There’s a lengthy analysis of political independents in the Washington Post today, based on an extensive survey conducted by the Post in collaboration with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The piece doesn’t exactly break a lot of new ground, but it’s interesting enough to check out. Matt Yglesias summarizes the piece’s conclusions quite well: “Many independents are actually partisans. Many others just have no idea what they’re talking about. A few really do pay attention and swing anyway.”
There was, however, one piece of information from the report that struck me as odd.
While these independents swung substantially to the Democratic side in 2006, 77 percent of them say they would seriously consider voting for an independent if one were running.
Is it me, or is 77% a little low? Nearly one-in-four self-described independents wouldn’t consider voting for an independent? Then why even consider yourself an independent?
Must be part of that no-idea-what-they’re-talking-about bloc.
