Mark Schmitt argues that the recurring dream of an independent candidate or party protects the status quo:
In mid-January, former Rep. Harold Ford, a conservative Democrat from Tennessee who in 2006 almost became the first African American elected to the Senate from the South since Reconstruction, made it known that he might want to try again. This time he would run from New York, where he moved a year ago for several seemingly lucrative part-time jobs.
Ford’s campaign debuted with an inauspicious interview with The New York Times. He hit appointed incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand from the left, right, and center; he was simultaneously in favor of health reform and against it; pro-choice and pro-life; and for and against gun control. He was uncertain whether a helicopter tour qualified him as having visited all five boroughs of his new city. His only unwavering commitments were to a “huge tax-cut bill for business” and to being completely independent of party: “Harry Reid will not instruct me how to vote.”
