The Wall Street Journal did an article this week on “middle of the road radicals,” the huge group of independent voters that is estraged from government, aligned with neither party and increasingly swings elections one way or the other. They are pragmatic, not ideological; centrist, not far-left or far-right.
“This roaming army of independent nomads is getting pretty large. And who knows? If neither party can pacify it, maybe, just maybe, the army carries the seeds of a third-party challenge in 2012,” says the author.
A challenge? Maybe. A win? Fat chance.
Where middle-of-the-road, independent voters would have the biggest impact, in my opinion, is if they just picked a party — hey, you don’t have to be wedded to it, you can switch pretty freely — and voted in primaries. Primary voters are disproportionately the party extremes. And the candidates they produce are often further right or left than that huge nomadic band of middle-of-the-roaders would like. It doesn’t take a third party. It just takes reining back the two we already have.
