Everyone is wondering where the charmingly independent electorate is going to land. Will the Republicans be able to convince the body politic that they have gone back to their roots (platform), and pull in the independents? Will the Tea Party form its own party, and take their current polling numbers all the way to the bank? Will the Paulites and Liberty folks pull in all of those tired of looking for a party and feeling the slide toward socialism? Will the newly energized independents get burned out on rallies and protests when they learn the thanklessness of their new found passion? Or will the 70%+ center-right electorate in our country get so fed up with all the confusion between the right of center groups and vote democrat just to spite them?
I have studied the combination of politics and human behavior most of my life. I believe that much about politics can be predicted in two ways:
1) Admitting that people often act on their base emotions
2) Understanding that psychology and human behavior are somewhat predictable and measurable when following certain stimuli (even that of professional politicians, political interest groups, activists, and candidates).
The combination of the above two factors will, in my best estimation, determine the winner in the next election cycle.
Watching party politics can be like going back to highschool. Someone said something that someone believes about someone, so someone got mad at someone who never said what they were going to say sometime. So someone does something to someone that some saw so some said that someone must go!
My guess is that the winning group will be the one who can keep the tightest reign on the lowest common denominators of their group. The ones who tend to have the least control over their base emotions like jealousy, greed, envy, pride, etc. Since every party has its bottom feeders, it is the party that takes dominion of those parasitic beasties that wins. If any one party can put a lid on the infighting that emanates from their ranks when primaries become contentious, that will likely be the winner of this independent mass (66%+ according to Rasmussen).
When we are all crying out for “leaders,” might that be exactly what we are looking for? Where is the coach to come into the locker room and knock the heads of the misbehaving jocks? Where is that teacher to hush the gossipy girls? Where is the leader with the courage, spine and compassion to take the hard stand for justice within their ranks?
Who wants it? Who is willing to take a risk for it? Who has vision and real passion for our republic?
Winner takes all.