TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 9/27/10

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Independents Abandon Democrats Ahead Of Midterms (by JOEL ROSE, NPR) Still, Bullock says she supports President Obama. So do Mark Balsam and Yvone Vazquez of rural Bucks County, Pa. They both voted for Obama two years ago, but neither seems excited about the candidates in this election. I will vote for somebody, probably," Balsam says. "I don't feel highly motivated, I guess." "I might not vote at all, period," Vazquez says.
• Tired of 'tea party' sniping, moderates organize (By James Oliphant, LA Times) The No Labels effort, expected to launch later this year, is backed by Republicans such as McKinnon, the former Bush advisor, and Nancy Jacobson, a powerful Democratic fundraiser married to pollster Mark Penn. Another Washington group, think tank Third Way, advocates "a moderate ideology" built around such issues as free trade and clean energy.
• Obama looks to youth vote for a late midterm surge (By Philip Ruckerand Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post) NOTE: Independents voted in 2008 for Barack Obama, not the Democratic Party. And there's really nothing the Dems can do about that. When you're a Dem, you're a Dem all the way. That's what partisanship IS! And that's what independents don't like. Looks like a nice little political trap for the parties. Good luck fellas! - NH  PS -- About 45% of youth under the age of 25 consider themselves independent. But knock yourselves out!

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Power plays: Propositions 25 and 26 - they're both bad policy dressed up as reform (EDITORIAL LA Daily News) There is a solution to this abuse of government and partisan political fights, and that is to elect a better class of leaders. That's why we support structural reforms such as independent redistricting and open primaries that we think will help elect politicians who put the public's interest before their own. But these two propositions, while dressed up as reforms, will do nothing but make our political problem worse. Vote no on Propositions 25 and 26.
• Perspectives: Bipartisan - or nonpartisan?; What if we rid Congress of petty party politics? (By William J. Kelleher, San Gabriel Valley Tribune) In 2003, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg strongly supported a referendum that would change city election practices from highly partisan to almost completely nonpartisan. If passed by the voters, the law would have opened primary elections to all voters by eliminating the partisan ballot.

MIDTERMS

• Brown: Who wants to be endorsed by a billionaire? (By Fred Brown, The Denver Post) We've reached such a state in this country that hardly anyone is in the middle of the road about anything, even being in the middle of the road.

2012

• Bloomberg's centrist presidential test (By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift, Pocono Record)

COLORADO

• Analysis: Curry’s Long-Shot Election Bid Grows Longer (By Brad Jones, FACE THE STATE, State Bill Colorado) Curry said she’ll press on with her legal fight, but after U.S. District Judge Philip Brimmer turned down her motion last Thursday to block the state campaign-finance law in time for the November election, even an eventual favorable outcome will do her little good in raising contributions toward her re-election bid. It’s also little solace to voters who might want to support her or other candidates outside the GOP-Democrat loop.
• One legal hurdle down, about a dozen more to go (By Marianne Goodland, THE COLORADO STATESMAN) In June, Judge Marcia Krieger ruled in favor of Buescher and co-defendant Linda Daley, clerk of La Plata County on the ballot access issue. Under state law, a person who wants to run as an unaffiliated candidate must disaffiliate from a political party within a specific time before the next general election. Curry and Riddle sought an injunction against that law, stating that it violated their 1st Amendment and 14th Amendment rights. That case is now on appeal with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

NEW YORK

• Where Have All the Political Parties Gone? - Working Families swoops into the void. (By Chris Smith, NY Mag) That the WFP, the biggest institutional local political success story of the past decade, finds itself wobbling between enormous influence and extinction is emblematic of a larger drama: the highly fluid state of the New York political Establishment not named Michael Bloomberg.
• Cuomo Facing Criticism From Blacks (By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, NY Times) Mr. Cuomo is also being challenged from the left by Charles Barron, a black city councilman in New York who is running on the Freedom Party line.