A Declaration of Independents

Hello, I hope that you’re doing well.  I’m on the way to TED right now to speak about our political system and how it can be improved – it should be a great opportunity.  I expect the talk to be made public sometime in May.  

When I ran for office, I ran as a Democrat.  It seemed practical and, to some extent, natural.  But there were significant distortions that accompanied the primaries I participated in – there were certain interest groups and schools of thought that were highly overrepresented. 

One person who figured this out even before he ran for office is Greg Orman.  “The two parties have spent their time and treasure protecting Americans that we are for more different and divided than we actually are,” writes Greg in his book, “A Declaration of Independents.”  I interview Greg on the podcast this week. 

Greg started a successful business in Kansas and saw that many voters felt underrepresented.  He decided to run for the Senate in Kansas in 2014.  “I initially looked at running as a Democrat because I was heading against a Republican incumbent.  But I soon realized that there was dogma on both sides that I didn’t agree with.  I’ve never believed there were only two possible answers to any problem.  Many issues are more nuanced than that.”

Greg went around the state and just started talking to voters.  He got more and more support with his straightforward, commonsense approach.  “Why is it that it’s harder and harder for Americans to get ahead, but it’s also simultaneously more common for people to be using their time unproductively?  Something is going wrong here.”   Greg believed that the two-party system was a big reason why things were getting worse for Kansans, not better. 

Greg went up and up in the polls.  He even pulled ahead of the incumbent Senator, which shocked the establishment.  It got to the point where the national Republican Party sent John McCain and a parade of national figures to Kansas and spent $17 million to make sure they kept the seat.  They defined Greg as a Democratic puppet and attacked him in various ways.  He still wound up with 42.5% of the vote in the general election, a stunning level for an Independent candidate.  For context, Ross Perot got 19% in 1992. 

“I was running against the entire establishment, and the system came to Kansas and did its best to shut me down,” Greg said.  Today, he supports independent candidates and continues to make the case.  “I back those who are trying to create a new choice in American politics.  Almost half of Americans are Independents at this point, and we are being shut out as our future and that of our kids is increasingly jeopardized.” 

As you can imagine, Greg is one of the role models for independent candidates in the whole country, and I’m proud to say that he is supportive of our work at Forward.  In some ways, the enemy is ideology.  “True independence comes not through adherence to a rigid ideology but through putting our country ahead of a political party . . . independence from the party line, from the special interests that control both major political parties through campaign cash, and from extremists who control each party’s primary process – that’s what the country needs to move forward.” 

For “A Declaration of Independents” click here and my interview with Greg click here.   To see what Forward is doing for candidates around the country of any party, click here.  I’ll be speaking at the Hudson Valley Ideas Fest with Stephen Dubner, Coleman Hughes, Rikki Schlott, Xochitl Gonzalez, Neil Parikh and more on April 27th in Rosendale, New York.  If you’re in the area or know someone who is, maybe I’ll see you there!