Don't

            Former Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Jim Webb says he is considering recasting himself in the presidential sweepstakes as an independent.  As someone who loves his country, studies politics in depth and harbors grave questions about whether our democracy can survive this era of partisan warfare, I offer a heartfelt piece of advice.

            Don’t.

            I have great respect for you and your service to our country.  I do not share your view of the world, but that is not the reason for the advice I offer.  Instead, your musings about American public opinion betray a deep misunderstanding of the forces at play in American politics.  If you follow them, you will end up wasting huge amounts of time and money, and you will ultimately hurt your country.

            Let’s start with your claim that the greatest trend in American politics is that “an increasing plurality of our citizens strongly dislikes both political parties as well as their entrenched leaders.”  As support for this contention, you offer the observation that “far more Americans consider themselves to be political independents than Democrats or Republicans.”  You disparage the “seasoned political commentators” who “tend to dismiss this trend, since many independents say they ‘ lean’ toward one party or the other.”

            The first thing that concerns me about this argument is that fact that you offer no hard evidence either to support your contention that this plurality hates both parties and their leaders or to demonstrate that the “seasoned political commentators” don’t have a point.

            If we are ever going to get past the partisan warfare that you rightly decry, we’re going to have to find ways of having fact-based discussions.  What you have here is based on your impressions, and just as in art, impressions may only have a glancing relationship with reality.

            Yes, there are more people who describe themselves as political independents. According to the Pew Research Center, 39% of Americans say that they are “Independents” while only 32% identify as "Democrats" and 23% identify as "Republicans."  That’s up from 2004 when only 30% of Americans identified as Independents, but not much different from 1992 when 36% identified as Independents.

            As Figure 1shows, the growth in the share of people claiming to be Independents since 2004  

Figure1Source: Pew Research Center

has come mainly at the expense of the Republican Party.  The Democratic Party’s share of the electorate hasn’t varied much over time. To the extent that increases in the percentage of self-identified Independents reflect contempt for the political parties, that increase has more to do with disaffected Republicans than disaffected Democrats.

            Your operative assumption is that people who identify as Independents would prefer to vote for a presidential candidate who similarly self-identifies as an Independent.  But, once again, there is evidence available to show that this assumption isn’t true.

            In Figures 2 and 3, also provided by the Pew Research Center, you can see that the “seasoned 

Figure 2 Source: Pew Research Center

political commentators” know what they’re talking about.  Ideologically, leaners hold attitudes and behave in ways that resemble the attitudes and behaviors of self-identified Democrats and Republicans.

Figure 3 Source: Pew Research Center

            What’s worse, leaners dislike the party they lean against about as much as the people in the party toward which they lean.  And they also like the party they lean toward about as much as the people who are willing to self-identify as members of that party.

            There are some people who fit your description of the disaffected independents, but that segment amounts to less than 12% of the electorate.  They’re truly ambivalent and are open to persuasion. The trick is getting these people to vote at all.

            What all this means is that an electoral strategy centered on appealing to the plurality that identifies as Independent is not likely to work.  They’re not centrists looking for a grand bargain between Democrats and Republicans.  They’re just as likely to want total victory for the party toward which they lean as are the party’s self-identifiers.

            But let’s forget all that, and for the sake of argument, accept your premise that it would be possible for an Independent centrist to cobble together a coalition that can outvote the true Democratic and Republican partisans.

            Under our system, winning a plurality or even a majority of the popular vote isn’t enough to get the keys to the White House.  Just ask Al Gore. 

            Presidential candidates needs 270 electoral college votes to be elected president.  Bill Clinton was able to get 270 electoral votes in both of his three-way races for president.  But he was a Democrat with strong party organizations in the states with the electoral votes he needed to win. 

            Without 270 electoral votes, the Constitution leaves it to the House of Representatives, voting as state delegations, to choose the president.  Regardless of the popular vote, it’s not likely that partisan legislators will select somebody outside of the party.  There’s no reason in the Constitution that the members of the House even have to consider the fact that the Independent may have won a plurality of the popular vote.

            Imagine the hostility a President selected by a partisan House would engender.  Just ask George W. Bush, whose election was all but decided by the Supreme Court.  And, imagine the harmful effect on American Democracy.

           But suppose, the Independent does win the presidency with 270 electoral votes, fair and square.  What then?  Just ask Barack Obama.

            In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama won the presidency decisively, while Democrats retained their majority in the House and won a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  Despite the resounding win in 2008, Republican leaders in Congress decided that it was not in their interest to cooperate with the President. The GOP became the Party of No.  What lets anyone think that partisan Senators and Representatives wouldn’t do their best to undermine the Independent president so that they can help their parties try to reclaim the White House in the next election?

            Sorry Jim, but that’s how American politics works.

            I understand you’re disappointed that neither you nor your message caught fire this cycle.  I’d chalk that up to message, not partisanship.  Nobody was buying what you wanted to sell.

            If you really want to make a difference, though, given our entrenched party system, you’ve no choice but to get yourself a following within one of the existing parties.  That way, your faction can drag the party toward you.  Just ask Bernie Sanders.