Eavesdropping on the Indies

By Friday, the vacant Independent Party Leader position will be filled. One of the largest gaping holes left by my departure will be spackled over, and life will assume a different standard of normality, but normality nonetheless. The strange predicament TheWiz found himself in as the interim spokesman will end, and another Indy will be in the position of being ignored by the moderators, defending the Independents against the onslaught of criticism the Republicans and especially their Hard Right elements, promoting candidates who most likely will be completely on the other side of the political spectrum from him or her, while at the same time conducting his or her own campaign.

It was a challenge for me, but I will tell you, fellow Independents, and especially whoever assumes leadership, it became my favorite part of being at U4Prez.

I peek in from time to time, and I know there has been praise for my efforts from some, criticism from others, concerning my definition of Independent Party Leader. From within the party, I almost universally received positive feedback, even gratitude. I think most of U4Prez understood what I was trying to do, even my staunchest adversaries on the Hard Right knew, they were merely contrarian for its own sake. God Bless them for their consistency, even in promoting difference of expression, they never turned down a chance to stick it to Olivia.

Which might be to your advantage, leader-to-be. Without the baggage Olivia brought with her, you might have less opposition from the Hard Right thugs than I did.

So, what exactly did Olivia do as Independent Leader, anyway? I invite anyone to offer her own perspective to this question, but this is the way I perceived what I did.

When I ran for the leadership position, I already had a record of being against the two-party system. I had declared myself an Independent because I wanted to make a stand against the Republocrats and somehow make a dent in their duopoly. There is no inherent reason why there should be but two major parties in the first place, both of them trying to appeal to all, yet serving none. I felt, because these two entrenched parties had been drunk with power for so long, they no longer differentiated themselves from one another, except to try to convince the American people the other guy was bad because of the R or the D after their names. Between the truly petty partisanship, the ultranegative campaigning, the distortion of news to fit agendas, and the collusion the two parties had to keep other parties out of the loop, I simply had enough. I am an Independent because I do not wish to be associated with either party at all, because other voices are out there that deserve to be heard, and if we continue to prop up this two-party fantasy, politics will get more and more corrupt and less and less answerable to the American voting public.

As a candidate, I ran primarily on this one issue, and I had set up the Antipartisan Pledge as a way of seeing who was out there who agreed with the sentiment. There are plenty of other candidates, from all parties, who are simply tired of politics-as-usual, of petty partisan bickering, and they want to do something about it. Some want to bring that garbage to U4Prez, thinking dirty politics is all fair in love and war. Others, and I consider myself one of them, believed politics need not bring out the worst in people, and the winners need not be the one who can sling the most mud.

More or less, everyone knew why I was an Independent, so I didn't have to talk too much about myself when I ran for Indy Leader. With my record out there for all to see, I could focus on HOW I would do the job of Leader. While the Republicans and Democrats were talking about platform-building, I shucked that idea altogether, and put together my own methodology.

I made it very clear in my speech when I campaigned for the post, and I put it on the Indyleader profile, there was no way you could get, at that time, 600 Independents, going 600 different directions, to agree to a centralized platform. One of you might know how to do it, but from where I sit, I deemed it impossible, so I didn't even try. I lean left on most issues, how in the world am I going to convince a hardcore rightwing Indy like, for instance, CoryF, to go along with any platform I could come up with? Even if a committee were set up to compromise, inherently, such a central agenda is anathema to everything Independents stand for. The very idea of an Independent Party was a contradiction of terms.

That's something my detractors on the Hard Right never understood. There are reasons as to why we all went Indy. I rattled off a few reasons why I did, and chances are they reflect the same opinions of others. But Icababe's story is different from CoryF's, or MejicoJohn's, or CHASE, or Maditude, or my own. Respecting their individual cases, I never lifted a finger to try to agree on a platform. Independents are a diverse bunch, whether they promote it or not. People belong to parties so they can do the work leadership provides them, and work themselves up over the years. They don't want to lead themselves, they want to be part of something greater than themselves. While I can respect that, it's not for me, and it's not for anyone who wants to promote their own campaigns, without having to answer to party elite.

I think I had a good bead on this, and I think that is why I won with 52% of the vote, the only party leader to win with a majority. Of course, ALL elections are suspect on U4Prez, but I digress.

And, true to my word, I didn't ever bring up platforms. Outsiders, especially select Republicans, felt I was blowing my party off. To hell with them. I was going to be damned, whether I followed the traditional route of platform-building or not. If I'm going to be damned for anything, it's for acting on my own terms.

So, no platform. What, then, did I do?

My big thing was promotion. Exposure. Trying to give Independents other outlets. I get enough exposure as it is, it was time to promote them with the same zeal in which I promote myself. I defy anyone to claim I plastered my name and face all over the Indyleader profile, you would be a damn liar. I only put my name it twice, once within my usual farewell of Love, Olivia. XXX. The other was my resignation letter. You never saw my face there, and you never saw a shred of self-promotion.

One consideration I made was using the Indyleader profile itself as a billboard for individual Independents. Typically, you would see five or six videos, all from Independents, from what I could find from YouTube. It was my way of giving the more creative Independents a small boost of exposure. Any Independent could take advantage of it. I check YouTube all the time, so if they even put one up without being told, I would know it existed myself.

We will never know how effective such tactics were, but I know they were appreciated. I remember one particular night, CHASE came around, excited about his new camera. I told him previously I was using the Indyleader profile to promote videos, and I used his latest one. He couldn't believe anyone would try such a thing, and he was very gracious toward me, thanking me. Previous to that, CHASE and I would talk incredibly rarely, so the notion that someone he barely knew would take enough interest in him to promote his videos, he thought that was the greatest thing! A few weeks later, he hunted me down in mid-debate and told me he just made a new video with his new camera, but it wasn't on YouTube yet. I was able to get his video on the Indyleader profile within five minutes of his telling me of it. In other words, I got a video on the Indyleader profile before YouTube! Whether that gets CHASE any more 10's, only he knows if it helped. But he certainly did seem to enjoy the fact that someone gave enough of a damn about him and his campaign to give it a try.

What were the Democrats or Republicans doing? Think08 was on family leave, so the Dems were dead in the water. The Republicans had Mduminiak's mug smeared all over the profile, his name is big bold letters. No promotion for anyone except himself and his Steering Committee. Remember how I told you there was no way I could ever force the Independents in a box and make them like it? Mduminiak tried to strongarm the entire Republican Party the same way Kempite bullies the Liberty Caucus, and he used the Steering Committee to do so. Basically, he found about twelve yes-men, many of who knew he could count on to brown-nose him pretty good from the LC, and basically created an elite within the GOP. A couple of the more veteran Republicans, namely Copulate and HAK, raised hell over this, and it literally took a month for Mduminiak and his new gang of goons to capitulate and let others in. Back to promotion, what was Mduminiak promoting? Well, other than himself, he was putting out videos, one campaign was to insult the other parties. He basically called the Independents a bunch of sheep for following me in what he referred to as the Olivia Party, and he called the Democrats a bunch of whiners. His other campaign was to promote the history of the GOP, and in both campaigns, I found it odd, he never brought up a thing the GOP did in the last 30 years. Any accomplishment he cited as a Republican victory, it was when Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt was president, when the party was much more progressive than it is today. Everything he cited as a Republican plus, liberals could also point to. The fact that Mduminiak asked Independents the question, why have Eisenhower, when you could have Ralph Nader, was laughable at the time, and it's more laughable as time wears on. Was there a single president from the last 20 years he could say the same? He pointed out the very reason why we became Independents, because the presidential nominees the two big parties put out over the last 20 years have been horrid! Mduminiak is probably the lamest candidate on U4Prez, and five months of tangles with me have proved it again and again and again. Not the dumbest, not the meanest, not the ugliest, just the lamest.

Every so often, when I sensed a dead spot in the current discussion, I would chime in on the Indyleader board with something snappy and snazzy, something to bring a little attention to the Indies while, at the same time, taking a poke at the other parties. I might write something like, while the other party leaders are busy turning their profiles into jukeboxes, we at the Independent Movement are finding new ways to promote our candidates. While other party leaders are trying to tell their candidates what to think and feel and do, the Independents are free to run their campaigns any old way they choose. While other party leaders are picking their buddies for committees, the Independents have no leadership to kiss up to. I know it irked Think08 and especially MDuminiak, but it did seem effective in getting the Independent message out.

It was also effective in gaining not only several defections, but it drew such a thick line between the Indies and the other two parties, that they had a clear-cut choice, not only in ideology, but in philosophies of leadership. MDuminiak proved to be a top-down kind of guy, big on organization, and if you were on the outside looking in, sucks for you. I had no structure, no organization, no platform at all. I was earning my keep by being a one-woman PR staff, using my energies in promotion alone. Candidates from any party could look at the very different tactics used, and many turned Independent, in spirit if not in actual practice, because there was such a disparity of style. Mike could never understand why I didn't put a platform together, and I know it was a mistake for him to try.

The grand virtues I had as a candidate were a big mouth and a lack of shame. I had no problem mixing it up during an argument, and every chance I get, I tried to defend Independents. That is, after all, part of leadership, right? Defending yours? MejicoJohn was screwed with TWICE in run-offs, and I made sure my opinion was heard. Someone would laugh at why we didn't have a platform--I said we do have platforms, we have 700 platforms, because we have 700 Independents. BigDaddy was playing his petty little games with me one day, trying to drive a wedge between myself and the more conservative elements of the party, asking if I kept candidates like CoryF and Icababe in the loop; I had to ask, what loop? What business? They have no one to answer to, they're Independents, you genius! They're their own boss! LuckyNum was lashing out at CoryF one day, calling him a Republican disguised as an Independent--I jumped hard on Lucky, telling him CoryF has every right to give up his autonomy and play goon for Mduminiak if he pleased, but he chose to be his own man and be an Independent, and I don't care if he's left or right, he has his reasons, and I respect them, step off. This was my baby, and as I wrote elsewhere, no one fucks with the Independents on my watch.

But that was me, and it's no longer my watch. The new leadership will have his or her own style. For instance, you might indeed think it pertinent to put together a platform, or at least a list of ideals all Independents generally agree upon. I had such a list on the Antipartisan Pledge. You might try to find those common bonds, that which repelled you from the two mammoth parties. For the right leader, it could happen.

But I am confident that our fellow Independents, the ones who supported me and gave me words of encouragement throughout my tenure, will give whoever emerges as leader their loyalty and support. That's one thing I could count on among the Independents; although they were all their own sovereign, they all knew the ties that bound us all together and respected them. Liberal or conservative, moderate or extremist, they all know why they went Independent, and that reason is their own. We are all captains of our own ships, and yet, at the same time, we're all in the same boat.

Good luck.

Love, Olivia. XXX