The XX Factor: What women really think.

Independent Not Idiot

The popular notion that independent voters—who are more than 40 percent of undecided voters—are a collection of cranks and people so unable to choose properly that in the words of David Sedaris they would have trouble deciding between an airplane meal of chicken and the “platter of shit with bits of broken glass.” Independents don’t see it quite that way. According to a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, being an independent—and I’m one—comes with a specific set of policy beliefs. As writer John Avlon enumerated them, I suddenly felt like the shunned kid at the school cafeteria who finds a table of similar misfits. Independent’s beliefs zigzag across party orthodoxy—we’re national security hawks and social liberals. So some of us are left having to choose a candidate who leaves us deeply uneasy on one of these fundamentals. 

I’ve been concerned about Barack Obama’s praise for the criminal justice model of fighting terrorism; this model requires terrorists to act so that we can respond. But then I consider that I want abortion to be not only legal, but available. So I don’t want a president whose Supreme Court appointments might undo Roe v. Wade. Independents are weary of extreme partisanship. Everyone says that of course, it’s like saying you despise celebrity gossip. But obviously most Democrats and Republicans really don’t despise it, or else there wouldn’t be so much commentary along the Sedaris line above. Take the economic meltdown—both  Democrats and Republicans pushed policies that lead to it—but no politician can say that. Perhaps the independents’ dilemma will solve itself with the rise in our numbers—Avlon says we have grown from 22 percent of voters in 1954 to about 44 percent today—and someday we will get a candidate of our own.