Last Sunday marked the “one year” point on the countdown to the 2012 presidential election. For some people, that’s exciting; for others, it may be nauseating. We’re in for a year of breaking scandals, boring debates and obnoxious ads. For moderates and independents, it’s a year of figuring out which party is the lesser of our two evils and hoping things work out for the best. Indeed, the center picks the president, often begrudgingly, but a group called “Americans Elect” hopes to make 2012 the year independents get a real choice, and not just an ultimatum. But will it work?
Americans Elect hopes to get people to sign up and support an independent Presidential campaign of a candidate and running mate chosen by the public in an online primary next summer. The idea is to get young, independent-minded people to join, debate the issues, compare potential candidates and eventually vote for them. They hope to draw people who may lean one way or the other, but generally support middle-of-the-road policies, compromise, and reason in government. These are the kind of people who think that we should reduce the deficit, but not by screwing over poor people to do it; that we should find ways to put hard-working, generally law-abiding undocumented immigrants on a path to citizenship, but not give a free pass to anyone who asks; that the government should invest in renewable energy, but not fund it entirely. We’ll come back to these people later, but first, a brief history of independent presidential movements.
The two-party system has had control for a while. The last President that was neither a Republican nor a Democrat was Millard Fillmore. Since 1853, only a handful of third-party campaigns have had any success. In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt ran on his “Bull Moose” Progressive party ticket, losing to Democrat Woodrow Wilson, but beating Republican William Howard Taft. In 1968, George Wallace lost to Richard Nixon. In 1992, Ross Perot ran between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and in 2000 Ralph Nader jumped in between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
One thing all these campaigns managed to do was split the vote. As all moderates know, presidential elections are games of sacrifice. The fringe elements with stronger ideological positions support their party’s nominee, because at least he’s not the other guy. Both parties get their bases to support their candidates, and the independents pick between them. What a strong independent bid does is convince ideological elements to abandon the party and vote for someone better aligned with their ideals. There were more conservative votes in ’92, but Clinton won because Perot split them. There were more liberal votes in 2000, but Nader split them. Third-party tickets pretty much wind up giving America the opposite of what they want.
Now, back to Americans Elect. Who is their target demographic? Young, independents, right? Guess who they overwhelmingly supported in 2008? Guess who will have to rely on their support in 2012? Yeah, this isn’t great news for Barack Obama. Considering that Americans Elect can take donations over the $2,500 individual limit because they’re non-partisan, they could produce a substantial amount of votes.
I would love to be able to elect a moderate, independent candidate, not tied to party politics. I’d even take a three-party system like in the U.K. The more choices, the better! But unless something crazy happens, this isn’t going to work. They can get a lot of votes, but not enough to win. Americans Elect sounds like a great idea now, but when election day comes and it’s a choice between Obama and someone like Michele Bachmann, my guess is that those independent voters might think twice. Sure, being independent and not having a real choice sucks. Nobody likes voting by deciding which candidate they dislike less, but until things change, that makes the independents kingmakers. And for now, that’s not a bad tradeoff.
