You Can Take the Girl Out of the Green Party ...

Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema has announced she's leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent. It appears that Sinema will still be effectively caucusing with the Democrats (she's slated to keep her committee assignments), so to some extent this is just another performance and won't directly upset the balance of power in the upper chamber. Nonetheless, this is entirely in character for a woman whose politics are very slightly left-of-center but also mostly gibberish that she spins up as having a "maverick streak" and being too pure for the confines of the dreaded two party system.

I'm not exactly surprised by the news. Indeed, to some extent I think it's politically savvy. Sinema was a dead woman walking in a 2024 Democratic primary -- Mark Kelly demonstrating that one can be a normal Democrat and win in Arizona took away Sinema's only hope of staving off an inevitable progressive challenger. But formally identifying as in indie gives Sinema two big advantages. 

Rhetorically, as empty as this gesture is, it still will appeal to a certain branch of voter (and, more importantly, pundit) who salivates over "no labels!" and "independence!". At this point, that cadre is the only base Sinema could ever hope to have, so she might as well juice them for all they're worth.

More practically, by laying the groundwork for an independent run now, Sinema arguably boxes off a Democratic challenge more thoroughly than she ever could within the party. Sinema has effectively flipped a dead man's switch and promised to run in 2024 even if it means splitting the vote with an actual Democratic nominee. Do Democrats feel confident they can win in Arizona even with Sinema peeling off a non-trivial part of the vote? I bet that prospect has Democratic strategists feeling real nervous. There are several instances (Alaska springs to mind) where Democrats have simply lined up behind independent candidates in states knowing that they can't win if they split the vote, and Sinema is trying to make Arizona one of them. (The wild card is if Republicans decide not to run a candidate against Sinema, but that strikes me as vanishingly unlikely. The infuriating truth of American politics is that even in her most asinine and frustrating moments, Sinema still isn't even close to being as bad as even a normal Republican, let alone an Arizona Republican).

"Dems" Who Endorse Third Party Candidates Are Monsters. Zero Exceptions.

Back in 2018, when I was still living in Berkeley, I was really having a difficult time deciding who to vote for in a D-on-D assembly race between Buffy Wicks and Jovanka Beckles. Both seemed like solid people I'd be happy to have representing me in Sacramento, and I struggled to find much distinguishing the two.

Until I learned that Beckles had voted for Jill Stein in 2016. Suddenly, a hard choice became very easy. Wicks gets my vote (and she went on to win the election).

Fast forward a few years, to 2022. I now live in Oregon, a pretty reliably blue state. Except this year, our gubernatorial race includes not just the standard D-R matchup between Democrat Tina Kotek and Republican Christine Drazan. It also includes a well-financed "independent" candidate -- former Democratic State Senator Betsy Johnson,* well-known as among the most conservative Democrats in the caucus. Johnson, who has called Portland a "city of roaches", ran expressly because she couldn't tolerate a more liberal Democrat being the party's standard-bearer. Polling suggests an extremely tight race, and Johnson 's presence on the ballot could let the Republican slip into the governor's mansion with barely 30% of the vote.

The very thought makes me livid. The idea that in Oregon, in 2022, we might have a Republican Governor because some egomaniacal blue dog Dem just couldn't back her party's nominee is outrageous.

Among Johnson's endorsers is outgoing Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader, in an obvious sore-loser move after he lost his primary to challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner. I couldn't vote in that election -- I now live in Schrader's district, but I moved here a few weeks after the election -- and I certainly understood the pragmatic argument in favor of Schrader in a swing-y district. But Schrader himself? Absolutely dead to me. I shed zero tears for his demise.

There is nothing I have more contempt for than a nominal Democrat supporting a third party in a contested general election. It is terrible if it is a "from the left" protest vote for a middle-of-three-evils like Jill Stein. It is terrible if it is a "from the center" chin-stroker vote because the Democrat is "just too radical". 

The current iteration of the Republican Party is a hairsbreadth away from being actual fascists. Stopping them from attaining political power is a moral obligation of the highest order. Very, very few things can trump that obligation. I can think of essentially no significant Democratic figure whose views or practices are so noxious as to trump that obligation. Yes, that includes every single member of the Squad. Yes, that includes Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and Henry Cuellar. I don't care how annoying you find them. I don't care how valid your grievances are against them. None of them are worse than your typical 21st century Republican. If they are the general election nominee, and they're running against a Republican, you vote for them, and you do it with a smile.

* In researching this post, I learned the ultimate terrible fact: Johnson is a Carleton College alum. She also got her J.D. at Lewis & Clark. I am devastated.

The Flight of the Flighty Fanatics

During the course of the Obama administration, I knew some folks who had previously identified as committed Democrats who hated Barack Obama. Hated, hated, hated him -- and not "from the left". These were folks who at least played with all the conspiracies (birtherism, closet Muslim, etc.), thought he was selling America to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood -- they really went off the deep end. Often times, they were die-hard 2008 Hillary Clinton supporters, but even that has the potential to mislead because by the time 2016 rolled around they viewed Clinton as toxic too because of her tenure in the abominable Obama administration (Benghazi!). In the last election, they often were very loud in calling themselves "independent" because "the Democratic Party left me".

Given the degree to which their hatred of Obama stemmed from truly wild xenophobic fantasies, I kind of just wrote them off as lost to the Trumpist movement. Honestly, they seemed like his perfect voters. All the things that should make a reasonable person detest Trump seemed to me like basically souped-up version of the politics they had been increasingly indulging in since 2008. People who viewed Obama as an incompetent naif cum reckless dictator whose deepest fantasy was to give Iran an open pipeline to import Sharia Law into America weren't going to be repelled by Trump's actual incompetence, recklessness, authoritarian tendencies, etc.

And yet, I've observed some of these people and -- they really don't like Trump. They do think he's incompetent and racist and reckless and at least quasi-authoritarian. From my vantage point, they seem to be just wildly pinballing. At best, it is confirmation of the conventional wisdom that "independent" is another way of saying "low-information and politically incoherent". But I suppose it's good news for the next election?

Did Independents Buy Palin's Speech

If this Detroit Free Press focus group is at all accurate, not even close. Palin seriously turned off independents last night with her biting, sarcastic, and at times frankly vicious speech. Did the speech rally the base? Of course, and quite effectively at that. But it is hard for me to believe that rallying the base will be sufficient for the GOP this cycle.

Lincoln Chafee Now an Independent

Former Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island has left the GOP and is now a registered independent.

There isn't any major political angle to this. Chafee was the ultimate RINO, not even voting for President Bush in the 2004 elections. It was well known that he only was maintaining his GOP membership out of respect for his father, one of the great Rockefeller Republicans, and had he pulled a Jeffords at any time during his tenure in the Senate, he easily would have kept his seat. I don't think this is a precursor to a political comeback, either; while Chafee did not dislike being in the Senate, it never really was his passion, and I don't think he has any desire to engage in another tough war with current Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (who now has the advantage of incumbency in uber-blue RI).

Still, I thought it was interesting that he finally made the jump. I wonder what finally pushed him over the edge?