Hunting for Independents in New Hampshire

2012

• Huntsman: 'I'm running as a Republican' (By NBC's Jo Ling Kent, msnbc) ...not as an independent...
• Courting N.H. Independents, Huntsman Bills Himself as the Candidate to Unite the GOP (By Lindsey Boerma, National Journal) Hours before presidential front runner Mitt Romney took the stage at a Tea Party Express rally Sunday night in Concord, N.H., in an attempt to woo far-right conservatives, his fellow GOP candidate Jon Huntsman indicated to reporters in Alton Bay that he’d rather focus his time and resources on independents.
• Hopes Rising, G.O.P. Voters Seek a Winner (By ASHLEY PARKER and JEFF ZELENY, NY Times) For all the consternation among some party leaders about the strength of the field of candidates, the conversations with Republicans and independent voters revealed a sense of satisfaction at their array of choices. The interviews reflected a marked shift in the mood from only months ago, when many Republicans were openly skeptical that Mr. Obama could be defeated.
• What the Left Doesn’t Understand About Obama (By JONATHAN CHAIT, NY Times) Liberal critics of Obama, just like conservative critics of Republican presidents, generally want both maximal partisan conflict and maximal legislative achievement. In the real world, those two things are often at odds. Hence the allure of magical thinking.

The Left's Hue and Cry Against Third Parties

2012

• The ridiculous third party rallying cry - Bloomberg and Friedman pretend partisan fighting is ruining our country. The real problem is too much consensus (By David Sirota, Salon) As both Dartmouth professor Brendan Nyhan and the Columbia Journalism Review show, this act is so unerringly consistent that it has become cliche #233. And yet despite its maddening monotony, it remains a popular cottage industry. Indeed, from the pornstachioed Thomas Friedman to the Gordon Gekko-haired Jon Avlon to the monocle-and-top-hat-worthy Michael Bloomberg, the Third Party Fetishists provide a glorious career for its most slavishly devoted and dishonest cast members -- and, hey, as grifter jobs go, it's a damn good living.
• Crashing the Party System - Why does Thomas Friedman want to help a Republican win the White House? (Ben Adler, The American Prospect) Of all the rites of American politics that attend the presidential election, none is more irritating than the inevitable third-party bubble. Around this time four years ago, a coalition of irrelevant old politicos—former Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford officials and a former governor of Maine—formed a group called Unity ’08 to create a bipartisan presidential ticket. They had big dreams of holding online primaries and recruiting candidates like New York City’s independent mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The effort sputtered, then pooped out.
• Morning Jay: The Fundamentals Do Not Currently Favor Obama's Reelection (By JAY COST, The Weekly Standard) It is worth pointing out that, in the last forty years, no president has ever been elected in a predominantly two-way race with less than 48 percent of the independent vote. (That was George W. Bush in 2004.) with CHARTS

Now THAT's Good Bloggin': Jack Jodell's THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST

If you're looking for some good bloggin' be sure to check out Jack Jodell's blog THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST (featured this week on The Hankster's Now THAT's good bloggin'). Jack has a few choice words for the Tea Party last week. He's also got a great lefty blogger network, which I highly recommend taking a look at as well, that includes The Angry Bear, Man With the Muckrake, Blue in the Bluegrass, Comments from Left Field, Swiftspeech!,  Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues, and more....