“Independence” Party, or “Dependent” Party?
The cleverly-named “Independence” party seems to hope that voters will believe they represent indepen-dent thinking. But based on the Jack Davis payola scandal, where they allowed him to bribe his way into their good graces, it appears that they’re not Independent of financial opportunism.
Here’s another fresh data point: out of 24 races in the Monroe County area that they chose to endorse on, they endorsed 2 Dems, Joanne Winslow (for State Supreme Court) and Louise Slaughter. Of those 2, Slaughter is essentially running un-opposed (as usual), so that endorsement is kind of a no-brainer.
So then they’re not independent of the GOP.
What about this, from their website?
In area after area of public policy, the state and federal governments continually produce policies that are badly unrepresentative of the desires of the American people. This occurs because the current election system renders incumbents all but indestructible, making them unresponsive to the public and highly responsive to the campaign contributions that guarantee their electoral invulnerability.
Incumbents are “indestructible”? Sure, I’ll go along with that to some extent. But you know what else helps incumbents? Being overwhelmingly endorsed by the Independence Party. From that same list of races this fall, let’s look at Independence Party endorsements:
Incumbents: 16
Non-incumbents: 2
(There were also 5 open seats, and 1 Independence party placeholder.)
This means the Independence party endorsed almost 90% of incumbents on the ballot this fall, flying in the face of their nice-sounding principles. (90% of incumbents? That’s approaching D&C Editorial Board levels!)
So, I learned something today about the “Independence” party. They’re actually dependent, on:
1. Money
2. The local GOP
3. The power of incumbents
Can someone explain to me how they still have any credibility? Seriously, I’m curious.
Related posts:
The Independence Party has a record of backing incumbents and Republicans. They tend to like incumbent Republicans best, but that hasn’t prevented them from backing Democrats like Eliot Spitzer (2006), Hillary Clinton, Alan Hevesi, etc.
But if you look at the Assembly and Senate, usually Republicans run with (R,I,C) next to their names and Democrats run with (D,WF) next to theirs. The Independence Party is rather useless. Sure, they are the largest minor party in New York but they really don’t do anything for their candidates.
You also have to consider that some voters who consider themselves “independent” tend to register as members of the Independence Party. Of course, the true “independents” are the blanks (I would contend) but the average voter doesn’t know the difference. They see “Independence” when they register to vote under party affiliation and that’s the box they check.
What I find particularly telling is that the two incumbents they didn’t endorse are both democrats. Bonacchi over Koon, and Mr Colon himself over Susan John.
This party should just go away, and Golisano should spend some of that money he’s spending to say loudly and clearly “I am no longer part of the Independence Party, and it has become a mockery of its original intent!”
[...] btp has a spot on post in the Independence Party. [...]