I agree with your admonishing the major political parties.   

I've spent a lot of time with independents in the last decade.   They really don't have a stereotype, many libertarian, many socialist, many of special interest like environment, justice, gun ownership, gun laws, etc.      The Party will either ignore them (but they may soon exceed both is size), or try to bring them into the fold.

It's aways a question with independents:  Do we need more parties, no party, or push the two party system into finding ways to bring more independents into government.       And there are a lot of independents that are simply drop out's - and that's really worrisome to me.