Campaigning as an independent is one thing. Governing as one is another. No party caucus, no whip count, no ready-made coalition — and no one telling you how to vote. Three guests who have lived it join us to peel back the onion on how that really works: the coalitions you have to build from scratch, the leverage you gain, the doors that close, and what voters get out of it.
Our guests: Jay Doyle, Mayor of Georgetown, South Carolina — the first Forward Party candidate and first third-party nominee to win a partisan election in South Carolina since 1894; Jermaine Johnson, member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and candidate for Governor, who campaigns as "a different kind of Democrat;" Rick Bennett, Independent candidate for Governor of Maine — a former Republican Senate President now running unenrolled, because he doesn't want to answer to "party bosses in Washington"
What we'll get into:
- What actually changes about governing without a party behind you
- How you build a majority one vote at a time
- Where independence is leverage, and where it's a locked door
- What the two parties get wrong about voters who left them