As our country’s politicians engage in bitter partisan battles, focused on protecting their own jobs but not on doing the nation’s business, and political pundits shout louder and shriller to improve their ratings, it’s no wonder that Americans have little faith in their government. But is America as divided as the politicians and talking heads would have us believe? Do half of Americans stand on the right and the other half on the left with a no-man’s-land between them?
Hardly. Forty percent of all American voters are Independents who occupy the ample political and ideological space in the center. These Americans are anything but divided, and they’re being ignored. These Independents make up the largest voting bloc in the nation and have determined the outcome of every election since World War II. Every year their numbers grow, as does the unconscionable disconnect between them and the officials who are supposed to represent them.
The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents tells the story of how our polarized political system is not only misrepresenting America but failing it. Linda Killian looks beyond the polls and the headlines and talks with the frustrated citizens who are raising the alarm about the acute bi-polarity, special interest-influence, and gridlock in Congress, asking why Obama’s postpartisan presidency is anything but, and demanding realism, honest negotiation, and a sense of responsibility from their elected officials.
Killian paints a vivid portrait of the swing voters around the country and presents a new model that reveals who they are and what they want from their government and elected officials. She also offers a way forward, including solutions for fixing our broken political system. This is not only a timely shot across the bows of both parties but an impassioned call to Independents to bring America back into balance.
Linda Killian is a Washington journalist and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
You can visit her website to see info about upcoming events and media appearances at www.lindajkillian.com
Her new book, "THE SWING VOTE: The Untapped Power of Independents", will be published in January 2012 by St. Martin's Press. Linda Killian talked with hundreds of citizens, activists and public officials around the country and paints a vivid portrait of the swing voters. She focuses on four key swing demographic groups and states - Colorado, Ohio, New Hampshire and Virginia - that will be critical in the 2012 election. Killian presents a new model of the swing voters and reveals who they are and what they want from their government. She describes the intense disappointment and frustration these voters have with the political system and the two parties. She also examines the heightened polarization of Democratic and Republican elected officials and their inability to deal with our nation's most important problems.
In "THE SWING VOTE" Killian offers solutions for fixing our broken political system and ways for the Independent voters to make their voices heard. This is not only a timely shot across the bows of both parties but an impassioned call to Independents to bring America back into balance.
Linda Killian has been a columnist and national political writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, Politics Daily, U.S. News & World Report.com and Politico and is also the author of "The Freshmen: What Happened to the Republican Revolution?" praised by The New York Review of Books and other reviewers as a colorful, well-written and insightful analysis of what happened to the congressional Republicans of 1994. Killian spent two years of extensive reporting and conducted hundreds of interviews to write "The Freshmen" which reveals the maneuvering and intrigues, the successes and failures of the Republican Congress.
She has also written for "The Washington Post", "The Los Angeles Times", "The New Republic", "The Weekly Standard", "The American Spectator", "The Christian Science Monitor", "The Boston Globe", "Redbook", "Washingtonian" and "People" magazines.
Her television appearances include CNN, "Hardball with Chris Matthews", C-SPAN, MSNBC and the Fox News Channel.
She is the creator and former director of the Boston University Washington Journalism Center and a former Boston University professor of journalism.
She was also the senior editor of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" where she was responsible for the editorial content of NPR's national evening news program. Prior to that, she was a reporter at Forbes magazine in New York and for several major daily newspapers including The Oregonian and for United Press International.
She has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
