The Washington political game is like a magic show. It's filled with smoke and mirrors which create the perception that one thing is happening, when something else altogether is going on.
At a magic show, it looks like a lady is being cut in half, when she is actually stuffed into part of a box. Or that someone is levitating above a table, when there are wires holding them in place. Partisan Washington has a special set of illusions that are all its own.
These days the national political scene is buzzing about independent voters. They supported Barack Obama in 2008, putting the Democrats in power, but then they voted for Republicans in key statewide elections in 2009 and 2010. The establishment says "independents are on the move!" -- first to the Democrats, then to the Republicans. And of course, each party claims independents as their true supporters, whenever they swing in their direction. But if you listen closely to this kind of talk you'll realize it's hokus-pokus.
What's really going on is Democrats and Republicans are using independents to produce the illusion that the parties are being responsive to the American people. Here's how the trick works. When Democratic and Republican candidates run for office, they say to the voters, "Send me to Washington and I'll represent you, the people." But when they get elected and go to Washington, they don't represent the people. They represent their party. How do the parties then maintain the illusion they are putting politics aside and doing what's best for the country? They pull the independents out of their hat and say "Oh look! Independents voted for us, so that means we're not partisan, we're for the people!"
If you look at the election results, it appears as if independents are moving all over the place. But they really aren't. They may pull different levers or punch different voting cards, but the independents' message remains the same no matter who they vote for. Their message is "Something must be done about this partisan paralysis."
Obama was elected president by independents to be an independent. But as president, his hands are almost completely tied. He can use the Democratic majority to pass bills, but that allows the Republicans to mock him for a lack of consensus. Or, he can make bipartisan appeals to the Republican minority, while Democrats criticize him for his compromises.
Either way, playing this partisan game has alienated some independents from the president, though not as much as it has made Americans overall angry at the parties and at Congress. Right now, 75% of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job and 81% think it doesn't deserve re-election. Meanwhile, even though there is disappointment with Obama, polls show nearly 60% of Americans feel the president puts the American people ahead of the special interests.
The Obama team believes that they can recover from their losses and that independents will come along. And it is tempting to believe that. After all, Martha Coakley was no Barack Obama. But will he win back independent support? Not if Obama remains stuck inside a partisan box, allowing himself to be sliced and diced by one party that wants to own him and the other party that wants to destroy him.
Independents backed Obama - with passion - in 2008 because he wanted to find a way out of the partisan paralysis. But he hasn't, and it might be because he simply can't. The partisan structure of Congress and of the party system overall won't allow it. That's why the independent movement is pressing for structural political reforms to shake up partisan control and create new non-partisan possibilities.
For Obama to regain independent support, he will have to perform some real magic, not just pull a rabbit out of a hat. He'll have to find a way to unlock the secret compartment of partisanship and expose the smoke and mirrors which protect the parties that put their special interests ahead of the American people.
Jackie Salit is President of IndependentVoting.org, a national association of independent voters. She recently completed work on the Independence Party's campaign for Mike Bloomberg in which he became the first independent mayor of New York City.
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which protect the parties that put their special interests ahead
of the American people."
Right on!
And it can be done. However, it must be done quietly, without
fanfare until the right moment. And there are people who can
do it! The ones who can accomplish such a task with Obama's
help?
CREATIVE people! Those guys who write the action thrillers,
the spy thrillers, etc. And it is precisely because this isn't rocket
science is why they CAN do it. They are not mired in the money/
lobby/part
THEY could also figure out a way to capture bin Laden. Bank on it!
H-1B reform to me clearly shows Obama hates the American worker and only listens to corporations. If Obama came out and said "hey, why is the US government working against the American worker? We need to fix H-1B or eliminate it. This will reduce the size of government and give American workers a fair labor market to work in. If we can't regulate Wall Street wages then we shouldn't be regulating engineers and programmers wages".
But Obama won't do that. And conclusion is he doesn't care about average responsible workers who just do the right thing.
You say "they sent him to be independen
Like it or not, believe it or not, it does not matter...t
Independence is supposed to mean judgement is being made rationally and a decision will follow. Sitting on the sidelines , not taking a position on key issues is not independence, it is dependence,
We progressives realize that independents voted in large numbers for Obama. We also realise he has not delivered the change we desire. But we know we stood for real policy, not simply a hope of bipartisanship. We progressives are upset and we do not like that rather than pushing the Prersident to fight for real change independents are simply complaining o0r moving to support anyone that is not in government, We progressives believe that the Congress is the only ballgame in town and we are pushing to get things done within that sometimes horrible ballgame. But we do not just walk out of the park and look for another team time after time. Progressives believe that independents share our core values but possibly withpout enough conviction to fight for them.
independets , do not be tea partiers, make an effort and tell your representative what you want, and not just complain. Governing is seldom pretty but it should be representative and we need your views on issues to ensure that occurs. We need you, the country needs you.
We the tax-payers are supposed to be the wind beneath the wings. And more the hot air, under the wings, the higher the bird soars.
It isn't as much about anti-partisanship as it is about getting real change.
BO was not elected to "be independant", he was elected to get real change in place.
The support of the American voter was almost unprecidented.
It was fervent enough to have allowed him to get a Single Payer Health Care System.
It was.
Until he and the Dems in general gave it away.
Now?
We as a people still want the Public Option by overwelming majorities.
The democrats and Obama will pay a heavy price this year and in 2012 if they do not deliver.
That is why they were hired.
Massachusetts election only proves my point as there is NO ENTHUSIASM on the left for wimpy, do nothing, fraidy cat Democrats.
We want to see some real change that is FOR "We the People" for once.
Without that, what difference does it make who is in power?
It's all the same.
The republic Party rules regardless, which means BIG COMPANIES run the nation entirely.
All we the people can do is clean and load our guns as nobody on the Hill is representing us.
Abortion is used to deny the birth of change.
Abortion?
That is what the fillibuster is.
Abortion of Democracy.
Long Live the Corporations!
George Washington Farewell address 1796
Corruption of our system is what is wrong with our country.
The will of the senate is the will of special interests. We are irrelevant in our faux democracy.
Campaign Reform would heal the split of the American people that big money has encouraged in order to weaken us and keep us fighting with each other.
ONE CAUSE-ONE FIGHT-ONE AMERICA
We cancel each other out if we insist on playing their game. The corruption that is tearing our country apart is hurting ALL of us. Not the right or the left.
The corrupt are laughing at us all the way to the bank while we try to one up each other. We are ALL Americans—are there none out there that believe that anymore?
Let us work TOGETHER on what is for AMERICA"S interest.
http://www
http://cha
Capitalism can and always has existed beside Socialism. They compliment each other. They both need to be balanced against each other to prevent injustices by either ideology.
That is what our two party system is supposed to be about but the corruption of our system has thrown it out of balance.
If it goes too far to the right it is Fascism--if it goes too far to the left it is communism.
Until we have campaign reform both you and I are irrelevant.
Today, we are facing hard times. For the economy, there are no good choices. In a market economy, a government does not have that much control. This is a market economy; it is not a command economy. It will get tougher.
As for Afghanistan: it is much more difficult to get out of a war than to get into one. History has shown that many politicians thought that war would be a quick victory. In WW1, Germany thought they would beat France in 39 days, then finish off Russia. Did not work out. The uSA rolled the dice in Afghanistan. getting out is not so easy as getting in.
Times are hard. Adjust to that.
Until EVERYONE starts talking and blogging and marching for Campaign Reform we are just spinning our wheels discussing anything that might challenge the special interests. We have to have Campaign reform or neither you nor I will have a corrupt free government. FENA is a bi-partisan bill for campaign reform. Let us as Americans fight together to save our democracy. Please pass these links on.
http://fix
http://www
Fair Elections Now Act (FENA) sign the petition
The Democrats look like they don't have a backbone because progressives that want to get things done are not large enough group to get the changes done. This is especially true in the senate where rules allow minority party to block things indefinitely.
President Obama's failure is a failure of leadership. LBJ would not be laying back and doing nothing if he was committed to the legislation. If Obama was a good leader and/or the Senate was not a minority blocking institution, health care reform would have taken 6 months at most to finish.
When you have a Republican party that doesn't mind wrecking the country to get its way, you stop trying to negotiate with them. The fact that Obama does not get this makes me wonder if he should have stayed in the senate and just kept making great speeches.
What is worst of all is the weird, crazy conservatives might get back in power if this President doesn't wake up and smell the smoke engulfing his administration.
Who is worse, the crazy conseratives or the "reasonable" Democrats that keep thinking they aren't crazy.
Independents voted for Obama in a strike against the Republican policies that drove the U.S. economy into a ditch and destroyed the American middle class. They feared that McCain was simply more of the same Bush warmongering wrapped in a bow of ignorance (Palin anyone) about pressing economic issues that are of singular importance to American voters. Voters expected that Obama's talk of bipartisanship was nothing more than polite election talk, much like co-workers make polite conversation about the weather. Nobody expected that Obama would allow himself to be paralyzed by Republican obstructionists.
Obama was voted for by independents to be an independent; he was voted for by independents to be Democratic opponent to disastrous Republican policies. His problem is that he has not been enough of a real Democrat.
My observation of Democrats is that they want to talk tough to get elected, but then find an amazing array of excuses for actually giving in the GOP agenda exactly whatever it wants. From the Patriot Act to the filibuster to this latest thing, it is a definite trend or habit with them, especially post anthrax mailings.
I just wonder why Obama is doing this. I think it has to do with the drug war and/or other crimes covered up by the Senate, but I don't know.