TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

POLITICAL REFORM

• Voters without a party want say in primary [The Santa Fe New Mexican] (Business Week)
  
• Where has good governance gone? (San Bernardino Sun) Redistricting reform is a good start. Open primaries would help produce leaders that work for people, not for special-interest groups.
  

LOCAL INDEPENDENT NEWS

We the People Party makes 1st recommendations for Meriden boards, commissions (By: George Moore, Record-Journal - CT) While there are about 20 people on We the People's town committee, members still keep their traditional party affiliations - as Democratic or Republican - or remain unaffiliated voters. The fact that a third party will recommend registered Democrats and Republicans for appointed positions raises tricky questions...

REPUBLICAN TERRITORY

• Blackwell's Back (By W. James Antle, III, The American Spectator) One local conservative Republican activist told TAS that Blackwell "is a great spokesman for conservatism" but worried that he lost "independents" and "key parts of the state."
  
• The GOP must reject Big Government - Republicans are making a huge mistake by turning away from the principle of small government. (By Richard A. Viguerie, LA Times)
  
• Bush and Barack, Bedfellows - Why the current president is rooting for the next one. (By John Heilemann, New York Magazine/Power Grid) The idea that 44 might in the future continue to seek the counsel of 43 would until recently have struck partisans on both ends of the ideological spectrum as absurd. But that was before the transition commenced and Obama began to tip his hand in the area of foreign policy
  
• The Conservative Challenge (Posted by HughS, Whizbang) As Friedman noted, the intellectual debate is settled but the Realpolitik debate (i.e. that which is "practical" or pragmatic) is being won by the liberals just as quickly as it is being surrendered by moderate Republicans.
  

INTERNET ORGANIZING

MoveOn.org Sets Agenda With Online Input (by Mark Walsh, MediaPost Publications) Obama's email database is so much larger than MoveOn's that using it to form a new advocacy group would be "seismic."