While working on a development project in D.C., I came across an organization whose work changed how I approach social problem solving.

This (then) little organization had been started by two young guys in Bangladesh - a small, poor and densely populated country bordering India.  There, the urban slums are crowded and because of the poverty there is no money for regular garbage collection.  Trash ends up dumped in the street, which leads to disease.  Outside of the cities, the rural areas have been ravaged by years of indiscriminate use of cheap chemical fertilizers.  Each year, farmers’ crop yield shrinks and the country is starved by degrees.

These two guys put their heads together and came up with an idea.  They scraped together a little money and hired local city residents (previously unemployed) to collect the waste in the urban areas, compost it and turn it into organic fertilizer.  They then sold that fertilizer to desperate farmers who subsequently saw a boost to their output.  Streets got cleaned up, health risks dropped, food was grown, people got fed and everyone made money.

This wasn’t a ‘red’ idea or a ‘blue’ idea.  It was a good idea.

Today in Massachusetts, we’re hungry for that kind of thinking.  The kind of thinking that goes beyond politics, that gets creative and solves problems by the numbers.  We have the highest percentage of BAs per person of any state in the nation (37%); we’re tough, we’re hard-working. But while such potential exists in our people, our government (by comparison) seems outdated in its approach, seems hung up on party battles and playing politics.  It has failed to adapt in its thinking and methods - as a result, it’s failed to move forward on a host of pressing issues.  Because of the stalling, our present generation of young people will be the first in decades to be worse off than their parents.

The Independent understands the idea of balance and strives to support any element of society not getting its fair shake.  Today, that’s the tax-payer without efficient, effective government.  That’s the health insurance policy holder, paying higher premiums for poorer care.  That’s the small business owner, struggling to compete in an unfriendly climate.  That’s the school district, suffering under unfunded mandates.  That’s the young worker, unable to find an affordable place to live.  That’s the out-of-work laborer with no means by which to adapt her/her skill set to survive in the global economy.  As a result of both, that’s the big business unable to properly staff and grow its operation.

Perhaps it’s this understanding of balance - the idea that government needs to adapt to support what works for the time and place over any allegiance to a party - that has sparked the recent rise in Independent voters across this state and country.  Over half of the two million registered voters in Massachusetts are Independents.  In our district, 62% of us are ‘unenrolled’. 

My running as an Independent is in no way an indictment of the existing two parties - instead, it has everything to do with effectively representing the people that want to see an update to the thinking that drives government. The Republican party has a proud tradition of local control and fiscal conservatism - today, we need to be stricter than ever in how we manage our public finances.  And when I was first eligible to vote my grandfather encouraged me to join the Democratic Party that he said had stood with Irish immigrants and working people when he first came to Boston and helped him to raise our family. 

But our politics have moved on.  And now while both parties start at good theoretical standpoints, we know that with a little effort and some creative thinking, government can simply find more practical ‘third way approaches’ to solving a number of common problems. Renewable energy brings new jobs and industry, gets us off of foreign oil and protects our environment.  Helping small business provides stable, local jobs today and helps our bright entrepreneurs develop the economy of the future, ensuring that there will be jobs waiting for the students into whom we invest so much.  The ideas are there - now it’s time to put in place the actors with the right kind of experience to make this kind of thinking into policy.  We can see both parties starting to recognize a similar set of problems and platform talking points.  Now, it’s the Independent with the ability to caucus with both parties who can grease the wheels, take advantage of the situation and get things moving. 

When I go door-to-door, I’m never terribly certain how I will be received at each house. Some folks have heard about my desire to cut taxes for small businesses and to help them further by cutting back unemployment benefits (from 30 weeks to 28 weeks), lowering corporate operating costs.  These folks eye me suspiciously and call me “the secret Republican”.  Other folks have heard of my support for skills-training programs for the unemployed or of my desire to see more public transportation linking Metrowest suburban communities to help grow business outside of Boston; then, I get the hairy eyeball, the weak handshake and the greeting “oh, you’re the secret Democrat”.  In either instance, I just kind of laugh and start a discussion around the issues; today like most people I meet, I simply care less about politics and more about progress.