Lessons from Massachusetts from National Organizer of Independents

Jackie Salit, president of IndependentVoting.org issued the following statement about the Massachusetts Senate special election on Tuesday:

"The Obama team needs to learn a lesson from Massachusetts. If you don't attend to the political dynamics in the independent movement, you'll pay the price. That movement is in the early stages of its development and is subject to many pushes and pulls. While the progressive leadership of the movement played the key role in swinging independents to Obama in 2008, the Obama team has turned a blind eye since then, choosing instead to focus only on the Democratic Party base.  But if you do that, instead of finding ways to cultivate the progressive voices in independent politics, you're going to lose elections like the one yesterday. And, you might even lose the White House if you don't wake up to the fact that there is an emerging political universe - the independent movement - that you know nothing about.”

Apparently at least ONE Dem agrees. From CNN Analysis by Marc Preston: Brown's win changes political narrative for 2010: One of the biggest challenges for Democrats is wooing back independent voters, who broke Brown's way Tuesday to help him beat Coakley. "If we don't figure out a way to talk to independent voters, we are done," lamented another high-level Democratic staffer, speaking freely on the condition of anonymity.