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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Democratic Strategist

Are Swing Voters Worth the Trouble? Can Democrats Win With Base Mobilization Alone?

NOTE: In this introductory essay for The Democratic Strategist‘s Roundtable Discussion, TDS Managing Editor Ed Kilgore reviews the history and significance of the perennial issue of base-versus-swing orientations for Democrats, and poses a series of questions whose answers have traditionally divided many observers: (1) Who are the swing and base voters? (2) What is their relative value? (3) What are the opportunity costs involved in reaching beyond the base to swing voters? (4) What’s the best long-range strategy for building an enduring Democratic majority?
While this decade has ushered in a variety of new strategic issues for Democrats, from Internet politics to turmoil in the labor movement, some issues are evergreen. And perhaps the oldest unresolved argument among Democrats is over the nature and electoral value of “swing voters,” those much-pursued and much-maligned counterweights to the Democratic “base.”
Though the debate over “swing voters” has been raging for decades, it’s hard to find a subject more bedeviled by definitional and empirical confusion, by straw men and false choices, and by very different evaluations of recent political history.
It’s this last factor that’s revived the swing voter debate among pollsters, political practitioners, academics, bloggers and journalists.
To cite the most simplistic versions of a common argument, in one narrative of recent Democratic electoral performance, Bill Clinton broke the party’s long presidential drought by intelligently targeting swing voters. His successors, Al Gore and John Kerry (along with congressional Democrats in most cycles between 1994 and 2006), failed to completely follow the Clinton template. Republican abandonment of swing voters (politically and substantively) led to the big Democratic midterm victory of 2006.
A competing narrative suggests that Clinton’s pursuit of swing voters alienated the party base, blurred essential distinctions between the two parties, and forfeited the Democratic majority in Congress and in the states, while failing to produce a presidential majority. Gore and Kerry failed to match Bush’s relentless efforts to energize the Republican base, and Democratic fretting over swing voters made the party a weak and ineffective opposition party. That finally changed in 2006, when a netroots-led mobilization effort based on maximum partisan differentiation produced a Democratic counterpart to the base-driven Republican landslide of 1994.
It’s notable that each narrative diverges sharply over interpretation of the 1994 debacle, the 2000 “draw,” and the 2006 breakthrough. And there is naturally (though not universally) a strong ideological underpinning to the debate, with those on the party’s “left” typically disparaging swing-voter-focused campaigns and governing strategies as unprincipled and disloyal, and those in the “centrist” camp often arguing that base-focused campaigns cede critical ground to the GOP and make effective governing impossible.
The base-swing argument has many variations, of course. Most centrists favor a party message and agenda that’s congenial to both base and swing voters, and at most suggest keeping highly partisan base mobilization efforts “under the radar screen.” And most progressives believe in swing voter appeals that don’t conflict with sharp partisan differentiation and ideological principles, even if they sometimes seem to yearn for an election (as some hope for in 2008) where swing voter appeals are no longer necessary. Both camps agree that exposing GOP extremism can be an effective tool for both base mobilization and swing voter persuasion.
But even if all goes well in 2008 and this dispute does not become a major point of contention among Democrats before November, it will remain a semi-submerged problem for any Democratic administration and Congress in terms of designing a governing agenda. And while it would be naïve to think that this ancient argument can be completely resolved here or anywhere else, it would be helpful to create some general agreement on the terms of debate, and on certain empirically verifiable common ground.


The Conservative Delusion

Fareen Zakaria’s Newsweek article “The End of Conservatism” makes the short case that GOP leaders are marinating in self-delusion by arguing that their party’s shrinking support is a result of abandonment of conservative principles. Zakaria counters that a combination of events, demographic change and the transformation of public opinion have rendered Reagan-Thatcher hard-line conservatism obsolete, creating a world in which “conservative slogans sound weirdly anachronistic.” Zakaria’s read on the Democrats’ prospects is also on target, and he quotes TDS co-editor Ruy Teixeira and his co-author John Judis:

“The Emerging Democratic Majority,” written in 2002, makes the case that perhaps for these broad reasons, the conservative tilt in U.S. politics is fast diminishing. It gained a brief respite after 9/11, when raised fears and heightened nationalism played to Republican advantages. But the trends are clear. Authors John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira note that several large groups have begun to vote Democratic consistently—women, college-educated professionals, youth and minorities. With the recent furor over immigration, the battle for Latinos and Asian-Americans is probably lost for the Republicans. Both groups voted solidly Democratic in 2006.

While many hard line conservatives have problems with John McCain’s policies on issues like torture and immigration reform, Zakaria is overstating the case in saying of McCain that “He seems to understand that a new world requires new thinking.” McCain’s advocacy of open-ended occupation of Iraq and his support of escalating US military presence in Iraq is anything but new thinking. Ditto for a broad range of McCain’s polices on such issues as the environment, women’s rights, health care and education. Republican voters who want some leaders capable of ‘new thinking’ can best send their party the message by voting Democratic in November, as many have already done in the primaries.


Super Delegates: How Elitist?

Perhaps the best thing that can be said about the ‘superdelegates,’ who will cast more than 19 percent of the votes for President at the Democratic National Convention this summer, is that nearly all of them have been elected to something at some point. The general categories include: 28 Democratic governors; Every Democratic member of congress; 23 Democratic Party ‘elders’ (former Presidents, vice presidents, speakers of the House etc.); 411 DNC members elected by Party activists in the 50 states. After that the case for having superdelgates in the next convention gets very weak.
In his Sunday L.A. Times article “Who Are These Superdelegates?,” Peter Nichols quotes Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the watchdog group Public Citizen:

This is a device to try to reduce the influence of one-person, one-vote…It’s anti-democratic. It’s specifically designed for the purpose of having the insiders . . . have some sort of final decision over who the nominee is going to be, regardless of what the voters want.

And Chris Bowers, who has launched a ‘Superdelgates Transparency Project,‘ has this to say about the danger of the superdelegate system in his Sunday Open Left post:

The Democratic Party is a living institution that changes through time, and it must change to adapt to the changing nature of its membership. This is a progressive era of mass engagement in politics, and for superdelegates to defy the popular will would deal a generational body blow to huge sections of its new activist corps, not to mention give it a black eye nationally for years, and would also simply violate progressive principles of democracy.

The demographic profile of the superdelegates is not impressive. In Josephine Hearne’s Politico article “White men hold superdelegate power balance,” for example, the author notes:

The exact percentage of white males varies slightly depending on whether the penalized Michigan and Florida delegation superdelegates are counted, but the overall percentage is at least 46 percent. Overall, men of all races represent 64 percent of the party’s superdelegates…The percentage of white male superdelegates is disproportionate to the share of white males who make up the overall Democratic electorate. According to a January 2008 national poll by Zogby International, 28 percent of Democratic voters are white men. Women account for 55 percent of Democratic voters.
…Among the superdelegates, including Michigan’s and Florida’s, there are 28 governors (21 white men), 49 senators (33 white men) and 228 representatives (137 white men). Members of the Democratic National Committee are also superdelegates, and among this group, there is more diversity.

One group. 2008 Democratic Convention Watch, keeps a running tally of the superdelgates who are committed and uncommitted. For their list of names of some 439+/- superdelegates who have endorsed a presidential candidate, click here. For their list of the 356+/- superdelegates who have not endorsed a candidate, click here. As of this writing 76 have yet to be chosen by their state conventions.
As Ed’s post below pointed out, the Clinton-Obama latest snapshot breakdown estimates vary somewhat, with a range of 210-242 for Clinton to 142-163 for Obama.


Obama’s New Labor Muscle

Back in October, the executive board of the Service Employees International Union met to weigh an endorsement. They’d been courted the most by John Edwards, but Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had both lobbied the union as well, and the chapters in Illinois and New York were firmly in the camps of their respective senators. Unable to make a decision, the leadership of SEIU declined to make an endorsement before the early primaries, and it was scored as a major loss for the senator from North Carolina.
On Friday, SEIU announced that the union had made a decision — with Edwards out of the race, they were backing Barack Obama.
Politically, the SEIU endorsement is important. It has around 2 million total members, second in size among unions only to the National Education Association — which has not picked a candidate. Leaders estimate that the union has 150,000 members in the states with primaries scheduled to take place over the next two months, and Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Rhode Island, and Oregon have particularly strong chapters. Its political action committee is also one of the biggest in the country, expected to raise $30 million in this election cycle.
Obama had previously been supported by the state SEIU chapters in Nevada and California. He lost Nevada narrowly, and lost California by a considerable margin. But those endorsements came just days before their elections, and probably weren’t a good test of SEIU’s organizing abilities.
SEIU should make an immediate difference with independent expenditures. On top of her initial fundraising advantage, Hillary Clinton has received significant support from outside groups in the early primary states. So far, these organizations have spent $5.2 million on her behalf, with the largest contributions coming from Clinton’s own labor backers — American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Teachers — and from Emily’s List. Separate groups have spent $1.5 million supporting Obama. Now, Ben Smith is reporting that SEIU is preparing to dedicate up to $5 million in independent spending on Obama’s behalf in Ohio and Texas. Whatever dollar advantage Hillary Clinton had there is likely gone.
For years, SEIU has worked to cultivate strong ties in the nation’s immigrant communities, and the union has a large Latino membership. Support from Spanish-speakers put Clinton over the top in California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and she is counting on support from Latinos in Texas to offset Obama’s advantage in the African-American community. If Obama can close the gap among those voters, or even narrow it by 4 or 5 points, Clinton’s path to victory is much more difficult. Starting Tuesday, SEIU will make an enormous effort to influence their Latino members to support the Illinois senator.
Support from the Service Employees could have big repercussions in the wider world of labor, as well. In 2005, SEIU was one of seven of unions that came together to form the Change to Win coalition. In January, Obama was endorsed by another Change to Win union, UNITE HERE, which represents hotel, restaurant, apparel and laundry workers. This last Thursday, a third, the United Food and Commercial Workers, threw its support behind the Illinois senator. A fourth, the United Farm Workers, endorsed Sen. Clinton in January. And the other three unions in the coalition — the Teamsters, the Laborers’ International Union of North America, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America — have yet to endorse a candidate. But that could change: the entire coalition is scheduled to hold a conference call next week to determine whether to make its first joint endorsement.
If labor support for Obama manifests itself at the polls, it could shake up the demographics of the race in a potentially decisive way. To this point, Hillary Clinton has won a majority of voters without college degrees, and those with incomes under $50,000. If Obama can add union households to his coalition of African-Americans and affluent white voters, he could have an advantage in nearly every state that remains on the primary calendar.


Who’s More Electable?

(NOTE: As explained in the previous post, this is a guest item from Jonathan Krasno, Associate Professor of Political Science at Binghamton University).
With John McCain the all-but-certain Republican nominee, the obvious question emerges: which Democrat is likeliest to beat him? This, of course, is a purely hypothetical question. John Kerry won the Democratic nomination in 2004 in large part because of the perception that he was the strongest candidate against George Bush. He lost, but we have no way of knowing whether John Edwards or Howard Dean would have done better. The same is true of many of the judgments that people make of candidates. We’ll never know whether Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Barack Obama, whether his foreign policy would work better than hers, and so on. The best we can do make an informed guess. On the question of electability, my guess without question is Obama.
The case for Obama as the strongest candidate comes from simple electoral math. The 30+ primaries and caucuses to date, plus the polls and the pattern of endorsements from red-state Democrats, show that he has more appeal to independents, to a handful of Republicans, and to casual Democrats than does Clinton. Clinton’s support is largely concentrated in core Democrats, the sort most likely to vote in primaries and the reason why she remains in serious contention despite a string of loses. Obama is almost certainly right to claim that he would be more likely to win over Clinton’s voters in the fall than she would be to win over his. Although widely interpreted as a reference to blacks, it is independent and Republican supporters who are most out of her reach. In short, Obama begins with a larger pool of potential supporters, one that encompasses the core Democrats currently on Clinton’s side and extends past them.
The key word in that last sentence is “potential.” The main knock against Obama as a candidate – and the main argument for Clinton – involves his ability to withstand the withering attack to come. Obama has enjoyed a charmed political life, with fawning press and weak Republican opposition. Can he maintain his exalted status a fresh, new voice (for change!) once the campaign really begins? The Clintons, after all, knocked him off his stride for several weeks after Iowa with some hardball tactics, although by South Carolina he managed to turn those tactics against them.
Once the campaign begins, the argument goes, Clinton is better prepared. She has been in the national spotlight since 1992, so she knows what the counterattack will be like and what she has to do to get beyond it. She won’t, like Kerry or Michael Dukakis, be surprised by an attack and lose an early lead. She is not invested in a holier-than-thou image, so she can throw some pretty sharp elbows and do whatever is necessary to win, etc. Furthermore, the strong economy of the Clinton years supposedly gives her a solid claim as the candidate best equipped to deal with recession, especially versus McCain.
All of that would be more convincing if Clinton were a proven vote-getter or a proven campaigner. She ran five points behind Al Gore in New York in 2000, two points behind Elliot Spitzer in 2006. (Her husband, his recent missteps notwithstanding, who is a better politician than she is, never managed to win a majority of votes nationwide.) I live in upstate New York and can confirm that whatever Clinton hatred that remains here is muted, proving that with time Clinton can win over her critics. She does not have the time to lavish attention on the whole country as she has lavished it on New York, to get people who discount her to pay attention. More important, against the toughest political opponent of her career in Obama, she has squandered a huge lead and a dizzying array of advantages. If Obama has run a better campaign for the nomination (aimed at appealing to people who will be swing voters in the general) why should Clinton be seen as the stronger candidate in the fall? It is certainly hard to discount his superior rhetorical skills and the organizational success of his campaign.
Nor does Clinton’s ability to match up against McCain on an array of issues seem like a big deal. One of the things that the exit polls have consistently shown is that Clinton and McCain, arguably the two biggest hawks on each side, have done better than their opponents with voters who favor a quick withdrawal from Iraq. What that suggests, of course, is that voters look at a variety of things besides issues. In Obama’s case it is his uplifting message of hope and change; in McCain’s it is his reputation for honesty. Against either one, Clinton’s mastery of the details of government seems wonkish and uninspired. Given the choice between going into the general election with the master of the economy or the charismatic apostle of change, I would opt for the generic message of changing the friendless status quo.
In other words, the argument for Obama is most electable is based on breadth of his appeal, while Clinton is favored for her supposed mastery of the process of running against Republicans. Of the two, the first seems more tangible and more valuable to me. The potential to bring more Democrats to the polls (especially young ones who could help the party in the future), the potential to win more independents and perhaps more than a sliver of Republicans, the potential to keep the Republicans in disarray rather than healing their divisions for them by nominating an opponent who instantly unites them – all these make Obama the stronger candidate. Obama will be savagely attacked, pulled off his pedestal (along with McCain), and possibly even fatally wounded in the process. But will he end up any more disliked or divisive than is Clinton already? Probably not. The campaign against her is, after all, in the midst of its second decade. It will cost the Republicans tens of millions to try to demonize Obama as effectively as they have demonized Clinton, and there is no certainty they’ll succeed.
One of the common observations about Obama is that he is a high risk, high reward candidate, while Clinton represents a surer thing. The risk is that, with his lack of exposure on the national stage, the bottom could fall out; the reward is that Obama fulfills his potential as a transformational candidate. I do not see him doing any worse than Clinton’s worst. But with the stars aligned for a Democratic victory in November, Democrats can afford to think big. Clinton can win a narrow victory, but only Obama can deliver a landslide.


The Electability Debate Continues

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to slug it out on the campaign trail, the question that continues to obsess political observers and many actual voters is which candidate would be stronger in a general election contest with John McCain. Here at The Democratic Strategist, we’ve decided to occasionally publish some expert thoughts on the subject, beginning today, when Binghamton University political scientiest Jonathan Krasno makes the case for Obama. (We’ll publish someone making the case for HRC before long).
But underlying this comparative debate is a slightly different one: what are the fundamentals of this general election campaign? What’s the baseline of support for the two parties? Does either Democrat begin with an advantage based on Bush’s unpopularity, the trend of independents towards Democratic voting exhibited in 2006, the the “enthusiasm gap” between Ds and Rs evidenced in this year’s primaries and caucuses, the issues landscape, or the ability of the two Democrats to bring in new voters or persaude swing voters?
As the list in the last sentence reveals, I’m in the optimist camp when it comes to overall Democratic prospects, whether our presidential nominee is named Hillary or Barack. But others disagree. I was talking to a colleague the other day, who after I declared myself “upbeat” about November, said: “Upbeat? Let’s see. Republicans quickly decided on a war hero loved by the news media. We’ve got a cage match with daggers between two demographically limited candidates. Wanna give me some of that kool-aid you’re drinking?”
This far out, of course, all talk about the general election is highly speculative. But given the magnitude of the stakes, it’s probably not premature.


Managing Political Photo-Ops

This little item at WaPo by Al Kamen got me thinking about political photo-ops, and more particularly the value of composing them carefully when possible. Political ad agencies test images for campaign lit and videos regularly, but I know of no studies that provide statistical verification of the relative importance of photo-ops in a campaign. Nonetheless, visual images have consequences in politics, one of the most oft-cited cases being Nixon’s beard stubble in his televised debate with JFK, which many believe was a significant factor in Kennedy’s 1960 victory.
The appearance of candidates gets a lot of attention, as Edwards’s famous haircut indicates. But I wonder how much attention campaigns are paying to the background in photo-ops, debates and candidate appearances. No doubt the sheer chaos of campaigns limits opportunities for composing photo-op backgrounds. But there are some occasions, such as debates when it becomes possible and potentially important.
In the July 23rd “YouTube” Democratic debate, Senator Clinton was centrally positioned among the podiums, wearing a bright peach-hued jacket among the dark suits (photo here). CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin cracked that the field looks “like Gladys Knight and the Pips.’ She also brought her ‘A game’, which added to the effect of making the others look like also-rans, in stark contrast to her Iowa concession speech, when she was flanked by Clinton Administration elders, a drab tableau, to put it charitably. I gather that her positioning at the YouTube debate was random, but it showed that a favorable set-up can have a beneficial effect.
I remember also watching a televised debate between Senator Max Cleland and GOP challenger Rep. Saxby Chambliss in ’02, and being struck by how downright “senatorial” Chambliss looked — straight out of central casting. He was all gussied up in an elegantly-tailored dark suit and crowned by a shock of perfectly-coiffed white hair (I think they pretty much all shell out big bucks for their doos, not just Edwards). But more interesting, Chambliss was positioned in such a way that the American flag was behind him, not the incumbent Cleland, who was a little off his game that day and looked tired. I’d like to think that Georgians would not be swayed by such superficial considerations as candidate appearance or a flag in the background, but Chambliss did win, so who knows? I strongly suspect, however, that somebody in the Chambliss campaign paid a lot of attention to the setting for that debate, and Cleland’s campaign probably didn’t give it enough thought. The same guy who managed the Chambliss upset is now running McCain’s campaign, as noted yesterday. So don’t be surprised by American flags in the backdrop becoming a staple of McCain image management going forward.
I’m sure it’s possible to over-do it, and photo-ops can look too ‘stagey.’ The Colbert Report certainly gooses a lot of grins out of the set’s flags and eagles slo-mo background, a goof on the networks. Flags or otherwise, it might be a good idea for Democratic campaigns to try and get some more inspiring backdrops for candidate photo-ops than their fading stars of yesteryear.


Tracking Superdelegates

An aspect of the Democratic presidential contest that’s rapdily become accepted by both campaigns and most independent observers is that neither Clinton nor Obama is likely to nail down the nomination solely on the basis of pledged delegates awarded after primaries and caucuses. In a close race, that’s hardly surprising, since 19% of the convention votes are reserved for unpledged “superdelegates.”
Thus, technically, we are going to have a “brokered convention” in the limited sense that no one’s probably going to Denver with 2,025 pledged delegates. But obviously, if either candidate has a clear majority of both pledged delegates and of superdelegates, he or she will be the putative nominee, and the convention won’t be “brokered” in any meaningful sense.
There is at present a fair amount of disagreement about pledged delegate totals for each candidate, but that’s only because different observers use different assumptions about delegates “won” in primaries or especially caucuses, but not yet formally selected. Pretty soon, those counts will begin to solidify and converge.
But the picture is more complicated with superdelegates, whose allegiances can only be deduced from individual public statements and/or private commitments.
The Democratic Convention Watch blog has focused on this problem obsessively, and is independently trying to push superdelegates to declare or undeclare themselves unambiguously. At present, however, superdelgate counts diverge significantly. DCW itself has Clinton up 233-147. CNN has her up 234-156; CBS says it’s 210-142, and AP has it at 242-163. That’s a variation of 32 votes for HRC, and 21 votes for Obama.
Meanwhile, there’s a different sort of superdelegate tracking under way at OpenLeft, which has announced a “Superdelegate Tranparency Project” aimed at publicizing the primary and caucus vote preferences of each superdelegate’s constituency. The explicit goal of this project is to reduce the possibility that superdelegates will “overturn” a popular vote mandate for one of the two candidates. But since superdelegates are not apportioned according to any purely representative formula, it’s not clear to me, at least, that if every single one of them “deferred” to his or her “constituency’s” wishes, it would necessarily add up to agreement between superdelegates as a whole and pledged delegates as a whole.
That’s how murky this whole process has become, folks.
In the end, the whole problem would likely resolve itself if one candidate or the other got on a late “roll” in primaries and caucuses, won a comfortable majority of pledged delegates, and then enjoyed a stampede of support from superdelegates. But if that doesn’t happen, tracking superdelegates will become a major cottage industry.


Unmasking McCain, Deuce

MyDD‘s Jonathan Singer flags Laura Vozzella’s Baltimore Sun article about John McCain’s recent visit to Baltimore. Vozzella’s piece included this nugget shedding new light on McCain’s much-noted ‘character.’:

McCain’s visit brought Bo Harmon back to town. Ehrlich’s former campaign manager is McCain’s national political director.
Ehrlich created a bit of a stir by hiring Harmon, who in 2002 had run Saxby Chambliss’ upset campaign against then-Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia. The Chambliss campaign ran a TV ad questioning the courage of the Vietnam vet and triple amputee.
Among those who objected to the ad: a certain senator from Arizona. “Worse than disgraceful,” McCain called it.

Singer adds:

The evidence of this unscrupulous side of McCain does not begin with his hiring of someone whose pièce de résistance he previously called “worse than disgraceful.” From the beginning of his career through today, McCain has shown that he stands for little other than advancing his own career for ambition’s sake. For instance, in 2001 McCain was apparently nearly willing to give up on everything he ever believed in, including his vaunted Ronald Reagan, in order to switch parties to give the Democrats control over the United States Senate. Three years later, McCain’s campaign approached John Kerry about forming a bipartisan ticket, which would have thoroughly undermined everything he had purported to fight for over the course of his career in Washington. Just in the last few months McCain has given up on his long-standing position on immigration. The list goes on.

It will be interesting to see if any other msm reporters call on McCain to account for his record in the months ahead.


Independents and Democratic Primaries

Last night, as soon as the polls in Virginia closed, Barack Obama was instantly declared the winner. For the people on the news, independent voters immediately became the first topic for discussion.
Thirteen states have open primaries, and Virginia is one of them. When voters in the Commonwealth show up at the polls, they are simply asked to declare which party’s ballot they’d like to cast. Once they vote, they put a card indicating their party preference in a basket on the way out the door.
Last night, according to the exit polls, Independents made up 22 percent of the Democratic voters in Virginia, and Obama won 69 percent of them.
But in a lot of states, calculating Independent support just isn’t that simple.
The networks projected Obama to win the Maryland primary just seconds after the polls in that state closed as well. But Maryland’s primary is completely different — it is closed, and you must be a registered Democrat to get a Democratic ballot. That said, the exit polls still have 13 percent of the Democratic voters describing themselves as Independents, and once again, Obama won that demographic–62/27. What’s with the discrepancy?
In every state that has a primary, there’s a question of whether it’s open or closed. Most states are like Maryland and hold closed primaries that require that you be registered with a party to get that party’s ballot.
Even if a state does allow independents to vote in the primary, there’s a question of whether the primary is actually open — like Virginia — or open with party registration. In Iowa, for example, Independents and Republicans are welcome to vote in the Democratic caucus, but to do so, they must switch their party registration on site.
Finally, we get to the situation last night. In Maryland, as in most states, there is an important difference between registered Independents and self-described independents.
Registered Independents are unaffiliated with both the GOP or the Democratic party, and in a closed primary, they’re only given a ballot for any nonpartisan races that happen to be contested.
Self-described independents are people who register with a party, but for whatever reason, don’t think of themselves as Republicans or Democrats.
My Dad, for instance, has been a registered Democrat his entire life. He’s a regular primary voter. But in the general election, he’s not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter or a Democratic senatorial candidate since Terry Sanford. The reason he doesn’t bite the bullet and switch parties? Because in our part of North Carolina, nearly every local elected office is held by a Democrat, and most of the state elected offices are too. He calls himself an independent, but if he wants any say at all in the electoral process, it’s got to be with the party of Jefferson.
On Election Night, there’s certainly merit in discussing which candidates have a bit of crossover appeal. Indeed, when Obama and McCain talk about electability, their primary performance among indies is certainly part of the equation. But some precision is in order. Independents are not always who we think they are.