Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Today, on the date of the special election in Massachusetts, I want to make the point that the political paradigm is changing. It is not the Democratic voters who elected Obama and it will not be the Republican voters who elect Scott Brown today. It is the non affiliated independent voters who are determining the outcome of the elections and like it or not, they (we) will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

In fact, I will go out on a limb and make the case, as I have in the past, it is going to be the independent voter, gaining strength through the evolution of instantaneous communication, who are going to save the Republic from implosion.

We're not happy with what is happening on the national political front -- with either party -- we're energized, we're organizing and we're beginning to make our presence known. It doesn't take a genius to see this, you only have to observe what happened with Ron Paul and Obama during the 2008 cycle, with McDonnell during the 2009 Va. Gubernatorial race and with Scott Brown during the last 90 days to see the independents fingerprints all over the electoral process. Combine that with the remarkable showing of the (admittedly poor) independent candidate in Upstate NY. and to a lesser degree the NJ governors race and you can track the growing influence of the independent voter.

I had a very interesting breakfast meeting with a couple of friends this morning. One is an extremely rare and intelligent businessman who is rare because he is both Jewish and a Republican voter. Much of our discussion centered around politics, Scott Brown's campaign and my belief in and support of the independent movement. One of the most interesting points which I came away with is this: As a block, Jewish people are the second largest group of Democratic voters, averaging more than 75% democrat -- not because they necessarily agree with the Democratic platform, but because they historically and I might add, very emotionally, oppose their perception of the Republican platform. They're not strict democrats, they are strict anti-republicans.

If this block is offered a third alternative, one lets say, which espouses compassionate conservatism, without the Republican label, it was opined by these esteemed gentlemen, that a significant percentage of the Jewish vote would fall to the third option.

One thing which has become apparent over the last year -- our short term emotional experiment with Obama is over and our 50 year experiment with the growth of professional politicians is rapidly on its way out -- if we want the Republic to survive.