Every independent candidate I have seen over my years of being politically aware has been a right-wing crackpot spewing hate and whack job ideas that even the coffee shop crowd would think was a bit over the top.
There is nothing particularly honourable about independent candidates nor is it a given that candidates for a political party are somehow evil robots.
I find it fascinating how citizens seem to refuse to accept their responsibility in the state of affairs. In a world were no political leader has to accept responsibility for anything any more it is in large part we citizens who have failed by wasting our votes in stupid strategic voting schemes, by walking away from our democratic institutions and looking down on anyone who participates as some kind of party hack or by progressives rewarding a political party that has consitantly lied to us expecting them to somehow change by magic if we just hope hard enough.
You capture in no small measure just why some of us have pursued and contine to work for electoral reform.
By adjusting the electoral imbalance between party and candidate and implementing a system that is fair for, to and between voters whilst also enhanceing the bond of repsponsibility between constituent and representative we can go a long way towards fixing the problems we are discussing.
You're right -- it's our fault that we get the representatives we get. The politicians work for us. It's our job to grant an articulate mandate to the best people we can pick.
It's our fault -- or would be if the present electoral system wasn't so adept at filtering out our voting intent and disconnecting us from government and encouraging the view of our representatives as mindless stooges of their parties who have no facility for critical thinking and no power to act on our behalf and on their own recogniscience (sp?).