Wednesday on the RCP Podcast, Greg Orman, RCP contributor and author of “A Declaration of Independents,” joins the group to discuss his latest RCP article on how the Justice Department’s Anti-Weaponization fund will play with independent voters in the midterms, and whether polarizing candidates from both parties will open up opportunities for independent candidates this year. “I refer to it more as a slush fund. I don’t think of it as anything legitimate,” Orman said about the DOJ’s “Anti-Weaponization” settlement fund. “Somehow he was able to turn that into a $ 1.8 billion fund to reward his loyalists without congressional oversight.” Read Orman’s latest article for RCP: Trump’s Settlement Deepens GOP’s Independent Voter Problem About the Texas Senate candidates, Orman added: “Arguing that Ken Paxton is corrupt is something that you would get agreement from, not just Democrats, but many Republicans, many of whom voted to impeach him, and convict him of very corrupt acts.” “The Republican and the Democratic brands are the two worst consumer brands I know of because they’re defined exclusively by negative advertising,” he said. “If Coke said Pepsi makes you three inches shorter, and Pepsi said Coke makes your hair fall out, no one would drink Coke or Pepsi.” “The reason it works in politics is because we have only two choices,” he said. “And the net result of that is we have two very, very deficient brands.” “But there is a fundamental misunderstanding about who independents are. Independents aren’t just moderates. Certainly, a lot of moderates are independent, and they’ve become that way because the parties have become so extreme. But independents exist along the ideological spectrum.” “What binds people and what makes people independent is this belief that the two-party system is broken and corrupt (in some cases, they believe it’s irreparably broken) and is leaving people behind,” Orman said. “So they are united in the sense that we need to do something fundamentally different in Washington.” “People are so deeply alienated, so deeply mistrustful of what’s going on in Washington and the status quo that they’re looking for alternatives, and they’re finding those alternatives in candidates who are basically saying, Look, I’m going to dramatically and radically change the system.” “Whether they’re changing it in a way that appeals to right-wingers or changing it in a way that appeals to left-wingers, basically, the argument that they’re making is we’re going to radically change things,” he said. “For an electorate that’s deeply alienated, that’s a message that seems to be resonating in both parties.” Here’s the full interview from Wednesday’s edition of the RealClearPolitics podcast:
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