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Independent candidates see increased popularity
Published:
Monday, October 21, 2002
Steven Thomma
Knight Ridder Newspapers
EDINA, Minn. — Like many Americans thinking ahead to November's elections, Cynthia Bemis Abrams is turned off by politics as usual from the two major political parties.
One is too liberal, the other too conservative, and both seem more interested in attacks than solutions, Abrams says. The result: popular initiatives like government help with prescription drug prices are caught in partisan gridlock, voters are stuck with a choice between candidates they don't like, and the country faces another election with abysmally low turnout.
Unlike other Americans, however, Abrams has another choice, at least in the election for Minnesota's governor. With support from her and thousands like her, independent candidate Tim Penny is in a close race to win the governorship over well-known Democratic and Republican candidates.
Penny's election would be the second in a row for Minnesota independents, following the stunning win four years ago by former wrestler Jesse Ventura, who is retiring. Whether it would signal the enduring ascension of a third party is unknown. But a Penny victory clearly would highlight the growing disillusionment with the two major parties in Minnesota and across the United States.
"It got to the point where I wouldn't vote," said Abrams, a public relations manager in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina. "I didn't feel my political philosophy was represented."
As a fiscal conservative, she said, she wasn't comfortable with the Democrats. As a social moderate, she didn't feel in sync with Republicans. "The state has two polarized political parties," she said. "The environment is ripe for someone to walk in and take advantage of that. The whole notion of a centrist, consensus builder like Penny is refreshing."
A former conservative Democratic member of Congress from southern Minnesota, Penny was a deficit hawk who walked away from politics in 1994 out of frustration at Congress's inability to end budget deficits.
Now, with the two major parties in decline and his state facing its own budget deficits and fiscal crisis, Penny has decided to jump back in. Polls show him head-to-head-to head with Democrat Roger Moe, the majority leader in the state Senate, and Republican Tim Pawlenty, the Republican leader in the state House.
In an interview, Penny attributed his success largely to the failure of the established parties.
"In my hometown in Waseca County, the Democratic convention when I started in 1976 drew upwards of 170 people. Last winter, it drew 17," Penny said. "The parties over time have lost touch with the average voter."
One reason, he said, is the parties' growing dependence on special interests for the cash they need to run ever-more expensive campaigns. That often makes politics seem remote to those who do not write big checks.
Another is how the parties spend the money. Television screens this autumn are filled with political ads, often negative ones that attack rivals rather than offering a candidate's proposals. "It's mutually assured destruction and it does more to turn people off than turn people out," Penny said.
In addition, the parties often refuse to compromise, preferring to blame the other party for failure. A prime Washington example is the issue of helping people pay for prescription drugs. Each party has a plan, but neither seems willing to compromise.
"The average voter says it's all about politics and not about problem solving," said Penny.
Both parties shy away from controversial proposals to fix long-term problems, such as lack of health-care coverage, income inequality, or Social Security. The result is two parties sharing an image of being without principle, and with shrinking appeal.
"There is no durable principled message from either party," said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a non-partisan research group that studies voting trends.
"Republicans used to be the party of probity and fiscal responsibility. Democrats used to be the party of governmental activism. Neither one is offering anything near that kind of choice to the American people. Their main definition is that they are against the other guy."
Absent a realistic alternative in most states–few independent or third-party candidates elsewhere have a chance of winning–voters will elect Democrats and Republicans again. But not many will vote.
Only 17 percent of eligible voters turned out in primary elections this year, nearing the record low of 16.8 percent in 1998, according to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. Primary voting set record lows in 17 states _ Hawaii, Vermont, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Nevada, Oklahoma, Alaska, Kansas, New Mexico, Montana, Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Nebraska, Ohio and California.
Turnout on Nov. 5 could rival the 35.3 percent of 1998, the lowest since 1942.
Said Gans: "The trend is greater disaffection."
