Independent Voters, or Nothing Comes from Nothing

The other day in New Hampshire, we had our presidential primary election, and I was more than happy to exploit my status as an Independent to add my own quirky little vote to tally in a state the thrives on projecting its collective quirkiness onto the electoral process. New Hampshire loves being the first state to hold a primary (as distinct from Iowa's first-in-the-nation round of caucuses), and I think my feisty New England neighbors really enjoy gumming up the works in the media's attempt to anoint "front-runners" by bringing attention to all kinds of not-so-flashy candidates. I know I do. And in my capacity as an Independent, I have been able to choose between voting in the Democratic or Republican primaries. It's the best possible circumstances for the lowly individual voter to thrown stones at the status quo.

So as I picked Ian up from Russian Math, I told him that I could either drop him off at home and then go vote, or take him with me to the polls. Because he's Ian, he wanted to go to the polls. This year, I voted in the Republican primaries, of course, since the Democrats seem to have selected a candidate already. In any case, as Ian and I were about to leave the booth, he asked me whether I now go back to being nothing. By "nothing," he meant an Independent.

I think many impassioned partisans - from both parties - would be pleased with this way of describing the neither-fish-nor-fowl status of Independent voters in the U.S.

(January 10, 2012)