We’re in that season now when we hear the same things being said over and over again, and nothing is said more often by political pundits than this election (it doesn’t matter which one) will be decided by independent voters. Accompanying this announcement is the judgment – sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit – that this state of affairs is to be welcomed, even encouraged: it’s good that the independent voters are making themselves heard and forcing candidates to think outside their partisan boxes. And this judgment itself implies another: independent voters are better, in the sense of being more reflective and less ideological, than voters who identify themselves strongly with one or the other of the two major parties. The assumption is that if we were all independent voters, the political process would be in much better shape.

This seems to me to be a dubious proposition, especially if the word “political” in the phrase “political process” is taken seriously.Those who yearn for government without politics always invoke abstract truths and moral visions (the good life, the fair society, the just commonwealth) with which no one is likely to disagree because they have no content. But sooner rather than later someone gives these abstractions content, and when that happens, definitional disputes break out immediately, and after definitional disputes come real disputes, the taking of sides, the applying of labels (both the self-identifying kind and the accusing kind) and, pretty soon, the demonization of the other. In short, politics, which is what independent voters hate.

Stanley Fish takes apart a piece of non-sense
so-called independents simply occupy the idealogical interzone between the parties, the fuzzy edge where the skimishing is and the general election battle takes place. The primary system is organising the army and deciding battle order before the fight, it not just about deciding who's in charge it's about designing, or at least building, the Spitfire to win the crucial battle. Independents are the World War 2 equivilant of Italy on one side and then the other. Although I'm reminded of the Italian in Catch 22 who claimed that Italy was winning the war!!

edit after some thought
Or perhaps a better and fairer metaphor would be General George Monck who was a wise man. He shifted allegiances but was also thoroughly moral. Any view of history reveals that no party ever has a monopoly of truth for long. Ending the absolutism of the monarchy was a vital step and another vital step was the stability brought by the Restoration thus we [the English] have the crown in parliament a successful hybrid and political compromise.

Against Independent Voters - Stanley Fish - Think Again - Opinion - New York Times Blog