Mark Schmitt has a smart piece linking Harold Ford to the perennial habit of dreaming of some magical “independent” political force sweeping the nation:
First, the confusion and contradictions exhibited by Ford are no accident. The independence movement melds populism of both the left and right varieties (see Lou Dobbs, author of the 2007 book Independents Day), centrism, and technocratic anti-politics into one messy soup. Concern about long-term budget deficits and slipping U.S. economic superiority, plus tax cuts, are usually mainstays of the movement’s vague platforms. The mere idea of being somehow different from whatever is on offer in current politics seems to be “unity” enough. Independents share not a vision of where to take the country but an analysis of its politics.
Second, most of the people involved in these efforts aren’t independent at all but deeply embedded in the political system as candidates or consultants. (McCain and Lieberman are lifelong politicians; among Ford’s several titles is chair of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.) They never suffer for lack of funds. And the most gullible audience for their efforts consists of the most practiced purveyors of conventional wisdom, like Washington Post columnist David Broder, who swooned over Unity08. Often it seems like the independents’ primary complaint about the state of American politics is simply that they’re not the ones running it.
I would add that their analysis of the country’s politics seems uncommonly bad. I’m sympathetic to the impulse to want to make the US policy process more technocratic. But there’s just no reason to think that a more technocratic-minded president would achieve that goal. Whatever you think of Barack Obama’s ideas, it’s undeniable that every single one of them was more technocratic when initially framed by the White House than it became as it went through the congressional wringer. And there’s a lot that could be changed about congress to reduce this tendency. Mostly, though, it involves doing the reverse of what independence-minded pundits like to talk about. You need to reduce the autonomy of members of congress so that they’re more-or-less saying “yes or no” to proposals cooked up by people who know what they’re talking about.
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