I am an independent. I believe that the two parties have failed us. Their partisanship is holding back our progress as a nation. Last week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined the almost 40% of Americans who are independent. We welcome him.

When Mayor Bloomberg made the move to become an independent, he joined the ranks of a significant movement of Americans . We are a new component of the American political scene. His move has sparked a flurry of media and an important conversation about the crisis of democracy in America and the detriments of partisan politics. On Saturday, June 23rd, Jacqueline Salit, the President of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (Independent Voting ) appeared on CSPAN's Washington Journal. Ms. Salit ran Mayor Bloomberg's campaigns on the Independence Party line in 2001 and 2005. In this show, Ms. Salit talks about the bottom-up movement that has been growing which produced the Bloomberg move. You can see the show by clicking on ttp://independentvoting.blogspot.com/ .

I'm interested to hear what you (especially if you're also an independent) think about the show. Please let me know what you think after seeing the show. And please take the CUIP's Presidential Poll at Independent Voting.

It is a critical time for independent minded Americans to be talking and creating a new movement together.


Thanks
Gwen

Bloomberg spoke at my sister-in-law's graduation in May. I really like him. I think he's exactly the kind of guy that could get a lot of much-needed things done, not the least of which is teaching the two big parties how to compromise again.

Unfortunately, I don't think I want him to run simply due to the Nader effect. I don't think I could take another 4 or 8 years with Republicans (esp. neo-cons) at the wheel. I'd rather see a straight-up fight between the two parties this time, because at this point the GOP candidate, whoever it is, is going to get savaged. I don't want to see ANY Dem support siphoned off.

Maybe next time around. This time, it's too important to get the neo-cons out and right the ship.

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He is good friends with Hillary. Seems feasible that they would become running mates.

It would solve ant money probs she might have, but I do not see him settling for the no. 2 spot.

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I highly doubt a Hillary-Bloomberg ticket will occur. Mainly because the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate must be from different states. Unless of course, they pull a Cheney and Hillary moves to Arkansas.

Overall if Bloomberg runs as an independent, he will likely hurt the Democratic nominee. He is more liberal then many democrats and could take enough votes away from the Democrats to flip Pennslyvania, New Jersey to the GOP. That could really hurt the electoral math for Democrats.

Here's the thing abou the so-called "Nader effect". It wouldn't be possible if the Democrats weren't failing so miserably at coming up with any kind of serious opposition to the Republicans' failed policy. Remember, they supported the war until the American people (and particularly, independents) made it impossible for them to do so. Despite the fact that Bush's approval rating is at an alltime low, so is the Congress' and what's going up is not the amount of support for the Dems but rather the number of people registering independent. I'm not telling you who you should vote for, but to the extent that we keep on doing the same old politics in this country, we're going to end up down the same road. Everyone talks about Bush's 8 years, but no one talks about the 8 years under Clintonism which began that road.

Why do we keep focussing on who Bloomberg would hurt? At the moment, he isn't even running - The point is, his announcement presents all kinds of opportunities for the growth of the independent movement and against partisan politics. That's what I'm concerned about

May I remind everyone in this thread that the only reason why Bloomberg has been credited as such a good mayor is because he has been playing off the status of Mayor Giuliani's set-up. Giuliani put together all the blessings that Bloomberg has rode off of and taken credit for. The truth is, Bloomberg has not been a very good mayor at all. He has laid off both police and firefighters and worried more about his own image than the city's.

If you are independent, vote Giuliani. He is the type of independent that this country needs. Although he is republican, he is a moderate that has all the qualities that independents are looking for. If you would like specifics I would be more than happy to be willing to divulge them.

Do you live in New York? I do. Giuliani and Bloomberg could not be more different when it comes to how they've governed NY - Bloomberg was not a politician, Guiliani was. But I'm not going to get into the philosophical differences here - The biggest difference is that Bloomberg ran as an independent (on The Independence Party line) and agreed to support Non-Partisan elections. Guiliani has no such history. Who you align yourself with is what makes the difference.

Yes, my family moved out to the west coast two years ago. So, I haven't had much time w/ Bloomberg, but Giuliani is the reason why New York City is the way it is today. He made Harlem safe and a nice place to live, crime went down drastically, overall level of schooling increased for alls (including minorities), and just the overall standards of the city increased. Bloomberg has done some, but won because he had money, not because he was popular. Giuliani is an attorney at heart. He will fight for anything until it gets right.