TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Arizona Green Party wins separate status on Nov. ballot (The Arizona Republic) You can be independent and left-leaning, or independent and right-leaning. The key is to get people to vote for our (Green Party) issues. NOTE: The Greens are a tough party-oriented nut to crack! Personally, I wish they'd loosen up!.. Let's play! Who's not in favor of a healthy planet? But is a traditional partisan structure apt to enact that? Not hardly.... -NH
  

CAMPAIGN

• McCain visiting poor areas (Reuters) McCain's trip is part of a bid to attract more independent voters


• IN: Clinton pushes Indiana debate (The Journal Gazette)


• WV: Political Images Banned at Polls (The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register)


• For the first time, Independent voters are permitted to vote either a Democratic or Republican ballot in this primary election, but they must request the ballot when they go to vote. Obama, Clinton strike homestretch in bid for nomination (By BETH FOUHY and NEDRA PICKLER, AP Google)


• Hillary Clinton's Recklessness: How Superdelegates Can Save The Day (Eric Wattree, Black Star News) Open Letter to the Superdelegates
  

NORTH CAROLINA

• Make voting easy on yourself (Fayetteville Observer) If you’re registered as unaffiliated, you can ask to receive the primary ballot of either party.


• N.C. looms large in Dems' race (Washington Bureau Blue Ridge Times News) More than 3.8 million Democrats and unaffiliated voters are eligible to vote in the May 6 primary, which, along with Indiana's primary the same day, may well decide the Dem primary


• Is this another remake? (News Observer) Barack Obama versus Hillary Rodham Clinton.


• Isn't that a remake of the old North Carolina classics of Harvey Gantt versus Mike Easley or Gantt versus Charles Sanders?... The Democratic Party has also changed. Many conservative Democrats have become Republicans or are registered as unaffiliated.


• Buncombe voters swap political parties (Ashville Citizen Times)


• Swaping Sides (Hickory Daily Record) Officials at the Catawba County Board of Elections can’t recall so many voters switching party affiliation leading up to an election.


• Nearly 800 turn out for early voting (The Daily Reflector)


• Learn about candidates at forums this week (Star News Wilmington NC)


• One stop voting off to ‘really slow’ start (Roxboro Courier Times)
  

LOCAL

• NH: MARIJUANA BILL DEBATE (Union Leader) Mason-Dixon found the lower fine had support of 63 percent of Democrats surveyed, 62 percent of those under 50, 58 percent of women and 54 percent of independent voters.


• SC: Learn about candidates at forums this week (Star News Wilmington NC) If a party chairman creates the perception that some candidates are favored and that the party will work on behalf of the favorites against others, good candidates will shy away from the system. Volunteers will be disillusioned, and voters will look for alternatives.


• PA: Hornberger, former county controller, wants term limits (Republican Herald-Pottsville PA -- Harrisburg)


• DENTON TX: Nearly 2,000 cross party lines to vote-One-time Republicans cast ballots in county Democratic primary primary (Denton TX Record Chronicle)

OREGON ELECTIONS * (The Oregonian) Open Primary would shift debate to center - As Phil Keisling and Norma Paulus noted in your paper ("Let's make primaries truly open, inclusive and fair," April 13), the partisan primary system we have in place is archaic and obsolete...

THE PEOPLE VS THE PARTIES:
Welcome to the Jungle (Nick Wirth, BlueOregon) On March 5, the 5th Circuit in New Orleans heard Mississippi Democratic Party v. Barbour. Mississippi's only method of nomination is their open primary, and last June a U. S. district judge declared the state-mandated open primary unconstitutional. (However, it did not enjoin the recent Miss primary, which was held under the “old” rules).


NOTE: BILL MOYERS WILL INTERVIEW REV. WRIGHT NEXT SUNDAY ON PBS.