American Politics: The problem is not division but partisanship

FRED NEWMAN
Fred Newman, Writer and Political Figure, Dies at 76 (By DOUGLAS MARTIN, NY Times) Fred Newman’s influential role in New York life and politics defied easy description.

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Sund: Should politicians' first loyalty to be to nation or party? (By Roberta Sound, Times Record News - Wichita Falls, TX)
• How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans - AN INSIDER’S SIX-STEP PLAN TO FIX CONGRESS (By Mickey Edwards, The Atlantic/Ideas) I am not calling for a magical political “center”: many of the most important steps forward in our history have not come from the center at all, including women’s suffrage and the civil-rights movement, and even our founding rebellion against the British crown. Nor am I pleading for consensus: consensus is not possible in a diverse nation of 300 million people (compromise is the essential ingredient in legislative decision-making). And I’m not pushing for harmony: democracy depends on vigorous debate among competing views. The problem is not division but partisanship—advantage-seeking by private clubs whose central goal is to win political power.

NONPARTISAN ELECTIONS

• U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. Rules that Independent Candidate in City Election Has Standing to Challenge Partisan Elections in Kinston, North Carolina (Ballot Access News) The decision says that independent candidate John Nix, who wants to run for city council of Kinston, North Carolina, in the November 2011 election, has standing to challenge the chain of developments that causes Kinston to still have partisan city elections.
• Hartford Mayoral Deal Cheats Voters Of Choice (By URANIA PETIT, The Hartford Courant) But contested elections are already too rare in Hartford. A competitive race between highly qualified candidates is something many community activists and ordinary citizens value. Instead, once again, the decisions have been made for us by a small group of power brokers and party leaders. That's not healthy for democracy, and it perpetuates the pattern of voter apathy and mistrust.

2012

• Iowa Democrats trying to stay in the game (By Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times) Whoever the nominee is, she said, "they are going to have to come back here and make the argument to independent voters. Even if they've won the caucuses, what they've won is only a subset of Republicans. That's the danger of blowing off Iowa."
• Iowa Democrats plan Obama re-election strategy (By Jennifer Jacobs, The Des Moines Register in USA Today) Between Nov. 1, 2008, and July 1 this year, Iowa gained 17,758 more active registered Republicans and lost 10,148 independent voters. Independents tend to move around, and with all the action this year in the Republican caucuses, politics watchers said, it's not surprising if they register with the GOP to weigh in on that contest.

NEW YORK
F.A.Q.: What could keep Andrew Cuomo from fixing redistricting? (BY JOSH BENSON, Capital New York) It's still early, but when we saw LATFOR, the legislative body that's charged with redistricting, start to move forward this week, I sure took it as a sign that the legislature doesn't have much interest in creating an independent, nonpartisan panel to (theoretically) draw independent, non-partisan lines. Which in the judgment of goo-goos, they don't. And, after a little back-and-forth with the governor, he agreed they can't make independent lines in their current form.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS - Health Care Reform, Open Primaries

Health Care Reform fallout -- it's about the independents. Arizona Repubs: Independents need not apply. California Proposition 14 open primary initiative has 56% approval to 27% opposition. Only 5% of Tea Party activists consider themselves independent. NY Times commentator Thomas Friedman supports ranked voting. ACORN reorganizes operations. Kinston NC struggles for nonpartisan elections. Kathleen Curry and Joelle Riddle shake up Colorado politics. NYC Charter Revision Commission gets underway. NY State Sen. Pedro Espada stumps for farm workers.

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• CA: The Voters That Might Sway Elections (Posted By John Myers, KQED/Capital Notes) When asked about hypothetical matchups between each of the three Republicans and the incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer, the feelings of another subgroup of voters are worth noting: independents, the single fastest growing group of voters in the state.
• Obama and GOP battle for independent voters (By: JULIE MASON, Washington Examiner White House Correspondent)

OPEN PRIMARIES

• AZ State GOP Considers Blocking Independents (Peter Busch, KPHO Phoenix)

PROP 14

• California voters angry, irritated, pessimistic says new survey  (Central Valley Business Times)
• Look out, incumbents! (JOHN MARELIUS, San Diego Union Tribune)
• MAJORITY FAVOR PROPOSITION 14 (Full report from PPIC 3/24 Survey)
• California Green Party Creates Anti-Prop. 14 Leaflet (Ballot Access News)

TEA PARTY

• Poll: Tea Party Is The Home Of The Angry White Woman (Evan McMorris-Santoro, TPMDC Talking Points Memo)
• March 24, 2010 - Tea Party Could Hurt GOP In Congressional Races, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Dems Trail 2-Way Races, But Win If Tea Party Runs (Quinnipiac) 5 percent are solidly independent
• A Tea Party Without Nuts (By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, NY Times) But I’ve come to realize that none of these innovations will emerge at scale until we get the most important innovation of all — political innovation that will empower independents and centrists, which describes a lot of the country. Radical center, ranked voting, nonpartisan redistricting...
• 'Tea party' activists happier with the GOP (By Kathleen Hennessey, LA Times)

ACORN

• ACORN Closing Its Doors, Chapters Might Re-Emerge (By Kate Rogers, Nonprofit Times)
• ACORN to formally disband (Reuters)

NORTH CAROLINA

• Independent voter growth showing its muscle (By Charles Deal | Special to the Hickory Record)
• Doug Clark: The feds could find business here, too (By DOUG CLARK, Greensboro News Record) Of course, most North Carolina cities and towns hold nonpartisan elections. Greensboro does. Is that a violation of civil rights? Could last November's defeat of Yvonne Johnson, Greensboro's first black mayor, be blamed on nonpartisan voting? If she'd been identified on the ballot as a Democrat, and Bill Knight as a Republican, would more voters have figured out they were supposed to vote for her? Please, let's not ask the Justice Department to answer that.

COLORADO

• Democrats still mad at Curry (Scott Condon, The Aspen Times)
• Rep. Curry Says She’s At Peace With Her Decision To Switch Parties (State Bill Colorado)
• Neither party is worthy of support (LETTER Post Independent)

NEW YORK

• Dozen Council Members Form a Bloc for Liberals (By DAVID W. CHEN, NY Times)
• Poll: No Fourth Term For Bloomberg (By Azi Paybarah, NY Observer)
• Cracks Bedevil Bloomberg’s Driveway (By NEW YORK TIMES/City Room) Sometimes, those recommendations are passed. Other times, they fall short, as was the case in 2003, when voters rejected Mr. Bloomberg’s dream of holding nonpartisan elections.
• Amigos Grown Up, But Not Gone (BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Daily News/Daily Politics)
• Espada wants farm workers vote, just like same-sex marriage (by Jimmy Vielkind, Albany Times Union/Capitol Confidential)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS - Of Third Parties and Con-fusions

Chatter continues about where independent voters are in the countdown to the 2010 midterm elections, this week's theme being the subjective/emotional "state" of independents -- indies are angry, frightened and turning right, say the pundits -- oh, yeah, and anti-incumbent. Poli-Tea started a very interesting and I think important dialog in several posts last week about the impact on independents of the rules the major parties enact to prevent the rise of a competitive third party in The Dialectic of the Subjective and the Objective in the Reproduction of the Two Party-State. In the meantime, a state chapter of the Working Families Party has been formed in Vermont... Surely the success of in NYC (both NY and VT have a form of fusion voting where candidates can run on more than one party line) of both the Independence Party and the WFP deserve some investigation in light of the formidable barriers that exist? More on this later. And on a final note, there's fusion and then there's fusion -- Doctor Zero's fusion is, well, CONfusion... -NH

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Polls: Voter/Independent's ire for incumbents reaching critical mass (Wichita Independent Examiner, Geoff Caldwell)
• Edward Achorn: Frightened independents send Washington a message (By EDWARD ACHORN, Providence Journal)
• The Silver Lining of the Left in Power (by Dennis Prager, Townhall) It is difficult to overstate how important this is. For decades, the left has largely controlled the news media, the arts, the universities and the entertainment media. And vast numbers of Americans have imbibed these leftist messages and the leftist critiques of conservatives. What these Americans have never been able to do is to see what the left would actually do if in power.
• Independents Turning Right (By Sarah Gravlee, KULR 8 Billings MT)
• Poll: Beau Biden Grabs Lead in Delaware Senate Race (By DAVID WEIGEL, Washington Independent)
• Barack Obama Proves He’s No Bill Clinton (By Ron Nehring, Chairman of the California Republican Party, Fox & Hounds Daily - CA)
• Rasmussen delivers more the-sky-is-falling-on-Obama spin in the WSJ (by Eric Boehlert, Media Matters) Since when do serious, 'independent' pollsters write columns urging the president to "shift right"? While you’re at it, tell the City Council that you want them to appeal the U.S. Department of Justice’s ridiculous decision to overturn our vote on nonpartisan elections.

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Constitutional convention initiative moves toward ballot (By Gary Quackenbush, North Bay Business Journal) “Redistricting authority should be given to a nonpartisan commission and not be left to legislators. Open primaries would allow voters to vote for anyone during the primaries and the two highest vote-getters for each position would then appear on the general election ballot, regardless of party affiliation.”

KINSTON NC

• A fond farewell to Buddy and Jimmy (Bryan C. Hanks, ENC Today) Article mentions the Justice Department's decision to deny voter-approved nonpartisan municipal elections...

GOVERNORS RACES

• So much for the power of incumbency (By The Monday Fix, Washington Post) What's clear from this and other national polling as well as a variety of state data is that there is a widespread belief that politicians are not acting in the best interests of those they represent. This sentiment isn't terribly new, but the depth of these anti-incumbent feelings -- particularly among political independents -- makes it newsworthy.
• Christie versus Booker must wait, as mayor intent on building upon their alliance (By MAX PIZARRO, PolitickerNJ.com)
• An insider's view of Christie's N.J. victory- During "that roller-coaster ride," the campaign focused on independent voters, and the issues. (Russ Schriefer, Philadelphia Inquirer)  NOTE: Russ Schriefer is a 20-year Repub consultant

WORKING FAMILIES PARTY

• Working Families Party forming in Vermont (By Nancy Remsen, Burlington Free Press) Vermont is one of 10 states that allows candidates to run with more than one party affiliation noted on the ballot and those are the states that the Working Families Party have targeted. The party was founded in New York in 1998 and then spread to Connecticut. Vermont has three major political parties -- Democrats, Republicans and Progressives. A political party is considered "major" in Vermont if one of its statewide candidates received more than 5 percent of the vote in the most recent election. Vermont also has had three minor parties in recent years -- Liberty Union, Libertarian and Constitutional.
• Lopez’s Legacy Looms Large (By Aaron Short, Your Nabe Brooklyn)

ON THE BLOGS

• The Essential Fusion (BY DOCTOR ZERO, Hot Air) The part of the conservative movement broadly defined as “social” is essential to defeating the moral argument of the Left. Electoral victory requires persuading moderate and independent voters, and even some liberals who are still open-minded enough to give the other side a hearing. Such persuasion is impossible without a compelling moral argument, because conservatism does not seem coherent without it. Say what you will about the fundamental argument of collectivism, but you can’t deny it’s simple and consistent: give us your vote and we will take care of you, at the expense of people whose greed is worthy of your hatred.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 11/9/09

A round-up of the most recent stories over the past week or so reveals a heavy emphasis on the performance of independent voters in the Gov races in NJ and PA and a striking omission of the election of the first independent mayor of New York City on the Independence Party line. Clearly organized independents, such as the NYC IP, are a danger to the status quo, so much so that almost all the media, including the blogosphere, is ignoring them.

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Serious as a Heart Attack: The Independent’s Story (By Jackie Salit (new deal 2.0, A Project of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute)
• Sucking Sound - Tuesday’s groundswells were less about a GOP renaissance than the return of the Perotistas. (By John Heilemann, New York Magazine/Intelligencer) Yes, that’s right, the Perot voter is back with a vengeance... “If there’s a trend, it’s that independents are anti-incumbent; all sitting leadership officials are polling poorly with independents,” says Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas.
• Both parties feel independents' wrath (By DAVE HELLING, The Kansas City Star) “Independents want more direct participation in the policymaking process,” Salit said. “They want leadership that makes decisions based on what’s good for a community, a city, a state, a country.”
• Obama transformative? Or Clinton-Lite? (JOHN BRUMMETT, Pahrump Valley Times, Nye County NV) Today's independents tend to be results-oriented, impatient and disdainful. So the nation hangs on to a seesaw they control.
• Obama's So Speedy, It Looks Like He's Hardly Moved. (Tim Fernholz, American Prospect/Tapped) David Brooks has a column on the independents in the wake of Tuesday's election, deploying his usual technique of communing with them via stereotypes -- "They’re looking for a safe pair of hands." NOTE: While I don't share the political perspective of this article or the American Prospect (far from it), I do appreciate Tim Fernholz calling David Brooks out on relating to independents as some Idealized Form (in DB's mind?) rather than as the real people they are...
• Is David Brooks Punking Me? (Noam Scheiber, The New Republic) So yesterday I posted an item complaining about the line of argument that attributes Tuesday's election results to the fact that Democrats had strayed too far from the center, had done too much to quickly, were expanding government too far, etc., etc. I argued that it was much more plausible that voters--particularly the independent voters who decide elections--were just pissed off about the economy. To believe the former, you'd have to believe that these voters have well worked-out views about the proper size of government, and that they're supremely self-aware about where they stand on the ideological spectrum, and where politicians stand relative to them at any given moment, which strikes me as a bit implausible.
• We cannot tolerate intolerance, but how do we avoid the trap of Liberalism? (GBH, Cannibal Planet - Where the Rich Eat the Poor) I've been standing out in Left field for a long time. Watching the game. The infield dominated by the Dems and Repubs. Watching them throw the ball back and forth. The Dems just are trying to keep the game alive while the Repubs just want to keep the ball. Me? Sitting here with the Outfield - Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, and Lenora Fulani among others.
• Like the British in 1775: Empire before citizens (LETTER: Free Lance Star - Fredericksburg VA) As for me, frankly, I'm just plain tired of the partisanship and hypocrisy of both parties.
• Independent Voters and Empty Explanations (by Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight.com) Independent voters are treated as a cause, when all that they really are is a symptom. 

GOV RACES

• Obama cedes the center (By Michael Gerson, Washington Post) Obama won just under half of Virginia independent voters last year. On Tuesday, McDonnell carried 66 percent.
• Dems see lessons in defeat of Deeds (By: Jonathan Martin, Politico) Kaine was also an advocate for not watering down the message. “I don’t think there’s a problem with just [saying], ‘Hey, gosh I’m a Democrat, and I’m proud of it, and let me tell you why,’” he said. “I don’t think you need to back away from it at all.” But, seeing swing voters flee the Democratic Party, that’s not what Deeds did.

BLOOMBERG 09

• New York City Independence Party Breaks Records (Donklephant)
• Tuesday’s results on top and down ballot: The closer you look, the worse it was for Democrats (Posted by Brad Smith, RedState) They even gained a couple seats on the New York City Council (in addition to the re-election of their sort-of Republican Mayor Bloomberg). NOTE: Mike Bloomberg is a registered nonpartisan (independent) and ran on the Independence Party line, where he got 26% of his vote.
• This ‘change’ wasn’t what many expected (Douglas Turner, Buffalo News) Disillusioned independents voted overwhelmingly for Republicans Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey, and nudged Bloomberg across the line for the third and last time. 
• Incumbents bear brunt of voter anger (By IRENE JAY LIU, Capitol bureau, Albany Times Union) In New York City, Bloomberg received the lowest five-borough vote total of any mayoral winner in a generation, with an estimated 25 percent voter turnout.
• The New Power Generation-Bloomberg may have squeaked back in as king—but now he has two ambitious princes to contend with. (By Chris Smith, New York Magazine) Bloomberg will also face, for the first time in eight years, a sustained challenge from the other two citywide officeholders, De Blasio and John Liu, the comptroller-elect
• For Judges Standing By, a Quiet Election Day (Corey Kilgannon, The New York Times/City Room) Featuring Ed Brady at the BoE...

ATLANTA MAYOR RACE

• Kasim Reed has been endorsed by Georgia Independent Voters and is now in a runoff against Mary Norwood

WORKING FAMILIES PARTY

• Former top judge to lead Working Families Party probe-The labor-backed political organization hires former New York state Court of Appeals Judge Judith Kaye to review its operations after critics charged it skirted certain laws. (By Daniel Massey, Crains New York)

KINSTON NC

• Anatomy of an upset-B.J. Murphy's victory Tuesday night still surprising observers (Bryan C. Hanks, ENC Today) Following the DOJ’s controversial decision to keep Kinston’s municipal elections partisan in August, Cousins easily defeated political newcomer Ronnie Isler in September’s Democratic primary and moved on to Tuesday’s election.  NOTE: Murphy supported nonpartisan elections and spoke out during the campaign against the DoJ decision
• Power to the party--ELECTION '09: Democrats and Republicans in Kinston, N.C., plan their next move against a federal veto of nonpartisan elections (Jamie Dean, World Magazine - Today's News Christian Views) In the small town of Kinston, N.C., B.J. Murphy did something extraordinary on Election Day: The 29-year-old sales director for a local real estate company became the first Republican elected 

MEDIA

• Failing the Midterms -- Press overplays election results (FAIR - Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) Republican candidates won gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday; meanwhile, Democratic candidates won two special elections for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York and California. But it was very clear which set of elections corporate media wanted to portray as sending an important message about national politics--that voters were discontented with the White House and wanted Democrats to move to the right.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 10/23/09

KINSTON NC, NON-PARTISAN ELECTIONS & THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
While the conclusion by the US Justice Department to disallow nonpartisan city elections in Kinston NC, in spite of a 2-1 favorable vote last year by the electorate, is questionable (was it knee-jerk liberalism, exuberant Dem partisanship, or just plain bad judgement???), the fervor with which the right wing press has picked up on this smacks of more anti-Obama, knee-jerk reactionaryism, exuberant Repub partisanship, and just plain right-wing politics:

• Justice concludes black voters need Democratic Party (Ben Conery, Washington Times)
• Big Voting Rights Drama in Small Town (Clarice Feldman, Pajamas Media) 
• The Politicization of Justice: Kinston, North Carolina (Heritage Foundation blog)
• DOJ forces town to put party labels on candidates for racial reasons (Ed Lasky, American Thinker)

MORE NONPARTISAN ELECTIONS

• Why One Democrat Thinks New York Needs a Strong GOP (By DAVID PARKER, Wall Street Journal) Democrats have also used their muscle to fight structural reforms. When Mike Bloomberg (full disclosure: the mayor is a former client) pushed to replace primaries with nonpartisan elections in a 2003 referendum, the Democratic Party pulled out all the stops to defeat the measure.
• U.S. Justice Department OK’s New Arizona Law that Forces Tucson to Use Non-Partisan City Elections (Ballot Access News)

GOV RACES

• Poll: N.J. Independent Daggett at 20 Percent (By Emily Cadei, CQ Politics)

BLOOMBERG 09
The Gay City News endorsement of Thompson in the Mayor's race appears to be purely partisan...

• The Campaign That Has Not Happened (Gay City News Endorsement for Thompson)