Independents are key to winning, but never get a presidential choice

Here is my Sunday column ...

Consider the plight in 2012 American politics of the independent voter at a time when partisan polarization has exposed Washington as a dysfunctional, gridlocked machine.

Nearly every political strategist says that independent and moderate voters will decide the presidential election. Political pundits routinely exclaim that Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney must “move to the center” as the November general election approaches if they want to avoid defeat.

But are the independents mere chits tallied in a deceitful, strategic process?

A Gallup poll shows that 58 percent of Americans favor the rise of an independent third party. A Washington Times poll found that a plurality of U.S. voters — 37 percent — say that, essentially, an independent candidate could best reflect their political views. That compares to 28 percent who said the Democratic Party sufficiently represents their wishes and 23 percent who indicated similar feelings about the GOP.

Imagine a president elected by the Independent Party who has no reason to bow down to either party’s congressional leaders, pushing Congress toward the middle, toward bipartisan compromise that is sensible, not ideological.

Since 2008, independents’ ranks have swelled by nearly half a million voters in eight presidential battleground states alone. While the increasingly partisan Democratic and Republican parties, eager to play the blame game, have lost voters by big numbers, the tally of voters registering as independents has reached record levels in these swing states.

At the same time, Congress — the Republican-led House and the Democratic majority in the Senate — recently experienced record low approval ratings, down around 13 percent, due to the lawmakers’ tribal politics. The Republican presidential primaries routinely produced surveys that demonstrated voter interest in “someone else” entering the race.

Obama is considered a disappointment by many loyal Democrats, and Romney is viewed skeptically by a host of conservative Republican leaders.

This seemed to be the year when fed-up voters would gravitate to the center, representing tens of millions of people who view the two parties as failures. Voters who would demand a pragmatic, solutions-oriented approach to the nation’s agenda.

Yet, those in the middle — independents, moderates, centrists, swing voters, ticket splitters — had no choice but to wait, and now consider the two parties’ nominees, picking a candidate who somewhat resembles their thinking.

Once again, a presidential campaign arrives without an independent, third party candidate. Four years ago, the Unity ’08 effort to draft a moderate alternative candidate failed miserably, probably due to bad timing.

But this year was supposed to be different. Americans Elect, a non-partisan group with the financial backing of well-heeled supporters, intended to break the process wide open by holding a primary election on the Internet to choose a centrist.

The group put the Americans Elect eventual nominee far ahead of previous third party candidates — a spot on the ballot in all 50 states, an initial infusion of campaign cash, and a nationwide network of volunteers ready to go to work.

But the effort crashed and burned earlier this month in a most embarrassing manner. Americans Elect did not attract a single high-profile, credible candidate. Instead, gadflies and crackpots flocked to the website and not a single candidate passed the initial test of accumulating 10,000 online supporters to win a spot on the primary ballot. Sadly, Americans Elect folded its tent, marking a dark day in American politics.

Why did the attempt to nominate an independent candidate at an opportune time fall flat?

The first and most obvious answer is that the candidates who would best fit the bill all declined to run — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; former Utah governor Jon Huntsman; former senators Evan Bayh, Bob Kerrey and Chuck Hagel; outgoing Sens. Olympia Snowe and Jim Webb; and energetic up-and-comers like Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker.

Why did they all shy away? Perhaps it was pressure from their particular political party. Maybe it was doubts that a financially competitive campaign could be waged. Or it may be that they feared a backlash if they played the role of spoiler in the general election. Most likely, they saw that voters — even the targeted moderates and independents — were not paying attention to the Americans Elect project.

In any event, we now have no centrist candidate for president while many moderates in Congress are quitting in frustration or facing defeat in primary elections at the hands of the fringies (my word) on the left and right.

The pandering and partisan positioning has only gotten worse.

Doesn’t the broad swath in the middle of the electorate, which does not march in cult-like lockstep to either party’s drum beat, deserve their own choice?

The soul-searching underway among dedicated centrists has focused, to some degree, on the need for the moderate movement to latch onto a charismatic leader. Centrist candidates tend to be policy wonks, technocrats who speak in dull detail about nuanced policies that make sense.

Still, a fire-breathing populist might gain much more attention — but I don’t think he would be a good fit.

The independent voter seeks a no-B.S. mainstream agenda put forward by a smart, mature candidate who shuns the bombast of the left and right. One prominent centrist blogger suggested that independents need a candidate who is more “sexy” than the geeky guys who typically come to mind.

The idea is that the fringies put forward cheerleaders, and the centrists offer Honor Society types. The answer, under this scenario, may be the captivating quarterback with a brain.

Many Americans Elect founders had hoped to nominate former Comptroller General David Walker. As the former director of Congress’ investigative agency, Walker is a deep thinker who advocates a dramatic, balanced approach to curing the nation’s budget deficits.

But Walker, in his appearance and his speaking style, is very much a policy nerd. One of the first moderate figures to recommend Walker for the presidency was New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. In time, one centrist blogger turned the tables and urged Friedman to run as an independent presidential candidate.

Friedman is a multiple Pulitzer Prize winner who is a hero to many centrists. Yet, the overarching problem may be that the big bloc of independents and moderates lacks political activists — certainly the types who religiously read Friedman’s columns and books.

Navigating the United States through a time of painful economic transition at home and continuing turmoil overseas is serious business. If not this time around, let’s hope, for the good of the country, the situation eventually allows a serious candidate to emerge from the center.

If we did that, those all-important voters in the middle that are wooed by Democrats and Republicans could provide the margin of victory to a contender who actually represents their wishes.