NEWS ALERT: Media Gets Some Stuff Right About Independent Voters!

Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat continues to reverberate (or is that ricochet?) in the media and independent voters remain center stage (the newly elected Senator is that guy who posed nude for Cosmo, right?...)     >>>     Howard Fineman gets it right with one of the most grounded descriptions of independents in print.     >>>     Also of note, Elizabeth Benjamin, who took Ben's place at the Daily News when Mr. Smith went to Washington with Politico, gets it right by making the first ever in print distinction between the grassroots NYC Independence Party Organizations and the Upstate-"We're proud to be the party of business"-MacKay crowd.     >>>     And then there's Thomas Friedman's critique of Obama's first year where Friedman laments the disappearance of the President's "amazing, young, Internet-enabled, grass-roots movement he mobilized to get elected". Mr. Friedman apparently misses the distinction between running for office and governing the country, but hey, 2 outa 3 ain't bad!     >>>     Oh, and be sure to follow the dialog about what exactly the Tea Party movement is and where it came from.

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Independent Minded--Barack Obama knows that he has to reconnect with independent voters when he gives his State of the Union address. (By Howard Fineman | Newsweek Web Exclusive) They are not "centrists" in the sense that they exist in some mathematical middle ground between "left" and "right." Nor are they necessarily angry "populists," eternally resenting and distrusting anyone with any power. They are outsiders who wish Washington were a better place.
• An Ear-Splitting Alarm (By Charlie Cook, National Journal)
• What the 'I'm Mad as Hell' Party Could Do (Robert Reich, Huffington Post)
• New poll finds voter anger drove results of Mass. election (By Dan balz and Jon Cohen, Washington Post)
• Blog poll results: Third party wanted (Wicked Local Georgetown MA )
• Political button collection highlights obscure candidates (By Jimmy Smothers, Gadsden AL Times)  While third-party candidates have not fared well at the polls, the number of independent voters is increasing. It is unlikely any third- (fourth- or fifth-) party candidate could win a major election, but the major party that can pick up the most support from the independent voters has the best bet at winning. With that in mind, the number of candidates from obscure parties is declining. 
• Sabrin: Are independents America’s third party? (NORTHJERSEY.COM, Murray Sabrin is professor of finance at Ramapo College and was the Libertarian Party nominee for governor in 1997 and a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2000 and 2008.)
• Angry voters could affect both parties (By Kristi Keck, CNN)

ELECTION REFORM

• Critics say redistricting panel needs diversity (Marisa Lagos, SF Chronicle Sacramento Bureau) When voters were asked to approve a plan in 2008 to let private citizens instead of politicians draw legislative boundaries, supporters touted the initiative as a way to depoliticize the process and eliminate conflicts of interest, while opponents said it would create a secretive and unaccountable commission that wouldn't reflect the diversity of the state.

OBAMA STATE OF THE UNION

• More (Steve) Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs (By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, NY Times) The most striking feature of Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency was the amazing, young, Internet-enabled, grass-roots movement he mobilized to get elected. The most striking feature of Obama’s presidency a year later is how thoroughly that movement has disappeared.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

• Borne seeks to establish third party in New Hampshire (By Alexis Macarchuk, Seacoast online) Member of New American Independent Party doing outreach in NH

NORTH CAROLINA

• Number of N.C.'s voters up 1.2M (Winston Salem Journal) Numbers released yesterday by elections watchdog Democracy North Carolina show that the number of independent voters in the state has increased by 83 percent since 2000.

SOUTH CAROLINA

• Extremely Restrictive South Carolina Ballot Access Bill Has Upcoming Hearing (Ballot Access News)

UTAH

• Are you an independent who voted for Obama? We want to hear from you (Idaho Statesman)

NEW YORK

• Bloomberg's Independence (Pay)Day (BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, NY Daily News/Daily Poltics) Last year, the mayor gave $400,000 to the city Indys, who don't get along with MacKay and his crowd, after running on their line for a third time. That's $150,000 more than the $250,000 Bloomberg gave the party in 2005.
• REBNY’s Independence Party Funds (By Eliot Brown, NY Observer)
• AP source: Clinton planner joins NYC mayor's staff (By SARA KUGLER, The Associated Press, Washington Post)

LAST WORD

• THE MOVEMENT: The rise of Tea Party activism. (by Ben McGrath, The New Yorker)