Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

More independent candidates needed

More independent candidates needed
Getty Images

Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.

There is something very healthy as well as very threatening about the increasing number of independent candidates for president, notably Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein. West and Stein are on the radical left-wing, and Kennedy is an eccentric centrist.


Our political system is so troubled that new perspectives are definitely needed. The problem is that too many independents running for president may well throw the entire presidential election into chaos and leave no one with 270 electoral votes. Regardless of your politics, it would not be good for the country if the 2024 presidential election gets decided by the U.S. House of Representatives, where a Republican would win since the Republicans will have the authority to make the choice.

What our country needs even more than independents running for president is independents running for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. Moreover, we need to transition from the hopeless goal of bipartisanship to the catalyzing goal of tripartisanship. Indeed, Washington politics needs a tripartisan revolution.

Charles Wheelan made the case in The Centrist Manifesto that five or six centrist Senators who were members of a centrist political party would have enormous leverage on Capitol Hill. He called his strategy the "Fulcrum Strategy." He is correct, but Third Parties paint a target on their back and are therefore always going to run dark horse candidates. Independents, on the other hand, whatever their ideology, can get elected one at a time if they are deft, thoughtful, and well-funded. Some can even get elected if they are not well-funded. The tripartisan ideal does not seek to impose a Third Party vision on the country, left-wing, right-wing or centrist. Rather, it seeks a creative synthesis of concepts and values taken from the Democrats, the Republicans, and a diverse group of independents.

The energy and diversity we are seeing at the level of presidential politics is encouraging but it is also misdirected. Theoretically, even if one of the independents won the race for the presidency there would still be major limitations on what he or she could accomplish -- certainly in domestic politics -- if the Congress remained almost entirely in the hands of the Democrats and the Republicans.

The ideal scenario over the next six to eight years is for about three more independents to be elected to the Senate (there are three now, Senators King, Sinema and Sanders), 10 to 15 independents to be elected to the House, and an independent to be elected to the presidency. These independents would also all rally around the ideal of tripartisanship. Their commitment to the tripartisanship ideal would compel the Democrats and Republicans to work with this third force in American politics to resolve our most pressing policy issues, including gun safety, entitlement reform, immigration, paid leave and child care, health care, the national debt, energy, and foreign policy. These independents, who would not represent the same ideological perspective, would nevertheless frequently vote together, maybe four out of six in the Senate, in order to help the majority party get to 60 votes on major policy bills in order to preserve their club, their leverage, and their chances of reelection.

To be sure, electoral reform is critically important for a tripartisanship revolution to come about, notably Open Primaries, ranked choice voting, and nonpartisan voting districts. There are without doubt structural factors that continue to impede the ability for independents to both run for office and vote in primary elections. At the same time, it is worth pointing out that doubling or tripling turnout in primaries -- from 20% to 40% or 60% -- would also diminish the power of the base in both major parties.

Talk of a Joe Manchin campaign for president has boomed now that he has declared that he will not run for reelection in 2024. Although he might be a candidate to run on a centrist No Labels ticket, he should also consider running as an independent who is motivated both by his centrist values and the tripartisan ideal.

Read More

Xavier Becerra Steps Back Into California Politics

Xavier Becerra

Xavier Becerra Steps Back Into California Politics

Xavier Becerra is once again stepping onto familiar ground. After serving in Congress, leading California’s Department of Justice, and joining President Joe Biden’s Cabinet as Secretary of Health and Human Services, he is now seeking the governorship of his home state. His campaign marks both a return to local politics and a renewed confrontation with Donald Trump, now back in the White House.

Becerra’s message combines pragmatism and resistance. “We’ll continue to be a leader, a fighter, and a vision of what can be in the United States,” he said in his recent interview with Latino News Network. He recalled his years as California’s attorney general, when he “had to take him on” to defend the state’s laws and families. Between 2017 and 2021, Becerra filed or joined more than 120 lawsuits against the Trump administration, covering immigration, environmental protection, civil rights, and healthcare. “We were able to defend California, its values and its people,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
​Voting booths in a high school.

During a recent visit to Indianapolis, VP JD Vance pressed Indiana Republicans to consider mid-decade redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Getty Images, mphillips007

JD Vance Presses Indiana GOP To Redraw Congressional Map

On October 10, Vice President JD Vance visited Indianapolis to meet with Republican lawmakers, urging them to consider redrawing Indiana’s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The visit marked Vance’s third trip to the state in recent months, underscoring the Trump administration’s aggressive push to expand Republican control in Congress.

Vance’s meetings are part of a broader national strategy led by President Donald Trump to encourage GOP-led states to revise district boundaries mid-decade. States like Missouri and Texas have already passed new maps, while Indiana remains hesitant. Governor Mike Braun has met with Vance and other Republican leaders. Still, he has yet to commit to calling a special legislative session. Braun emphasized that any decision must ensure “fair representation for every Hoosier."

Keep ReadingShow less
A child looks into an empty fridge-freezer in a domestic kitchen.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the USDA’s Household Food Security Report halts decades of hunger data tracking.

Getty Images, Catherine Falls Commercial

Trump Gives Up the Fight Against Hunger

A Vanishing Measure of Hunger

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target resources and advocate for stronger programs.

Now there is no new data. The survey has been “suspended for review,” officially to allow for a “methodological reassessment” and cost analysis. Critics say the timing and language suggest political motives. It is one of many federal data programs quietly dropped under a Trump executive order on so-called “nonessential statistics,” a phrase that almost parodies itself. Labeling hunger data “nonessential” is like turning off a fire alarm because it makes too much noise; it implies that acknowledging food insecurity is optional and reveals more about the administration’s priorities than reality.

Keep ReadingShow less
Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

U.S. President Donald Trump poses with the signed agreement at a world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war on October 13, 2025 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

(Photo by Suzanne Plunkett - Pool / Getty Images)

Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

American political leaders have forgotten how to be gracious to their opponents when people on the other side do something for which they deserve credit. Our antagonisms have become so deep and bitter that we are reluctant to give an inch to our political adversaries.

This is not good for democracy.

Keep ReadingShow less