Alan Walker studies the names when he gets
ready to mark a ballot, but barely glances at the letters beside them.
"I generally prefer to vote for the person, not the party," says Walker, an
engineer at Hynix Semiconducter in Eugene. Republican? Democrat? He doesn't
really care too much -- as long as the candidate has something to offer.
"I just don't like all the partisanship," he says.
Walker, 37, is part of an increasingly influential corps of independent, or
non-affiliated, voters in Oregon. It's a movement that, with no
organization, no advertising, no focus groups, has become the
fastest-growing segment of the state's electorate.
The impact is clear in Oregon, where a Republican state senator has bolted
the party to run for governor as an independent, another senator says she
might drop her Democratic ties when she returns to Salem next year, and a
campaign has been launched to put an independent-friendly open primary
measure on the November ballot.
Across the nation, meanwhile, independent candidates are making credible
runs for governor in several states.
It adds up to what could be a banner year for those who have decided to
dispense with party labels.
State Sen. Ben Westlund, a Bend businessman and political centrist, last
week quit a lifelong membership in the Republican Party and announced he is
running for governor as an independent. He has begun collecting the 18,368
signatures he needs to get his name on the November general election ballot.
Westlund says he plans to present himself as the calmer alternative to "the
name-calling, the demagoguery" that often tars two-party campaigns. "People
are weary of being told who's right -- the R's are right, the D's are right
-- as opposed to having an intelligent discussion of what's right for
Oregon," he says.
His main message -- that "extreme partisanship" has strangled Oregon's
ability to move forward on its biggest problems -- couldn't be timed better,
says Phil Keisling, former Democratic secretary of state and advocate for
reducing the power of political parties.
"Voters for years have been telling us they don't like what either of the
two major parties are selling," Keisling says. In the past, he says, the
parties had a defined middle that forged the policies that gave Oregon its
reputation as a progressive and innovative state.
"Now," he says, "it's just partisan games of gotcha, vicious attacks, talk
radio. It's just sad."
Primaries for everyone
Keisling is a force behind the effort to put an open-primary measure on the
November ballot that would give independent voters the same ability to
nominate candidates as registered Republicans and Democrats.
Under the measure, all voters, regardless of party affiliation, would
receive a primary ballot and vote on a roster of candidates. The top two
would then run in the general election.
Keisling predicts independent voters, along with those who don't feel
comfortable with the parties they've chosen, will be a potent voice in the
upcoming election.
"There's a tectonic plate that is moving underneath the landscape of Oregon
politics," Keisling says. "We are going to have a wonderful debate in
November."
Not everyone is so sure. Oregon Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John
Day, says the state has been fiercely partisan since its inception, and the
clash between parties often has beneficial political results.
"There's always been high drama, always been polarity in politics," Ferrioli
says. Parties provide the organization, financial support and political
umbrella that can make or break a campaign.
For independents, "it's awfully lonely out there," Ferrioli says. He, like
several others, say that because Westlund can claim a moderate political
background, his candidacy will serve as a real test of the lure of
independence in politics.
"This is either the catalyst independents in Oregon are looking for, or
maybe the deflation of the balloon," Ferrioli says. "He's viable. If he
can't make it as an independent, who can?"
Dropping in, dropping out
Reasons for going the independent route abound. Many become fed up with the
often unseemly and shrill power struggle between the two major parties, and
they drop their registration in protest. Others say they like aspects of
both parties and are reluctant to commit to one or the other.
State Sen. Avel Gordly of Portland says she is leaning toward dropping her
Democratic Party ties, reclaiming the independent status she gave up to vote
for Jesse Jackson in the 1984 presidential primary.
Never comfortable with party politics, Gordly says the most recent
legislative session -- known for its hardball partisan wrangling -- pushed
her to her limit.
"Everything was couched in terms of taking back the House, taking the
Senate, posturing for the next election cycle," she says. It didn't leave
much room for talking about Oregon's future, or making good policy.
She says she became so repulsed at one point last year that she switched her
registration to independent status. She later re-registered as a Democrat so
she wouldn't lose her voice in the Senate caucus meetings.
Now that the Senate Democrats have closed their caucus meetings to the
press, Gordly says she won't attend, which gives her one more reason to go
independent again.
By doing so, Gordly and others give up a fair amount of voting clout, unable
to participate in nominating either Democratic or Republican candidates for
president, the Legislature, governor or other partisan offices. That
limitation has been bugging Lawrence Gallop, a 47-year-old retired postal
worker living in Portland.
"I'm thinking seriously about signing up as a Democrat," says Gallop, who
hasn't registered with a party in more than 10 years. Frustration with the
Bush administration and a desire to vote in the next primary might push him
back in the partisan fold, he says.
But he would be bucking the trend. In Oregon, as well as nationally, the two
major parties have lost ground to independents and, to a lesser degree,
minor parties, such as the Libertarians and the Greens. Combined,
independents and minor party voters now make up about one-fourth of the
approximately 2 million registered voters in the state.
In past elections, independents were seen as swing voters who could decide a
close race between Democratic and Republican candidates. Increasingly,
however, they're being given a third choice: a candidate who, like them, has
opted to forgo party labels and go on the ballot unattached.
In Texas, for example, two independent candidates are running for governor,
one of whom has raised close to $2 million so far. Independents are running
for governor in several other states as well, including Alaska, Georgia and
Minnesota.
"I would say that nationally, there has been a slight spike in credible
independents running for governor," says Austin Cassidy, who runs Third
Party Watch (http://thirdpartywatch.com), a Web site based in Jacksonville,
Fla., that tracks unaffiliated and minor party candidates.
That's a healthy change, says Walker, the Eugene engineer. "I would like a
broader spectrum," he says. "It's nice to sometimes have more than two
candidates."
