Salit shared thoughts about the upcoming National Conference of Independents, “Partnerships for Independent Power” with close to 200 activists.  

“We’ve designed the conference to bring some people together who don’t usually talk to one another and want to try to shape those discussions and conversations in a way that can take us to new ground.”

“No matter who we vote for…no matter how much we vote for change, everything pretty much stays the same. What are we going to do about the fact that we are trapped in a self-perpetuating system of enduring partisanship…?  Surely getting out of that trap involves some systemic changes.  Otherwise the system will ensure that things simply don’t change.”

“I think that the results  [of the new NBC/Wall Street poll] indicate that…a majority of Americans believe that casting a vote in the Congressional elections will have little or no impact on what goes on in Congress and in the corridors of power….Independents are hard at work building those new mechanisms of political action…”

During the midterm political season where talk is about which party will prevail, Salit talks about Independent Voting’s “Voting Rights Are Primary” campaign and to some of the activists leading the campaign to amplify the voices of independents and highlight the restrictions on the rights of independents to vote.

Jackie Salit analogized the wave of independent motion to the reported cosmological breakthrough:

” I’d argue that we, through various things we’re doing to build our movement, are providing and creating a special energy (to use the scientific term) that’s driving the expansion and development of the independent political universe.”

Jackie Salit spoke about the War on Poverty on its 50th anniversary and how it gave greater control to the political parties while failing in its mission. “We are the force, that believes public policy has got to be nonpartisan, it’s got to be workable, it has to be developmental, and it can’t be structured or organized in ways that accrue greater and greater power to the political parties…

Progress report on Independent Voting’s campaign to pressure the Commission on Presidential Elections. Salit address the crisis of partisanship. “Party loyalists are working overtime to protect themselves from any kind of nonpartisan reform while we are being told to sit down and be quiet.”

Salit speaks about IndependentVoting.org’s new campaign on the Presidential Commission on the Election Administration to recognize that Americans want non-partisan government on every level.  She speaks about it in the backdrop of the supreme court decision striking down Section 4 of the Voter Rights Act that protected candidates in minority districts.  

How do we grow our movement? Why is our grassroots movement interested in nonpartisan elections and open primaries?  How the system impacts the lives of real people, how we live and govern.  Why political reform issues are not technical issues.  Pursuing new forms of political association and a political system to address America’s challenges.

In the runup to IndependentVoting.org’s 7th conference, Salit talks about changing politics in America and how independents are responding.  Debate over strategy isn’t taking place in the academy, but in the communities, in the reality of mainstream American politics. How do we make the political system developmental and relevant for mainstream America?