TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Senate votes down open primaries (Associated Press, Chicago Tribune)
  
• Primary election changes defeated (By Dan Carden | Daily Herald)
  
• Illinois’ primary voters must continue to declare their party (By Kevin McDermott, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Springfield Bureau)
  
• Senate rejects open primaries (Galesburg.com)
  
• Under the tarnish, still golden (From The Economist print edition) California open primaries
  

STATE INDEPENDENT POLITICS

Q Poll: Dodd Would Lose To Simmons (By DANIELA ALTIMARI | The Hartford Courant) In a Dodd-Simmons matchup, Democrats back Dodd by only 58 percent to 27 percent while Simmons leads 87 percent to 6 percent among Republicans and 56 percent to 25 percent among independent voters.

NYC 2009

• Grocery Workers to Back Bloomberg, Slighting Democratic Rival (By MICHAEL BARBARO, NY Times)
  
• Pols, Press Party with Sharpton and His Corrupt Network (By Wayne Barrett, Village Voice/Runnin Scared [Wayne Barrett's blog])
  
• Staten Island GOP Poised To Back '$150 Million Gorilla' (Elizabeth Benjamin, Daily News/Daily Politics) GOP dinner Thurs. nite at Grand Hyatt
  
• Bloomberg A 'Sharpton Fan' (Elizabeth Benjamin, Daily News/Daily Politics)
  
• New York, NY - Mayor Bloomberg A ‘Sharpton Fan' (Jewkey! NOTE: Jewkey! is a highly popular, rapidly-growing orthodox site that meets the demanding media needs of the Orthodox Jewish communities across the world.] Mentions Fulani
  
• Tonight: Rivera Endorses Thompson, Bloomberg Dines With NY Republicans and Romney (By AZI PAYBARAH, NY Politicker)
  
• Bloomberg to Dine With Manhattan G.O.P. (By AZI PAYBARAH, NY Politicker)
  
• The Death of the New York City Democrat (By JASON HOROWITZ, NY Politicker)
  

NY-20

• The NY-20 Absentee Ballots: A Potential Tie? (By Eric Kleefeld, TPMDC) If we hazard a few guesses -- that Murphy got nearly all the Democrats, Tedisco got a large but slightly smaller share of Republicans, and Murphy took the unaffiliated voters by the kind of strong margins that Democrats have been pulling off recently here -- we can come to a rough estimate.
  
• In N.Y. 20, Final Tally Waits But The Spin is In (By Emily Cadei, CQ Politics) But Republican voters do not necessarily translate into Tedisco voters. Republicans enjoy a 70,000 voter-registration advantage in the district, yet the race as it stands now is a virtual tie. And independent voters, which have swung Democrat in recent years, make up a quarter of registered voters and no doubt a significant portion of absentee voters, as well.
  

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Juan Williams demarcates the Obama favorability lines -- independents still like Barack, Rush Limbaugh represents "hyper-partisanship"
  
• Jury still out on upstate New York's 20th -- pundits longing to draw conclusions.... and TPMDC's Eric Kleefeld is WAY behind the curve on independent voters.... Just to note: The 20th Congressional District is home to 432,771 active voters, including 180,810 Republicans, 113,354 Democrats, 20,020 members of the Independence Party, 8,425 Conservatives, 1,504 members of the Working Families Party, 1,483 Greens, 114 Libertarians and 105,059 unaffiliated voters, according the state Board of Elections.  Soft Dems? I think not!
  
• William Redpath, Libertarian National Committee Chair says "interest" in Libertarian Party is rising... Hmmm...Spoken like a true partisan!
  
• Independent politics, partisan style in PA
  
• Open primaries gaining ground in California
  
• Open primaries in the hands of partisan interests in Illinois
  
• Independents move ahead, Republicans stall on negotiations with Bloomberg '09