Thoughts about the MN Independence Party

Well I am going to start with my opinion that the IP of Minnesota continue as a political party. There has already been much discussion about whether or not a 527 Organization would be a better fit for the existing IP. A 527 is a tax exempt organization created primarily to influence nominations, elections, or defeat of political candidates for office.

Moving to a 527 would free the IP from recruiting, fund raising, and doing many things that Political Parties do while giving them a free hand at looking at which candidates would be the best or most moderate view.

The first and most important problem/issue I see with this “whom is the party going to support?” As the Republicans party continues to move to the right and the DFL/Democratic party continues it weeblo wobbling about how far left the party can go, where will the moderate or middle of the road candidates come from.

I had a Political Science teacher use the example of teeter-totter to explain American Politics, on the Right you have the Republicans and on the left the Democrats and everyone else needs to decide which side of the fulcrum they need to sit on. That example probably worked fairly well in the 70’s and 80’s as a majority of the population considered themselves either Democrats or Republicans and parties boasted numbers in the 40% range. As parties increased in size the more left and right leaning aspects of the parties learned that they could gain much in being active early. Today those numbers that indicate the size of the parties has decreased to closer to 25% and even a smaller portion of the party is active.

Tom Horner was asked why he didn’t run as a moderate Republican in the Primary, but the answer is simple. As a man who was Republican for 25 years the party had moved and changed so much he was no longer a Republican in the current sense of the word. "They own the brand and as such the right to define what a Republican is." To paraphrase Tom Horner.

As the Democratic and Republican Party has moved over the years they have of coursed assimilated other parties that were to the left and right of their positions. In both cases it can be argued that what they assimilated became the dominant aspect of the party.

This of course leaves a very large hole in the middle of the political spectrum. If there is no Independence Party than there will be no candidates with anything that resembles a viable chance of succeeding as such no one to endorse or support.

That doesn’t mean however that a 527 is a bad idea, and I would hope that at least one such group is created to help work the middle of politics rather than the fringes that we in today’s political landscape.