To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak Truth

The primary election is over in Texas and now it’s game on for the independents. This is going to be a test of whether or not arcane election laws can be effective in keeping candidates off the general election ballot. Usually no one notices or questions the laws enacted by partisan legislatures who have a strongly vested interest in perpetuating their incumbency. Everyone simply takes it for granted that the two dominant parties are screening out the unqualified and giving voters a meaningful choice. Check out the percentage of registered voters who don’t vote in primaries and don’t even understand the candidate selection process and you will begin to understand what is wrong with this system.

This time in Texas, things are different. We’ve got two major independent candidates for Governor trying to get on the ballot. To do that, they will have a short couple of months to gather nearly 50,000 signatures on their petitions. Those signers must be registered voters. That’s not an onerous requirement. They must also have NOT voted in the primary election! Not just not voted for governor, but they must have chosen not to vote for any of the state representatives, district attorneys, county judges, commissioners, etc. that were chosen last Tuesday to represent their parties. That IS onerous. And, it is a restriction clearly designed to keep non-believers off the ballot.

But, I’ve got a feeling that this time the slippery mountain is going to be climbed. Take a look at this item from a New York newspaper--- It's Showtime!!!

Kinky is just strange enough to activate a couple of generations of young voters who have been alienated by the two-party system. I’m willing to bet that he’ll make the quota with ease—but I’m also willing to bet that there will be a plethora of legal battles challenging his petitions as well. That will be a mistake for the partisan politicians because it will simply highlight his underdog status and make very clear the protectionism of the incumbents. He’s going to come out a winner both in court and in the minds of the voters.

I’ve got to like any politician, particularly one in Texas, who will make a politically incorrect statement like, “ride, shoot straight and speak the truth.” It addresses core Texas values and gives a very clear nod to an American icon, Jeff Cooper. The Source Document

I used to spend a lot of time in political science classes talking about why America is a two-party system unlike most democracies around the world. There’s nothing in our Constitution that sets it up that way. It grew from the debates of the Framers, the discussions of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The two sides coalesced around principles and developed the two major philosophies of how to interpret our Constitution.

With incumbency there came the need for preservation of their power. That led to legislation and procedural decisions that virtually insure the failure of independent candidates in twenty-first century America. Get elected to Congress as an independent and you are virtually certain to be ineffective as you can’t be in any sort of decision-making position in committees or on the floor of the chamber.

Since independents don’t succeed, few of the media mavens pay attention to them. Remember the struggle of Ralph Nader to participate in the Presidential debates? Even Ross Perot’s billions couldn’t get him credibility and he wound up having to buy his own TV time to reach the American voters with his message.

There is really only one place in government that independents have a slim chance to be effective if they should ever be elected. That is in the chief executive seat of the state or local governments. Put an independent in the legislature and he or she will be locked out of the process. Put them in the governor’s or mayor’s chair and they can influence policy, speak from a bully pulpit and operate without regard to whether a good idea has come from the left or the right side of the aisle.

It is a grueling task and frustration can often drive the individual from office after only one term, but it is possible. I’ve said it before in these pages. I don’t know if Kinky Friedman has what it takes to convince the Texas electorate that he has solutions to the state’s problems. I suspect that he’s got a leg up on the partisan candidates because he can propose without paying lip service to past decisions and without being indebted to special interests which have steered us to where we are today. He’s got a chance.

And a surprising number of Texans seem to be fed up with the non-productive partisan rhetoric without a plan of the two major parties.