Independents Rising

Every year is an election year. Although most political junkies are either still recovering from the drama of the 2008 presidential election or are already gearing up for the sure to be eventful 2010 midterm elections, there are also a few notable elections taking place here in 2009 in the United States. Political commentators, ever eager for new data to turn over and spin to their hearts' delight, feel these elections might just show whether the country is leaning more towards President Obama or more against him, depending on whether Democrats or Republicans are successful. To me, however, the most interesting thing about the 2009 electoral season doesn't have to do with either the Democrats or the Republicans, but rather the fact that one independent candidate and one third party candidate have remained competitive in their races despite facing decidedly more established opposition.

The independent candidate, Chris Daggett, is competing with Democrat Jon Corzine and Republican Chris Christie for the office of governor in New Jersey. Polls have been all over the place for this election, with Daggett's support in particular proving variable -- at least one poll saw the independent pushing near 20% support, but others have him at less than 10% and pretty much out of striking distance. Which ever scenario is correct, Daggett is quite an interesting candidate. He's just what an independent candidate ought to be, in my view -- a candidate whose views don't fit neatly into a box. He's reminiscent to me of Ross Perot in some ways (though Jon Corzine is definitely the rich guy in the race in New Jersey...he spends millions on his political campaigns out of his own personal wealth), not so much in what he says but in his varied mix of stances on issues and his willingness to adopt new approaches to issues. He certainly has the most interesting approach to taxation. New Jersey's property taxes are among the highest in the nation on average and all three candidates acknowledge to some extent that that has some pernicious effects. Governor Corzine emphasizes the importance of providing relief to vulnerable groups who can't afford such high taxes. Christie absolutely does want to see property taxes fall (he is even more of a supporter of rebates than Corzine) and just about every other type of tax as well, and he's been extremely critical of Corzine's past tax-related actions and how they differed from his rhetoric. What Daggett wants to do, though, is something quite different. Like Christie, he does want property tax rates lower, but he actually is more a tax rearranger than a tax cutter at heart. Instead of having local governments rely so much on the property tax, he wants to increase the reach of the sales tax so that services provided by professionals like lawyers and accountants are also taxed in New Jersey. Now, a tax is a tax (and Christie has blasted Daggett as essentially being a tax and spender, too), but this change would seem to correct an inequity in the sales tax system and at the same time reduce the tax burden on property owners. Sales taxes, generally speaking, let taxpayers exert a greater degree of control on how much they pay than property taxes (at least for property owners), and in this case it's mainly professional services being taxed rather than strict necessities. Daggett's plan, however, does have the burden of being complicated and certainly will require local and state governments to see things eye to eye.

Independents are often viewed as spoiler candidates, and Chris Daggett has definitely been criticized as being one. I find it odd, however, that the general consensus seems to be that Daggett draws more votes away from Christie than Corzine. Daggett has some bold new ideas and isn't afraid to step on a few government toes, particularly in the education sector, but I'd say he leans a little more to the left than to the right politically speaking. He is pro gay marriage, pro-choice, a staunch environmentalist and advocate for green jobs, and pro gun control. While Christie isn't necessarily the polar opposite of Daggett on all those issues, I don't get why Christie supporters would be more apt to go to Daggett than Corzine supporters for ideological reasons...unless Corzine supporters are really, really passionate about their local property taxes. Although I talked about Daggett's different approach to taxation, he's definitely not some small government conservative. He does feel property taxes are too high around the state, but he welcomes the idea of raising other taxes: sales taxes, gas taxes, tolls. Christie is the only real across the board anti-tax candidate. What seems to have hurt Christie is his lack of specifics when it comes to describing how exactly he will reign in spending. New Jersey is already facing a serious budget shortfall; even Corzine's government has adopted austerity policies to deal with the mounting deficit. Every government would theoretically like to eliminate "waste", but it's not so easy to do for one man's waste is another's gravy train. Christie doesn't seem able to do the Ron Paul thing and whittle off the names of dozens of programs he wants to cut -- frankly, he seems more talk than action to me. Though a great debate attack dog, he has more bark than bite. He's also been hurt by the publicizing of an incident in which he escaped a ticket seemingly because of his position as U.S. Attorney...this matters particularly because there's been an awful lot of corruption uncovered among New Jersey politicians lately. On the other hand, I would describe Corzine's campaign as basically lackluster. It might not have a potentially fatal flaw like Christie's, but when you put it all together you get a very uninspiring whole. As an incumbent, Corzine must defend his record, but a campaign based on more of the same is pretty dull. What's more is that Corzine seems to have a tendency to dismiss problems as if they're irrelevant even though many people are very concerned about them. So Corzine expresses pride over New Jersey test scores while Christie and Daggett talk about a dangerously flawed and unequal system. Daggett's description of the way the graduation exam system works in NJ shocked me. Corzine also has a tendency to blame the current poor economic situation in Jersey largely on the overall financial crisis -- I'm sure that's largely true, but sometimes a recession can be something politicians use to hide behind so they don't have to address serious economic problems such as an unfriendly business climate that drives jobs away which is just what Christie thinks New Jersey has.

Can Daggett win? Only in a surprise based on polling data. At the end of the day, it IS hard to beat that two party system...even when you've presented the best campaign, as I think Daggett has. If Christie wins, I think the whole election will have the feel of a referendum on property taxes and on government spending. People will be voting in the hope the man can work miracles in office even as he has struggled to articulate concrete plans on the campaign trail. If Corzine wins, I think that shows that by and large New Jersey voters are content with their state's situation given the state of the nation. Something that Chris Christie said in the October 1st debate has stuck with me: he said that for every one government employee there are twenty one people in New Jersey. I don't know how mathematically accurate that statement is, but I think it sums up why it's so hard for big tax areas to change their levying ways. There are an awful lot of people invested in the status quo in New Jersey. Jon Corzine is their best bet to preserve that status quo. That alone could be enough to power him to victory. In any case, it'll be interesting to see what happens and particularly how Daggett's independent campaign fares.

Another election being shaken up by an outsider candidate is the special election to name the next member of the House of Representatives from New York's 23d congressional district. Here the outsider, Doug Hoffman, has a party of sorts -- it's the Conservative Party of New York. It might not seem like a true third party in that it commonly endorses other candidates running as Republicans or Democrats provided they are deemed conservative enough, but from time to time candidates do run under its banner. That seems to have happened in NY-23 primarily because the Republican candidate for the House seat, Dede Scozzafava, was perceived as not being conservative enough primarily due to her stances on social issues and her ties to unions. Scozzafava got some early buzz online as a possible libertarian-leaning candidate because of her pledged support for low taxes and her socially liberal stance on gay marriage, but probably she's better described as a liberal Republican. I think she struggled to find an overarching theme to her campaign, and to a certain extent I think she didn't WANT to run the race she was forced to run. By that I mean I don't think she wanted to be the liberal Republican candidate; her campaign site doesn't seem to include anything about abortion, gay marriage, unions, etc. Instead she talks about pro-business policies, about support for tax cuts, about opposition to the Death Tax and reform of the Alternative Minimum Tax, about supporting agriculture, and about protecting seniors. She and the Democratic candidate Bill Owens would likely have argued more about things like who would bring more jobs in to the district and just generally help the constituents out. Owens is naturally also pro-agriculture, and he has an interesting strategy of encouraging investment from Canada. Perhaps they would've scuffled a bit over health care reform -- Dede controversially suggested the "hurry" to change health care was unreasonable while Owens is a supporter of many of the proposed Democrat reforms (he's probably best considered as a moderate Democrat). Ultimately, though, the race wouldn't have been so much about ideology as it would have been about winning the trust of the voters and it would have been much more locally focused despite being a federal election. Doug Hoffman changed all that.

Hoffman seems to be both more ideological and national in his outlook than his two opponents. He opposes bailouts and loathed Obama's stimulus plan. He fervently opposes raising taxes and has signed a "No New Taxes" pledge. He is anti-earmarks. He's opposed to gay marriage. He is strongly pro-life. He's also squarely focused on continuing to fight the war on terror wherever those terrorists lurk. Hoffman is not nearly as unique a candidate as Chris Daggett; by and large, he seems to have many of the same political positions as most Republicans and frankly I'm not so sure he's any more sincere than most GOP politicians when it comes to fiscal issues. Unlike Scozzafava, though, he's ideologically pure from the Republican point of view which has led him to get all sorts of endorsements from well-known Republicans like Sarah Palin and Fred Thompson...that is seriously unusual in the world of third party politics where candidates are often treated like pariahs by the establishment. He's also a contemporary conservative -- he's aware of the widespread resentment among conservatives towards the bailouts and free spending in Washington and was able to conflate Scozzafava's support for a New York state stimulus plan with support for Obama's national stimulus plan. If Hoffman wins, my guess is he'll be running for reelection as a regular Republican...with the reendorsement of the Conservative Party of New York, of course.

Unlike Daggett, Hoffman has a very good chance to win the election. The nominal Republican, Scozzafava, has suspended her campaign though she'll still be on the ballot...she had fallen to third place in the race according to polling. Hoffman's policies may not be all that unorthodox, but just the fact that he has managed to do so well and even thwart the hopes of the Republican candidate bodes well for the possibility of other third party and independent candidates also succeeding in American politics. Daggett's success has also been a net positive for much the same reasons. I'm also glad whenever the voters have more of a choice about who to vote for. One thing we can say about both the New Jersey gubernatorial race and the NY-23 House race is that all the candidates have different views on some issue or another...hopefully fewer people than usual will have to hold their nose to vote this time around due to those extra options.