Ben Manski was laid low by STDs last week. No, not by the infectious kind, but rather by straight-ticket-Democratic voters of the sort that wander into polling stations with little else on their mind than a party label. The Hulsey campaign conceded that the race was won on the back of STD voting, and a preliminary review of the vote totals indicates that Ben Manski likely beat Hulsey on ballots that were consciously filled out on a race by race basis.

In Wisconsin, the ballots still give voters the option to vote a straight-ticket, no doubt a measure taken by the two parties with monopoly power over our political process to maintain their dominance. To give you an idea of how deleterious straight ticket voting is to our political process, look at the candidacy of Alvin Greene, the defeated Democratic candidate for Senator of South Carolina. Mr. Greene managed to receive over 360,000 votes ( about 30 percent) while facing obscenity charges, fundraising approximately $0, holding no campaign events, failing to receive a single endorsement, all while being accused for the better part of a year of being “planted” by his opponent, Tea Party demagogue Jim DeMint.

There are really only two explanations for his surprising success in the absence of a campaign. First, voters might have confused him for the gospel and soul hero Al Green, or others may have just voted STD without thinking twice about whom they were actually voting for. Ted Clements, the Green Party candidate, did run a campaign, albeit without the payload of corporate money Senator DeMint reveled in, and won major endorsements from newspapers, labor unions and environmental groups, but only managed to garner 10 percent of the vote.

I’m not trying to make a direct comparison between Brett Hulsey and Alvin Greene (Greene’s views on education and health care were ostensibly more progressive than Hulsey’s), but I think the point is clear: one can only fulfill their civic duty by casting an informed vote and not just mindlessly toeing the party line.

Now that the Republicans have effortlessly ascended back into power, the Democratic leadership, as indicated by Obama’s conciliatory statements last week, intends to move toward the center-right to practice damage control and preserve the party’s chances of maintaining power in 2012.

Tragically, it looks like the Democrats are going to meet the Right “halfway” on extending wind-fall tax cuts for the upper 1 percent of earners, and there appears to be a growing possibility that they will also accommodate the age-old Republican wet-dream of cutting Social Security benefits. Indeed, if anyone is still hoping to be inspired by the national Democratic establishment, they need to seriously consider having an evaluation.

Even though the Democrats had some legitimate issues to campaign on, most of them fled from their achievements. That, in combination with the rather uninspired scope of Democratic successes over the past few years, kept a large number of liberal voters at home. How can you really blame them? As the direct result of poor leadership and woefully misguided compromises, the Democrats passed a health care bill without (even a serious attempt at) a public option and a financial regulations package that Senator Feingold voted against because the measures were too weak to avoid another crisis. They have failed to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and Obama has leapt away from his campaign pledge to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the end, the voters were forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. Many just stayed home, and those that went to the polls appeared to be partisans casting a reactionary ballot against something they perceived as substantially worse than what we’ve got. The truth is that it’s not.

The corporate-owned Democratic Party, especially on the national level, curries favor with voters by scaring them about the potentialities of Republican rule. This wasn’t a winning strategy this time around. It’s uninspired and distracts voters from the homogenizing corporate oversight of both parties while encouraging endless bickering over petty differences. On more and more substantive issues, the similarities between the Democrats and Republicans have become too glaring to ignore.

For the average American there is no reward for party loyalty, only disillusionment and fear. If we are ever going to transcend the suffocating grasp of the tightly crafted political space the two parties have drawn for us, independent or third-party candidates and processes must be fought for and nurtured.

With any luck and a lot of effort, Ben Manski’s historic showing in last week’s Assembly race will be seen as the starting point for a renewed independence in Wisconsin and Madison politics. This state and city have historically initiated political trends and put forth ideas that have become mainstays of the national discourse. Why not take the lead embracing fiercely democratic, independent candidates and processes? Wisconsin is poised to set the example, and the rest of the nation might well follow if we do.

Last week’s election results were demoralizing for many, but they should also encourage all of us who value independent, honest and fair governance to work together to again make Wisconsin and Madison champions of principles and people over parties.

Sam Stevenson ([email protected]) is a graduate student in public health and was active in Ben Manski’s Assembly campaign.