Fred Newman is a Stanford-trained philosopher, playwright, theatre director, and therapist. Regarded internationally as a leading postmodern innovator and thinker, Newman is the co-author, with Dr. Lois Holzman, of numerous books on psychology, politics, and culture, including The End of Knowing and Unscientific Psychology. He has authored two self-help books, Let's Develop and Performance of a Lifetime, and more than 20 plays. He was an early pioneer of the independent political movement, in which he is a strategist and controversial power broker. Jacqueline Salit is the country's leading on-the-ground expert in independent politics. She is the President of IndependentVoting.org, a national organizing hub for independent voters and the editor of The Neo-Independent.

She produced and directed the documentary film, How the Independent Movement went Left by going Right, which traces the roots of the coalition of black and independent voters that elected Barack Obama. She ran Michael Bloomberg's three mayoral campaigns on the Independence Party line.