FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 17, 2006

CONTACT: Jason Olson
415-393-9970
jolson@independentvoice.org
Available Online at http://www.independentvoice.org

CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENTS DRIVING REFORM AGENDA INTO GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN

Organization Using Internet to Give California’s 3.6 Million Independent Voters a Voice

San Francisco, CA … August 17, 2006 … IndependentVoice.org, a California organization which promotes the power of the state’s 3.6 million independent voters, launched the next stage of a campaign today to directly involve independent voters in the upcoming California gubernatorial election by introducing their agenda for political reform and challenging all candidates to endorse it.

The campaign has already resulted in political reform becoming a defining issue in the election with both Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic challenger Phil Angelides strongly advocating a political reform agenda.

Statewide polls show that independents, who currently make up 23% of registered voters, will likely be the determining factor in who wins the race for Governor this year. In the most recent polls, Governor Schwarzenegger has a slight lead with independents, with the overwhelming majority still undecided.

IndependentVoice.org, formerly called the Committee for an Independent Voice, is not new to statewide politics. It was one of the key players in both the 2004 Open Primary Intitiative campaign (Prop 62) as well as the Redistricting Reform Initiative in 2005 (Proposition 77), and its support recently helped put Ron Dellums over the top by 155 votes in the Oakland Mayoral Race.

“Politicians in this state and across the country are beginning to realize the importance and power of independent voters,” said IndependentVoice.org spokesperson Jim Mangia, the former National Secretary of the Reform Party, who is leading the effort to reach out to all gubernatorial campaigns, major and minor party alike. “Independents defy traditional political labels and come from across the political spectrum. What we share is an understanding that radical democratic reform of the political process and of government is the urgent political necessity of the day.”

Since 1990 the number of voters registered outside the two major parties has doubled, while the percentage of Democratic and Republican Party registrants has declined. In recent days both Democratic challenger Angelides and Governor Schwarzenegger have embraced various political reform issues – from redistricting reform to public financing of campaigns to a package to attack political corruption.

As part of its ongoing discussions and dialogues with the candidates IndependentVoice.org has sent out a questionnaire to governor hopefuls on issues of political reform and the importance of the independent voter.

A series of meetings and dialogues with candidates and/or their representatives is already underway. IndependentVoice.org recently launched a major internet outreach via its website (http://www.independentvoice.org), and has been polling, holding conference calls and meetings with independent voters across the state--briefing them on candidate responses and the growing prominence of political reform issues.

“The thrust of the campaign is to bring independent voters into direct dialogue with the candidates around our issues, in a way in which we haven’t yet seen in American politics,” says Mangia. “Independents are tired of watching the political process abused by partisanship and special interests while serious issues go unresolved. This year, we’re organizing to flex our political muscle. And it’s a voting block that neither Schwarzenegger nor Angelides can win without!”

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666 THE DEVIL (GEORGE WARMONGER BUSH)/DIEBOLD INC. : "Sorry to Oil the Vote Fraud, the Diebold Vote Scams, and the Rigging of Elections in California but Oil comes First. FILL HER UP ???????"

It's a little disengenuous to claim to represent the voters unenrolled in the major parties. By declining to state their party, they are expressing independence from the duopoly as well as from those who would exploit them and claim to represent them. And it's absurd to claim that this unknown organization made the difference in Ron Dellums' 155 vote margin of victory. Any group or party, from the Greens to the AME church, could make the same claim! Maybe it was voters on my street who made up that margin of victory.

But maybe the folks behind IndependentVoice have a history of exagerrating their own importance. They claim an affinity to billionaire nut job Ross Perot, who brought us term limits and a fixation on balancing the budget, as well as helping the Democratic Ladership Council's Golden Boy Bill Clinton get elected.

But whatever happened to the "Reform" Party? It was a false hope that now doesn't even exist! I may be mistaken but I believe the party lost its ballot status thanks to Jim Mangia and other opportunists from the cult-of-Lenora-Fulani National Alliance Party (NAP). The NAP had tried and failed to take over the Peace and Freedom Party in the 1980s through stacking meetings with people who didn't have a clue about socialism or Peace and Freedom, and attacking PFP leaders who fought to keep the PFP an independent socialist force, free from the psycho-babble of NAP's Fred Newman.

Then after the Reform Party became the flavor of the month after 1992, Mangia and Fulani jumped into and won positions of leadership with the newly ballot qualified Reform Party, and gave up their takeover bid of P&F. (Strangely, they accused P&F of colluding with the Green Party when P&F nominated Ron Daniels as our Presidential candidate over Fulani in 1992. The Greens' Mike Feinstein had invited Ron Daniels to California and the GP almost nominated him as well.)

And who can forget Fulani's alliance of convenience with the always entertaining Pat Buchanan in 2000 when they hammered the final nail into the coffin of the Reform Party's corpse?

If they do for 'independent voters' as they did for the Reform Party, then those independent voters are in trouble. Hopefully, they are not as easily duped as the Ross Perotistas were.