Hankster News of the Day for Independent Voters June 14

OBAMA IN PA

• Women, Indies give Obama PA lead in new poll (Philadelphia Inquirer) In Tuesday’s poll, women back Obama 51 percent to 36 percent in Pennsylvania, while men narrowly favor Romney, 44 percent to 40 percent. Obama is leading 43 percent to 35 percent among independent voters, the poll finds.
• June 12, 2012 - Women Give Obama 6-Point Lead In Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Gov. Corbett Job Approval At Lowest Point Ever (Quinnipiac) With strong support from women and independent voters, President Barack Obama leads Gov. Mitt Romney 46 - 40 among Pennsylvania voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Romney would do a better job on the economy, voters say 49 - 41 percent.
• Quinnipiac: Obama up 6 in Pennsylvania (By ALEXANDER BURNS, Politico/ Burns & Haberman) Winning women by a big margin, leveraging likability, keeping the jobs debate close — that's the formula we've repeatedly seen in polls that show the president ahead. Of course, Pennsylvania is also a Democratic-leaning state, so Obama can accomplish all those goals and still end up in a toss-up race in a place like, say, Virginia.

CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENTS
Independent Voters Crucial To SD Mayor Race -- Movement To The Middle Group Endorsed Independent Candidate Nathan Fletcher (10 News - San Diego) In April, a group of local businessmen and women announced they were changing their political affiliation to independent. This came after Fletcher left the Republican Party.

MAINE INDEPENDENTS
Maine independent out to shake up U.S. Senate -- Former Gov. Angus King is bringing a stridently anti-partisan message to the battle for control of the U.S. Senate — and going into Tuesday's primary, polls show he's leading all potential rivals. (By Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post in Seattle Times) It will depend on the terms, however. "What does 'join a caucus' mean? Does it mean casting one vote to organize the Senate and then you're on your own? Or does it mean you have to truly join the caucus, go to the meetings and participate fully or you lose your committee assignments?" he asked. "How the parties handle that with me is going to have a significant influence on my decision." And if a voter insists he needs to pick a party before November, King said, "I'll tell them to vote for someone else."

NEW YORK INDEPENDENTS

• NY’s conservative triumph (New York Post) Tonight [Wednesday], the nation’s most successful third party, the Conservative Party of New York, celebrate its 50th anniversary with a gala dinner at the Sheraton in Manhattan.
• Meng Joins Vallone To Go After ‘Untouchable’ Antennas (John Toscano, Queens Gazette) State Independence Party Chairman Frank MacKay said in his endorsement of Ulrich: “He has been an outstanding representative in the city council and I know he will take the same independent leadership to Albany.”… Halloran stated, “I ask the president to take time away from his busy schedule raising thousands to actually address the issues that New York City faces. But I’m sure that he’ll spend his time on Broadway raking in cash from Manhattan elites instead of crossing the bridges into the outer boroughs.”

LAST WORD - STUDYING INDEPENDENTS IN OHIO AND PENNSYLVANIA 
Shifting the Economic Narrative (Democracy Corps - Carville Greenberg Focus Group) With the economy faltering, we conducted fairly open-ended focus groups among white non-college-educated voters in Columbus, Ohio and college-educated suburban voters in suburban Philadelphia.  We excluded strong partisans from both camps.  These were all independents or weak partisans and ticket-splitters—swing independent voters—and the groups included an even mix of 2008 Obama and McCain voters.