The Jonah Goldberg column "Why everyone is labeling themselves 'independent'" (Oct. 6 print edition) is excellent. I think many people have seen that what the author calls "institutional isomorphism" is the principle reason. The two parties have packaged political belief in a way that presents differences while hiding similarities.

It needs to be stressed that what we call independent voters are often not centrist or swing voters. Political polls will usually give categories ranging from "very conservative" to "very liberal," and sometimes "independent" is considered the middle category. A very liberal person, however, may be a libertarian, and so leftists like myself are loathe to click that option on the survey, even though neither of the others seem appropriate either.

It is annoying

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