They are playing a much larger role in the current presidential race, as well outlined by one of our local political gurus, and that is a good thing.
Daniel Weintraub: 2008 is shaping up as the year of the independent
By Daniel Weintraub - dweintraub@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, February 3, 2008
Independent voters are suddenly the hottest commodity in American politics.
Independents propelled Sen. John McCain to victory in New Hampshire and limited his losses to Mitt Romney in Michigan. They helped build Sen. Barack Obama's landslide victory in South Carolina. They will be up for grabs in Tuesday's Democratic primary in California – but can't vote for a Republican.
And if they are popular with the candidates now, by this fall they will be courted as never before.
Why? What's going on?
Simple. In California and elsewhere, more and more voters are choosing to distance themselves from the Republicans and Democrats, and register with neither party. Amazingly, California has fewer Republicans and Democrats today than it did 20 years ago, despite an increase of millions of eligible voters. The greatest number of new voters, and plenty of old ones, have switched to "decline to state" – California's official description for people who want out of the partisan system.
Between 1988 and 2004, the share of voters registered in no party increased from 9 percent to 18 percent while the Democrats' share declined from 50 percent to 43 percent and the Republicans dropped from 39 percent to 35 percent. In that same period, the absolute number of Democrats and Republicans combined dropped by 800,000 while the number of independents grew by 1.7 million.
Independents tend to be younger, more male and have more formal education than members of the major parties. As a group, they are more fiscally conservative than Democrats but more open to higher taxes than Republicans. On social issues, they are more liberal than Republicans but more conservative than Democrats. In recent years, they have tended to side with Democrats in statewide elections, but they have also been big supporters of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
