ChIP off the old block

With its rejection of parties and emphasis on process, Choosing an Independent President wants to harness the power of the politically unaffiliated. But to what end?

The Boston Phoenix/January 27, 2004
By Adam Reilly

Independent voters have no king. They belong to every ethnic group, hail from all income brackets, and span the ideological spectrum, from gun-toting anti-tax creationists on the right to ultra-pacifists on the left. They don't have much in common, other than dissatisfaction with Democrats and Republicans and an ornery pride in their own autonomy. Every now and again, a single person manages to mobilize independents' grievances and aspirations - think Ross Perot, Jesse Ventura, or Ralph Nader - but none of these figures could ever credibly claim to speak for the entire independent community.

And no one can do that today. But with the front-loaded Democratic-primary schedule about to commence, and the political press fixated on what impact independent voters - who make up as much as 35 percent of the electorate, according to some polls - will have on the 2004 campaign, a small coterie is assuming the mantle of leadership for America's independents in subtle but effective fashion. The group's approach was on display last weekend in Bedford, New Hampshire, where the Choosing an Independent President 2004 conference - also known as ChIP - drew approximately 300 people to the Wayfarer Inn. Democratic hopefuls Wesley Clark and Dennis Kucinich sent emissaries. Photocopies of conference questionnaires filled out by Kucinich, Howard Dean, John Edwards, and Al Sharpton - all desperate for any independent votes they can get in New Hampshire and the 21 other states with open primaries - were stacked neatly on tables outside the Wayfarer's convention center. And the conference closed with a high-profile coup: an hour-long speech by Nader, who bashed the Democratic and Republican leadership and exhorted the cheering audience to "go back to the states you came from and expand this effort."

Given the questionable backgrounds of ChIP's conveners - including Fred Newman, a Stanford-trained philosopher and controversial therapist who has been accused of running a de facto cult; and Lenora Fulani, a long-time Newman associate and veteran fringe candidate - the willingness of mainstream candidates like Dean, Clark, and Edwards to have anything to do with the ChIP proceedings is surprising. So was Nader's appearance: in a piece posted on the Nation's Web site earlier this week, former Nader backer Doug Ireland asked incredulously, "What in the world is Ralph Nader doing in bed with the ultrasectarian cult-racket formerly known as the New Alliance Party?" (Nader spokesperson Theresa Amato said Nader had considered Newman's and Fulani's controversial pasts before deciding to attend, but added, "I don't think this was the first or the last time people of widely different views convened or attended a public meeting to protest, or discuss the state of the electoral process or a common assault on liberties.")

But the willingness of these acknowledged political heavyweights to associate with ChIP is also a tribute to the savvy of Newman, Fulani, and fellow organizers Jacqueline Salit, Jim Mangia, and Omar Ali. Coupling rhetorical flair with strategic acumen, the five are offering themselves to major-party candidates, the national media, and the general public as authorities on the needs and wants of America's independent voters - and, simultaneously, as central figures in a burgeoning "independent movement." Both the candidates and the media seem inclined to take them up on their offer. And unless America's independents take notice, they may wake one day to discover they've been assigned a handful of leaders they don't even know - and whom they'd rather not have. "There's a history of them trying to glom on and take advantage of real political movements to suit their own ends," Micah Sifry, a former Nation editor and authority on third-party politics, says of Newman and Fulani. "The only way this can happen is if the media props them up. But what happens again and again is that people just don't do their homework."

The crowd mingling around the Choosing an Independent President 2004 registration tables on January 10 certainly looked diverse. While the attendees' name tags indicated a high concentration of New Yorkers, every region of the country was represented. There were teenagers and geriatrics. People who looked like they'd slept on the street rubbed elbows with moneyed Manhattanites. And, unusual for New Hampshire political events, there was a large African-American contingent. Based on appearance alone, the organizers' description of ChIP as a "national strategy conference" for independents seemed credible.

Beneath this apparent diversity, however, was a striking homogeneity. Most of the people I spoke with had one thing in common: they had a prior connection to Lenora Fulani or the New Alliance Party (NAP), on whose ticket Fulani made her 1988 and 1992 presidential runs. Some were open about this affiliation, but others were more circumspect, identifying themselves first as "independent activists" and mentioning their connection to Fulani or the NAP only when pressed.

Take Linda Curtis and Joyce Dattner. Curtis, a wiry resident of Austin, Texas, told me she'd published several op-eds in Texas papers criticizing that state's redistricting process and was part of a group currently urging Michael Fjetland - who'd previously mounted a Republican challenge to Tom DeLay - to run against the House majority leader as an independent in 2004. When I asked for her political biography, Curtis told me she'd "worked in the independent movement from the late 1970s." It took further prodding to learn that she'd once been the NAP's national organizer. Dattner, a 55-year-old San Franciscan in a bright-pink fleece pullover, identified herself as the political director of the Committee for an Independent Voice, a network of Bay Area independents, and a former chair of San Francisco's Reform Party. Then she paused. "I've been working with Dr. Lenora Fulani for many years," she continued. "I was actually one of her vice-presidential candidates in 1988."

Since both Curtis and Dattner had been guided to me by a ChIP press liaison, I figured I'd talk to someone at random and asked a stout woman seated next to me what brought her to Bedford. "I'm a Democrat who has no idea how to vote," Anne Street, a Baltimore native currently living in Medford, told me. "And I'm interested in finding out how we could swing the independents to get behind one of our candidates so it doesn't happen again that, with Nader running, we lose the presidency." Finally, I thought, someone with no ties to Fulani or the NAP. But a moment later, Street mentioned that she'd once hosted a coffee for Fulani in her Baltimore home.

Naturally, not everyone fit the Fulani-associate mold. Keyno Hicks - a genially excitable man who described himself as "one of the few honkies" to attend the Million Man March - spent most of the weekend demanding that Dick Cheney be replaced with former defense secretary Bill Cohen on the GOP's 2004 slate. (The issue never took off.) He said he'd seen Fulani plug ChIP on C-SPAN earlier this year, and figured it would be worth the trip from Lakeland, Florida. But Hicks was in a distinct minority. Despite the occasional idiosyncratic figure, I met no one who had worked, for example, for such notable independent figures as John Anderson, the former Republican congressman from Illinois who garnered almost seven percent of the vote in the 1980 presidential election; or for Perot during his landmark 1992 run; or for Ventura during his improbably successful 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial campaign; or for Nader during his still-controversial 2000 presidential bid. With few exceptions, all roads led back to Fulani.

Most people don't know who Lenora Fulani is. But to political observers, especially those who know something about third-party politics, she's a familiar figure. In 1999, Fulani, a charismatic African-American psychologist whose supporters invariably refer to her as "Dr. Fulani," made headlines by endorsing Pat Buchanan's Reform Party presidential campaign and serving briefly as his campaign co-chair. It was a bizarre pairing - Buchanan is a reactionary, xenophobic conservative, while Fulani is a long-time advocate of economic justice, affirmative action, and gay rights. Not surprisingly, it didn't last: Fulani eventually quit, citing Buchanan's emphasis on social conservatism as the reason for her exit. Still, Fulani's short-lived alliance with Buchanan fit the pragmatic persona she has been crafting for a decade or more. In her pursuit of political office - which has included runs for president in 1988 (when she became both the first African-American and first woman to appear on the presidential ballot in all 50 states) and 1992, and bids for governor of New York in 1990 and 1994 - and in her public appearances over the last decade, Fulani has increasingly shifted her focus from a leftist stance on social issues to non-ideological structural reforms, like same-day voter registration, aimed at opening up the electoral process. In so doing, she's cast herself as a champion for the millions of voters who, in the wake of Ross Perot's insurgent 1990s candidacies, have become convinced that only a strong independent movement can salvage American politics.

It's an impressive résumé. But Fulani is also a close associate of Fred Newman, a Stanford-trained philosopher who cut his political teeth on the extreme fringes of American politics more than 30 years ago and has been acquiring a highly controversial reputation ever since. In the early 1970s, Newman founded the Centers for Change, a quasi-revolutionary collective on New York's Upper West Side. The Centers offered treatment via "social therapy," an unorthodox psychological method predicated on the idea that personal problems are best solved by working to transform the social order. In 1973 and 1974, Newman briefly aligned himself with Lyndon LaRouche's extremist National Caucus of Labor Committees. Then, after splitting from LaRouche, he founded the International Workers Party, a group that espoused international social revolution and allegedly bolstered both its finances and membership rolls with active involvement from patients at his own social-therapy clinics. Newman also allegedly urged IWP members to adopt the intriguingly named practice of "friendosexuality." In 1979 - around the time he became a mentor to Fulani - Newman formally shut down the IWP and replaced it with the left-wing New Alliance Party. Some former NAPers say the IWP continued to exist, however, and that the new organization simply served as a front for the old one. Like the IWP, the NAP allegedly derived its organizational strength from Newman's patients, who were reportedly urged to participate in the party's activities as part of their treatment. Indeed, former members and journalists have characterized the IWP and NAP as cult-like organizations in which Newman wields almost complete control (an inventory of these allegations can be found at www.ex-iwp.org). According to the New Republic, the FBI concluded in 1988 that certain NAP members possessed guns and that NAPers should be considered armed and dangerous.

The NAP also developed a reputation for mimicking, infiltrating, and co-opting other political groups and movements. Around the time of Jesse Jackson's two presidential runs in the 1980s, for example, the NAP created organizations known as the Rainbow Alliance and the Rainbow Lobby, names easily confused with that of Jackson's Rainbow Coalition. As Jackson worked to dissociate himself from these NAP offshoots, NAP representatives muddied the waters by speaking of a generic "Rainbow movement." In the same decade, many began to view the NAP as anti-Semitic. Newman - who is Jewish - helped foster this impression with, among other things, his 1985 description of Jews as "storm troopers of decadent capitalism." The party's consistently amicable relations with Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam contributed to that perception as well.

The NAP formally disbanded in 1994, but Fulani, Newman, and their supporters experienced their greatest success taking over political structures from the inside later that same decade. In 1992, Ross Perot's first candidacy convinced many independents they had a viable political future; throughout the country, newly motivated independents organized a number of independent state parties. In April 1994, these assorted parties gathered in Arlington, Virginia, to found a national independent party. Many participants were taken aback when Fulani and her adherents, whose left-wing orientation contrasted with the centrism of most of the grassroots activists present, managed to capture half of the 16 leadership positions in the newly formed national Patriot Party - which, a few years later, metamorphosed into the Reform Party. It was a significant victory. Fulani and her associates remained influential in Reform politics throughout the latter part of the 1990s, a period in which the party's promise slipped away, culminating in the candidacy of a figure - Pat Buchanan - who was the antithesis of everything Perot had stood for.

After losing an intra-party power struggle and breaking with Buchanan in 2000, the Fulani contingent left the Reform Party. Today, Fulani devotes her energies to the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), an organization dedicated, despite its name, to the proposition that a successful "independent movement" must eschew the creation of a new national independent party. (The ChIP conference was organized under CUIP's auspices.) Fulani and her allies have also taken control of large segments of New York State's Independence Party, a relic of post-Perot activism with over 200,000 members that is assiduously courted by high-profile politicians like New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. (For more detailed information on Newman and Fulani, see Spoiling for a Fight, a book on third-party politics by former Nation editor Micah Sifry; "A Cult by Any Other Name: The New Alliance Party Dismantled and Reincarnated," an Anti-Defamation League report; "Psychopolitics: What Kind of Party Is This, Anyway?", a 1982 Village Voice article by Joe Conason; and "Coming Soon to a Presidential Election Near You: What You Don't Know About Lenora Fulani Could Hurt You," a December 1999 New Republic article by David Grann.)

Jacqueline Salit - a stylish, attractive woman who puts her flair for dramatic hauteur to use as ChIP's political coordinator - opened ChIP by offering a recent history of independent politics in the US. Some of Salit's comments, like a reference to the excitement Perot generated in 1992, were irreproachably objective. Others had a more dubious editorial slant, like her assertion that Fulani's clique had been a blessing for the Patriot and Reform Parties. While Salit, a former editor of the NAP's official newspaper and Fulani's deputy campaign manager during her presidential runs, lamented the Reform Party's rightward drift under Pat Buchanan, she failed to note Fulani's 1999 political alliance with the man. And at least one noteworthy independent - Jim Jeffords, the Vermont senator who altered the nation's political landscape by switching his affiliation from Republican to independent - went unmentioned in her synopsis.

As for the conference itself, its proceedings were noticeably top-heavy. Seated behind a podium on an elevated stage, the event's conveners - Fulani, Newman, and Salit; Omar Ali, a Columbia-trained historian and former Fulani campaign worker who handles student outreach for ChIP; and Jim Mangia, a high-profile California independent who once conducted gay-and-lesbian outreach for the NAP - kept a controlling hand on the proceedings. For example, there was no point at which participants broke up into small working groups for egalitarian give-and-take. Instead, the conveners and a handful of guests spoke while the attendees sat passively, with small blocks of time allocated for audience questions. At one point, Salit mentioned that - in her opinion - it would be overly hasty if the weekend culminated in an official endorsement. She presented this as a proposal, not a final decision. But since it was never voted on, Salit's opinion carried the day. In fact, no votes were taken during any conference proceedings that I witnessed.

In lieu of a party-based independent organization like the Reform or Green Parties, Salit and the other organizers offered ChIP, again and again. Their argument was simple: the demise of the Reform Party and the paucity of votes cast for third-party candidates in 2000 show that independents need a movement, not another party. And ChIP was presented as part of the solution. If that seems confusing, that's because it is. Over the course of the weekend, the handy ChIP acronym was used to refer both to the conference itself and to an ongoing process, one that will force the major parties to recognize independents' numerical and organizational strength and to treat them respectfully - reaching out to them, speaking to them as equals, acknowledging their calls for electoral reform, nonpartisanship, and the elimination of special interests from politics. This process apparently began with another ChIP convention, a founding gathering held in New York City in January 2003. And the candidates who had filled out questionnaires or sent spokesmen to last weekend's conference were described, approvingly, as entering into the "ChIP process" - which, presumably, will move forward with additional conventions at yet-to-be-specified dates. If what happened in Bedford is any indication, one or more major-party candidates will send representatives. No votes will be taken. And little will be achieved - except more mainstream credibility for Newman, Fulani, and their fellow ChIP leaders.

In the long run, though, CUIP and ChIP may do more than allow questionable figures like Fulani and Newman to repackage themselves as respected, high-profile moderates. Omar Ali has been traveling the country giving lectures on the history of the independent movement, appearing at schools like Stanford, Yale, and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. On January 10, the first day of the ChIP conference, Ali brought nine students on stage for a brief presentation. Each related how he or she had been inspired by Ali's words on the history and future of independents in America, and how Ali's presentation led them to create a new political organization or newspaper on campus. According to Salit, over 40 percent of college students identify as independents. If this kind of methodical outreach continues, a substantial portion of independent-leaning college students may come to view ChIP's gloss on the independent movement as authoritative - and to see Newman and Fulani as its greatest heroes. If that happens, it's not unreasonable to think that twentysomething independents - unaware of Newman and Fulani's shady past - will then begin looking to them for leadership.

The dominant mood at the ChIP gathering was one of self-congratulatory empowerment, tinged with an undercurrent of resentment. At one point, Salit likened the "independent movement" to past American struggles against religious and racial intolerance. "I think one thing you're looking at now is political intolerance," she observed gravely. But soon, Salit predicted, independents would emerge as the conscience of the country in its newest great fight. "That's what needs to happen to make this country grow and develop and be a decent place for all of us," she concluded. The crowd applauded eagerly.

On Saturday night and again on Sunday morning, Fred Newman - a lanky, mustachioed, bald man decked out in casual professorial garb - gave his view of what it means to be an independent to a rapt audience. On Sunday, his comments, which followed brief and scrupulously timed presentations by representatives of Clark and Kucinich and the handful of long-shot candidates who appeared in person, was a mellow, rambling affair that lasted almost an hour. In it, Newman discussed (among other things) his childhood, his philosophical evolution, and his pantheon of personal heroes. His assessment of the "independent movement" as epitomized by the ChIP convention - throughout the weekend, ChIP and the "independent movement" were mentioned in tandem, to the point where they seemed to become synonymous - was vague but upbeat. "We are going to create honesty by practicing honesty," Newman promised in a soft voice. "We will do that; we will transform the culture. We are, in this room this weekend, contributing to the transformation of the culture, and what do we have to do when we go back home? Keep on walkin', keep on movin', keep on creating still another meeting of this time, still another convention, all over the country, all over the world."

The night before, however, his words had been angrier, a defiant manifesto of resentful self-reliance that generated a torrent of applause:

I think we have to yell it loud. We have to say to the people of this country, and in particular the elite, the political elite of this country. We have to scream and say, "You know, it's possible for citizens, ordinary citizens, independents, Americans, of all different backgrounds, of all different points of view - it's possible for us to get together and share ideas and make some decisions about what we're going to do without having a politician there to draw us all together." We really don't need you. You are not required for us to be able to talk. We don't need sound bites, and we don't need specialists to be up on a podium and say, "If you want to impact on the policies of this country, you have to do it through us." We don't need you.... To me, that's what this wonderful, wonderful get-together is about.

Prominent independents outside Newman and Fulani's ambit are unlikely to see ChIP as the embodiment of a new independent movement. Ted Lowi, a Cornell political-science professor and long-time independent activist, hadn't known ChIP was taking place; when he learned Newman and Fulani were two of the event's leaders, he was immediately dismissive. "She'd like to be the leader of a party or independent movement she's going to help form," he said of Fulani. "You can be sure she'll be the leader of that little group, or else she won't stay with it." Anderson, the former presidential candidate, also hadn't heard of ChIP. He offered a similar take on the conference, remarking of Newman and Fulani, "I just cannot see myself following any banner raised by those two."

A political press corps accustomed to treating independents as exotic, mysterious creatures is likely to be more receptive. ChIP landed on the events calendar of the Note, ABC News's widely read online political news summary. An Associated Press story posted on Newsday's Web site advanced ChIP in press-release-style language: "Independent voters from around the country are attending a weekend conference to discuss their options and strategy for the 2004 presidential campaign." Meanwhile, ChIP's conveners have succeeded in attracting notice from the major print media. A New York Times piece by Michael Janofsky - while not mentioning ChIP by name - included comments by Mangia and suggested that his group might constitute an "umbrella" that many of the nation's independents could call home. Salit, meanwhile, has published columns on the attitudes of independent voters in major newspapers like the Arizona Republic and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And a new magazine edited by Salit - the Neo-Independent, dedicated to the "politics of becoming"; just what these politics are supposed to help people become is unclear - is slated for roll-out this spring, just in time for the presidential stretch drive.

The day after ChIP concluded, I tried to reach Newman and Fulani. I wanted to know why so many prominent independents - Anderson, Perot, Ventura, Jeffords - had been absent, and how, given the conference's lack of figures who might challenge the conveners for some sort of leadership role, they could convince people ChIP really represented a broad-based, national independent movement. My inquiry was referred to Salit, who bristled at its premise. "I'm not especially into convincing," she replied. "I'm into organizing and building tools for independent voters."

"Ross Perot does not consider himself an independent anymore," she added. "Jesse Ventura is not active in independent politics; he has a TV show. Jim Jeffords was invited to speak at the conference; he did not choose to attend. I don't know whether [Anderson] in particular was invited, but the organization he works with, the Center for Voting and Democracy, was represented at our founding conference." (According to a Jeffords spokesman, the senator never received a formal invitation.) "We're looking to reach out to grassroots independents all across America and bring them into the process so they have a voice," Salit concluded. "It doesn't rely on Ross Perot or Jesse Ventura or Jim Jeffords or anybody like that. It involves ordinary people to create something new in American politics - a new source of leverage in American politics."

Salit's response points to the inherent genius of ChIP. Controlling a specific political organization like the Reform Party requires working within an organizational framework; once you reach the top, there's always the possibility somebody will navigate that same framework effectively enough to bring you down. Independents, however, are a vast and influential constituency without a national organization. And ChIP - as a "process," not a party - is something that Fulani, Newman, and their fellow conveners can control with impunity, a vehicle that gives them potentially unlimited access to the mainstream media and to interested but uninformed independents across the country.

As Anderson sees it, the notion that a cohesive American independent movement exists - and that it has any kind of widely accepted leadership - is far-fetched. He notes that this could work in Newman and Fulani's favor. "There is really no single person that is sort of a guru of the movement of independents," Anderson says. "It's too fluid; it's too disorganized to even be called a movement. And I think they're trying to seize the mantle for the very reason that I have just described. It's out there for somebody to grab."

Given the cranky pride independents take in their own intractability, it might seem unlikely that they would accept any kind of self-appointed ruling group. But Newman, Fulani, and their colleagues have a knack for infusing independent politics with an air of drama, with desperation and great expectations. If enough people look to them as authorities as the 2004 election approaches, ChIP's conveners could become - improbable as it may seem - a national political force, serving as intermediaries between the major parties and a constituency that never asked for them.