Open Primaries, Independent Redistricting - America Needs Structural Political Reform

OPEN PRIMARIES

• The will of the people? (LETTER Wellsboro Gazette - IL) Finally, we should consider open primaries. Given that these changes would empower voters while eroding control by political machines, I’m not holding my breath. Until ballot access is reformed, I’d advise all challengers to do what I’m doing; run as an independent and avoid the primaries.
• Election competitiveness far from impossible (KEN CLARK AND ROBERTA VOSS, Arizona Daily Sun) Your editorial asserts that other reforms, such as open primaries, will do more to reform Arizona lawmaking than redistricting. However, we are certain that better redistricting is the key reform from which all others flow, like a fountainhead.

OBAMA

• President Obama's New York Approval Rating Highest Since February 2009: Quinnipiac Poll (BY Celeste Katz, Daily News/Daily Politics) New York State voters approve 60–35% of the job President Obama is doing -- his highest score since February 19, 2009, one month after inauguration.  Predictably, independent voters split 47–47%, Democrats approve 89–7% and Republicans disapprove 76–19%, the survey found.
• Romney: 'Barack Obama has failed America' (By PHILIP ELLIOTT, The Associated Press, Atlanta Journal Constitution) It's a pitch tailored to the conservatives who hold great sway in picking the GOP's presidential nominee in Iowa and South Carolina — and the independents who are the largest politic bloc in New Hampshire. And it is as much a thesis on his viability as it is an indictment of Obama's leadership.