Radio Host Michael Smerconish Joins Growing Ranks of Independent Voters, Will Remain Heterosexual
From the HuffPost comes word of Philly-based talk-radio host Michael Smerconish's defection from the Party of Lincoln to the ranks of NOTA:
The national GOP is a party of exclusion and litmus tests, dominated on social issues by the religious right, with zero discernible outreach by the national party to anyone who doesn't fit neatly within its parameters. Instead, the GOP has extended itself to its fringe while throwing under the bus long-standing members like New York Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a McCain-Palin supporter in 2008 who told me she voted with her Republican leadership 90 percent of the time before running for Congress last fall.
Which is not to say I feel comfortable in the Democratic Party, either. Weeks before Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh's announcement that he will not seek reelection, I noted the centrist former governor's words to the Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib. Too many Democrats, Bayh said in that interview, are "tone-deaf" to Americans' belief that the party had "overreached rather than looking for consensus with moderates and independents."…
I think that in 2008, the GOP was wrong to adopt a party platform that maintained a strict opposition to abortion without at least carving out exceptions in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life. I was appalled that legislators tried to decide Terri Schiavo's end-of-life plan. I don't care if two guys hook up any more than they should care about my heterosexual lifestyle. And I still don't know what to think about climate change….
I have no idea whether Smerconish is a bellwether or a ding-dong when it comes to this sort of move, though he's right to point out that going independent is where the action is politically. According to an ABC/Wash Post poll, 39 percent ID themselves as indies, 32 percent as Dems, and 26 percent of Reps.
