoming contributors to the site. Contributions could run the gamut from link lists or simple provocations intended to spark debate, to excerpts of news articles or press releases, to cross-postings of original reporting and commentary from your own blog. Send me an email (damoneris at gmail) and I'll send you an invite. As always, suggestions and critique are welcome in the comments.

Dump the Duopoly: Are you independent or are you co-dependent?

While the number of self-described independents continues to rise, the number of duopolist dead-enders remains stagnant or continues to fall. A new Rasmussen poll finds:

Currently, 35.5% of American adults view themselves as Democrats. That’s down from 36.0 a month ago and from 37.8% in October . . . The number of Republicans inched up by a point in December to 34.0%. That’s the highest total for Republicans since December 2007, just before the 2008 presidential campaign season began. However, the number of Republicans in the country is essentially no different today than it was in November 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president . . . the number of voters not affiliated with either major party has grown by six. The number of adults not affiliated with either party is currently at 30.6%, up from 24.7% in November 2008. [Emphasis added.]

At the Chuckwagon Journal, Chuck Cummins advocates the election of independent candidates to office and urges Americans to pressure their representatives to declare their independence from the Democratic and Republican Parties:

More politicians in Washington should declare themselves Independents. Independents are not obligated to vote the party line. Independents are not beholden to the majority leader or the minority leader to get their bills out of committee. On the contrary, Independents can wheel and deal . . . Independents can vote for or against a bill on its merits, not on how their party leaders tell them to vote. Each vote generates a renewed scramble by each party to court their independent vote, because those independent votes often make the difference in whether a bill gets the majority needed for passage or not.

It is much that way in national and state elections now. About one-third of the population votes Republican regardless and about one-third can be counted on to vote Democratic regardless. It is the independent voters who determine the outcome of most elections. Independent voters look at the candidate and the issues and decide their vote based on what they see. They can vote for a Republican judge and a Democratic councilman because they are free to judge each on their qualifications or accomplishments -- not on the party they belong to. Voting for the party, of course, is easier, but that is exactly why we are in the mess we are in.

We need people in congress making independent judgments before casting their vote. We need politicians actually negotiating two or more possible means to an end rather than just being against a bill because the opposition party proposed it. We need politicians voting for or against something for reasons other than the need to stay in line, to stick with the party.

Write your congressperson and encourage him or her to become an independent.

Don't Call the Arsonists to Put Out the Fire: Democratic-Republican Government as On-going Criminal Enterprise in New York State

Due to a minor technical glitch, The Whig was down for a brief period over the holidays, but it's now back up and running. In a recent post, Septimus relays a NYT editorial calling on the people of New York to vote out all of their state legislators this year. Here are a few excerpts from what The Times calls "the worst of the worst" of the NYS legislature:

New York has been on the brink of economic collapse, but the Legislature blithely ignored the problem for months. When the deficit reached a truly alarming $3.2 billion, the lawmakers grudgingly agreed to last-minute fixes while carefully protecting their political buddies and donors . . .

Senate Republicans had abused their 40-year majority and secretly used state money to pursue party business. Among the discoveries: a secret plant, with 75 employees, to print Republicans’ mail to constituents; a Republican-only television studio; secret Republican Party research staff . . .

The Republicans’ longtime Senate leader, Joseph Bruno, stepped down in 2008 before he was indicted on eight counts of exploiting his office for personal gain. Earlier this month, Mr. Bruno was convicted on two felony counts involving “theft of honest services." . . .

let’s not forget the Republican coup in June, abetted by two of the least-qualified Democrats: Senators Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens. Never mind that Mr. Espada was — and is — being investigated for allegedly living outside his district and failing to report campaign contributions. And Mr. Monserrate already had been indicted for assaulting his girlfriend.

This is not the first time the NYT has made calls for blanket anti-incumbency. But, as Septimus argues, simply voting out incumbents does not go nearly far enough. From The Whig:

While replacing everyone might help in the short term, it doesn't get to the core of the problem. If you vote out all of the current crop of corrupt Democrats and Republicans, you will only be replacing them with other Democrats and Republicans, and the political machines that we call the two major parties will keep humming along under different names.

We need more profound and deeper change. It is becoming apparent that we need to rethink how we conduct the serious business of politics. Just replacing Democrats with Republicans, or vice versa, is not enough. If you replace an office holder with another who embodies the same political culture, you will get only a change of rhetoric, but not a change of any substance.

That is the main reason I am not more enthusiastic about efforts to simply vote out incumbents. One of the main efforts is at goooh.com. GOOOH stands for "Get Out Of Our House" and is an effort to replace incumbents. This effort does not go nearly far enough.

If we were to replace every Democrat with a Republican, and every Republican with a Democrat, the control of the House would change, and that would be about it. Not only did the corrupt political culture not change when the Democrats took over from the Republicans, but the downward trend of our politics only accelerated. Didn't the "Contract With America" Republicans of 1994 degenerate quickly into the corruption of Tom Delay?

Replacing one with the other is not the answer. We need more political competition. Only this will produce the fairness, common sense, and moderation we need so badly.

On the Reactionary Character of Democratic-Republican Politics and the Necessity of a Tertium Quid

Duopoly ideology, the ruling ideology of the Democratic-Republican two-party state, is wholly reactionary in character. There are at least two senses of the term 'reactionary' we might apply equally to the Democratic and the Republican ideologue. In the first sense, 'reactionism' designates the desire to return to a status quo ante, to "the way things were before." In the utopian fantasies of Democrats and Republicans, the time before is conceived, of course, as a golden age of peace and prosperity, characterized by moderation and accord. Ironically, however, the exemplary epochs cited by duopolist ideologues are almost exclusively eras of war and hardship, excess and discord: the presidencies of Lincoln and F.D.R., for instance. In the second sense, the reactionary character of duopoly ideology is symptomatic of an incapacity for autonomous, independent thought and action. As German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote in a different context: "Psychologically speaking, it needs external stimuli in order to act at all—its action is basically reaction."

Partisans of the Democratic-Republican duopoly system of government define themselves first negatively, as what they are not, and from this they derive their political identity. At The Other McCain, Robert Stacy McCain provides us with a fine example of this process when he writes:

You're a conservative, and what is conservatism? The belief that liberalism is wrong. Very simple, and you don't really need anybody to explain that to you. Given that Democrats are the party of liberalism, you oppose Democrats generally and specifically, both in terms of politics and policy, which is also pretty much self-explanatory.

Examples are not hard to come by on the other side of the duopoly divide either. At Booman Tribune, Steven D writes in support of the Democratic Party:

we must also fight harder to elect Democrats, even ones we may not like very much. Why? Because the alternative is a recipe for chaos and stagnation . . . The Democrats are a deeply flawed political party. The Republicans, however, harbor within their ranks a theocratic despotism based on the most violent and ugly interpretation of Biblical scripture. Based on those facts, the decision to continue to elect Democrats, and to work with and for change within the Democratic party is an easy one.

Two-party politics is thus doubly negative: the individual ideologue does not support the lesser evil as such, rather support for the lesser evil is the default result of opposition to the greater evil. In other words, conservatives do not primarily support Republicans because they are conservative or republican – how could they? the Republican Party is neither conservative nor republican – but rather because they are not Democrats; similarly, liberals do not primarily support Democrats because they are liberal or democratic – how could they? the Democratic Party is neither liberal nor democratic – but rather because they are not Republicans. Given this state of affairs, it is highly naive to expect the two-party state to produce anything other than a negative politics. And this holds for those of us who advocate third party and independent activism, for we are not exempted from this process. But we draw its logical conclusion. When Democrats and Republicans pillory one another for their most mendacious hypocrisies, when each argues that the other is to blame for the crises of the day and the erosion of constitutional government, when each proclaims the other to be the embodiment of bureaucratic backwardness and political perversion – how could a rational person disagree, as neither is wholly wrong? Democrats and Republicans are mendacious hypocrites. The Democratic and Republican Parties are responsible for the erosion of constitutional government by opportunistically exploiting, or even manufacturing, crises of all kinds for short-term political gain. The Democratic-Republican global warfare and corporate welfare state is the embodiment of bureaucratic backwardness and political perversion. Today, political independence begins with the recognition that we are not free insofar as we are subjugated by the politics of the two-party state and the duopoly system of government. Political autonomy requires affirmation of a tertium quid.

Happy New Year: the Resolution of Independence

Dear readers, a new year is upon us. It is a time for reflection on the past and resolution for the future. Whatever the new year may bring, let us resolve to maintain and renew the spirit of independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.