Hankster News of the Day for Independents May 22

MORNING READ

Most mornings The Hankster brings you the top news articles from mainstream media and the blogosphere that independent activists need to read. The title of the article contains the link to the original, followed by the author and publication, and then a snipit from the article. You can subscribe to this briefing by email at FeedBlitz or choose your favorite newsreader... Here's today's picks:

• Black conservatives and gay marriage (By Robert Smith Jr., Detroit News/Opinion) The only person of color before President Barack Obama to really run for the office of president of the United States was Lenora Fulani. She was on the ballot in all 50 states. Cain, Jackson, nor Sharpton ran for anything but publicity. They got television shows and book deals.
• California Independent Voter Organization Endorses Candidates for Congress in June "Top Two" Primary (The Hankster) IndependentVoice.Org, a statewide organization representing the interests of California's 3.6 million independent voters, today announced its endorsements of Congressional candidates Stacey Lawson (Democrat, 2nd District), Linda Parks (independent, 26th District), and Abel Maldonado (Republican, 24th District) for the June 5, 2012 primary. The candidates were selected based on their support for political reforms that empower independent voters like the open primary and redistricting reform.
• W.Va. could add hurdles to primary ballot (Lawrence Messina, RealClearPolitics) Only a handful of states don't require petition signatures for at least certain categories of candidates, said Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News. For 27 years, Winger has tracked legislation, court rulings and other developments in this area. West Virginia mandates signatures for third-party and independent candidates running for president, Congress and statewide office, a standard that does not affect the primaries of the state's recognized political parties.
• 'Fatally flawed': Why third parties still fail despite voter anger (By Kevin Liptak, CNN) Most Americans have probably never heard of Americans Elect. But as polls show dissatisfaction with both parties nearing all-time highs, a group created for the 2012 campaign to field a third-party presidential candidate would seem like a natural success. Why, then, did the group -- which launched in a flurry of publicity and spent $35 million to get on ballots in 29 states -- fail?
• Why Americans Elect Crashed And Burned (Kyle Leighton, TPM) It seems that the inability to create a movement in this vein was less about the sentiment — polls show Americans are aren’t fans of either party specifically or the political process generally — but it was lacking a key ingredient: leadership. 
• Swing Voters and Elastic States (By NATE SILVER, NY Times/FiveThirtyEight) North Carolina is a swing state that has relatively few swing voters. Rhode Island is not a swing state, but it has quite a lot of swing voters. Are you confused yet?

Independents, Swing Voters, and Open Primaries

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Swing voters: Diverse, misunderstood and crucial in 2012 - Far from a uniform band of centrists, swing voters include anti-corporate pacifists, tea party activists and many shades of political gray in between. (By David Lauter, Washington Bureau, LA Times)
• Kill the American Primary to Save American Politics: Ezra Klein (By Ezra Klein, Bloomberg.com)
• Independents Will Decide the 2012 Election - Here are three ways Obama and Romney can woo them. (Nick Gillespie, reason.com) If independent voters are the key to the presidency, what are the keys to independent voters? In its summary of 2011 attitudes toward government and political parties, Gallup concluded that the surge in independents stems from the “sluggish economy, record levels of distrust in government, and unfavorable views of both parties.” Indeed, a “historic” 81 percent of Americans overall are “dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed” and 53 percent of us have negative views of the Republican Party and 55 percent of us have negative views of the Democratic Party. NOTE:  LOTS OF LINKS HERE

Independent Voters and the 2012 Election: Tough Crowd!

The New York Times/ CBS News poll that came out Wednesday reveals a disenchantment by independents with Pres. Obama. No indication of any enchantment with the dwindling Repub possibilities... Record high percentage of Americans identify as independents...

• Poll Shows Obama’s Vulnerability With Swing Voters (By JEFF ZELENY and DALIA SUSSMAN, NY Times) President Obama opens his re-election bid facing significant obstacles among independent voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with the critical piece of the electorate that cemented his victory four years ago open to denying him a second term.
• Obama hurting with swing voters, poll shows (By MJ LEE, Politico) Just 31 percent of independent voters indicated a favorable opinion of the president in a New York Times/CBS News poll out Thursday, compared to a 38 percent favorability rating among all voters.
• Obama losing luster with independent voters: poll (Reuters) + Judicial Watch on Washington Corruption poll: The vast majority of registered voters (68%) believe President Obama has either worsened (27%) or not improved (42%) government transparency as he promised during the 2008 presidential campaign. Only slightly more than half of registered Democrats believe Obama has improved transparency.
• Survey: Campaign finance reform could be major 2012 issue (by Aaron Puebla, Campaigns & Elections) According to a new survey from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, conducted for Democracy Corps, 62 percent of voters oppose the Court’s Citizens United ruling, which permitted unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions. And more than three-quarters of voters say they would like to see candidates make campaign finance reform a “key” issue in 2012.
• A Libertarian Democrat Considers Mitt Romney - So much for the hope that Obama would move the party in a back-to-the-future Jeffersonian liberal direction. (Terry Michael, Reason.com) Then, within 10 months of taking office, he started a second war in Afghanistan. And he took three full years to withdraw troops from Iraq, negotiating until just weeks ago to keep troops there. As his premier domestic policy initiative, Obama rammed through a Democratic-controlled congress a welfare program for pharmaceutical companies, the centerpiece of which was—yes—a mandate forcing millions to buy coverage.
• Polls show Ron Paul emerging as key player in 2012 race (by Chris Hinyub, IVN) A new poll finds that a third-party bid by presidential hopeful Ron Paul would help re-elect president Obama, but not before taking away 9% of the President’s independent support and 17% of independent voters from Romney. In a separate poll, Paul was found to be competitive against Obama in a head-to-head contest as the GOP nominee.
• What If Voters Just Don’t Like Mitt Romney? (Benjy Sarlin & Kyle Leighton, TPM2012) While Republican voters are starting to come around to his candidacy, the rest of the country doesn’t seem too pleased with what they see. Romney’s lost six points on favorability among independent voters since Pew’s last poll in November, leading to a 13 point gap on the metric, 33 - 45.

• Record-High 40% of Americans Identify as Independents in '11 - More Americans identify as Democrats than as Republicans, 31% to 27% (by Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup) In recent decades, Gallup has observed a pattern of increased independent identification in the year prior to a presidential election, and a decline in the presidential election year. The only exception to that was in 1992, when independent identification increased from 1991, perhaps the result of President Bush's high approval ratings in 1991 and Ross Perot's independent presidential candidacy in 1992.
• Voters, redeclarers keep poll workers busy (Nashua Telegraph) She and June Caron managed to keep up with the stream of voters, many of whom admitted that if they didn’t redeclare as independents right away, they could very well forget to do it at all. “That group (independents) has been the majority of our voters so far...”
• Independent Voters on the Rise but Do They Matter? (Huma Khan, ABC News) Forty percent of voters identified themselves as politically independent in 2011, according to a new Gallup poll released today, the highest number recorded in the poll yet. The previous high for independents was 39 percent in 1995 and 2007. Democrats won both presidential races in the following years.
• Opinion: The center is back — and Obama needs to be there (By Mark Penn, The Hill) And the more centrist the Republican nominee, the more centrist the president needs to be in order to win in 2012. The huge ideological gap that would have made running against the Republicans an easy romp is disappearing as the exit polls show that even primary voters are choosing practicality over partisanship. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney won with those voters who thought he had a better chance to beat President Obama in November.

Where Will Independents Swing in 2012?

2012

• Perry Skips S.C. Tea Party Forum, 5 Others Appear (by Julie Rose, NPR) Paul said Americans need a system of sound money, property rights, contracts, a judicial system and a defense department, and "not a heck of a lot else."
• Climate, evolution thorny issues for GOP hopefuls (Joe Garofoli,Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle) Nationally, 55 percent of Americans believe that global warming is a "serious personal threat," according to a Gallup survey in August. The bad news for Republican presidential candidates: The Public Policy Institute survey found that 62 percent of independent voters, who are the swing voters in the state, believe that, too.
• Democratic analysis: Jobs plan key (By: Celinda Lake and Daniel Gotoff and Kristin Pondel, Politico) While independent voters negligibly lean toward the GOP today: 29% to 26%, with a 45% plurality undecided, it is a far cry from the Republicans’ 19-point lead among independents in the 2010 election. Democrats can take back the House and should not miss this opportunity.
• Palin Draws Double the Size Crowd as Romney, Yet Remains Out of Race (By Sarah B. Boxer, National Journal) “Solutions come from you,” she told the crowd. “It is you who run our factories and own our small businesses, who fight our wars, who build our communities with a service heart, that is our country. … Hope is in you. It’s not that nebulous hopey-changey stuff we heard in 2008."

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

Committee for a Unified Independent Party January 25 conference brought scant attention from the MSM or the blogosphere, but Azi Paybarah twittered the conference (as did The Hankster) and covered Doug Schoen's talk on PolitickerNY, and Anglico went out on a limb to post a note on Daily Kos drawing fire for using the word "independent"!

Deliberations go on about where to put Obama's vast online network, and here's a bit on how they found those coveted swing voters...

Everyone's trying to peek behind the curtain on the Gillibrand Senate appointment in New York. The Repubs are eyeing the vacancy, the Dems are thinking independent, and in the meantime, Mike Bloomberg is doing well in the polls and US District Court says term limits sacking by City Council is ok by them...

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Don't underestimate your power as an Independent (Lee Brocher, Get Involved, Make a Difference) 40% of Wisconsinites (including me) consider themselves Independent. In fact, for the first time in several years, Wisconsin Independents far outnumbered Republicans (25%) of Wisconsinites, and Democrats (29%).  links to independentvoting.org
  
• Holbrook's been 'Twain' longer than Clemens was (By Amy McRary, Knoxville News Sentinel) One new routine discusses the power of the independent voter, a topic he says is relevant with the 2008 election.
  
• Locals to witness history at Obama inaugural (BY TOM TOLEN, The Livingston Community News/Ann Arbor News) Karaska became a devotee of Obama after reading his book "The Audacity of Hope.'' However, she votes independently. "Both my husband (Brian) and I are independent, or to use the new term, swing voters,'' she said. "I consider the person and how they stand on issues.''
  

POLITICAL REFORM

Minneapolis voters can start thinking 1, 2, 3 (By Lori Sturdevant, Minneapolis Star Tribune) District Judge George McGunnigle's clear summary judgment ruling should give those opponents pause. He dispatched all of their legal objections with apparent ease, and allowed that in a democracy, much weight must be given the will of the people in matters such as voting method. Minneapolis voters approved the use of instant-runoff voting in 2006 by roughly a 2-1 margin.

NEW YORK POLITICS/INDEPENDENCE PARTY

• POLITICS & POWER: Not everyone endorses this deal (Rick Brand, Newsday/Long Island) While cross endorsements are not new, what makes this deal unusual is that it involved four parties and affects every countywide race this November. It took place before any party even held screenings to see if other candidates were interested in running. And the pact was consummated without incumbents appearing before the other parties.
  
• Peeved Republicans may deny Mike Bloomberg GOP line for third run (Elizabeth Benjamin, NY Daily News/Daily Politics) Bloomberg has been cozying up to Democratic elected officials and county chairs even as his aides are reaching out to Republican leaders. The mayor also is positioning himself to make a play for the Independence Party line, which he had in both of his previous campaigns. He needs permission to run on that line, too, and city Independence Party leaders are so far lukewarm about providing it. NOTE: "lukewarm" is putting it mildly!
  
• Billionaires Bloomberg, Golisano Bond Over Third Party (Gothamist) Bloomberg has gotten flak for supporting the city's Independence Party—and implicitly Fulani, who made anti-Semitic remarks. Pigeon claims the partnering isn't related to the 2009 mayoral election.
  
• BLOOMY & GOLISANO IN THIRD-PARTY TAG-TEAM (By MAGGIE HABERMAN, New York Post)
  

SCIENCE

Dopamine Made Me Do It (By Sally Satel, M.D., American Enterprise Institute) In a November 2007 New York Times piece three FKF executives and three professors from the Semel Institute for Neuroscience at UCLA observed the brains of swing voters. Brain scans showed that areas linked with feelings of anxiety lit up when voters were shown photos of Mitt Romney. The scans revealed mixed emotions about Hillary Clinton and disgust when subjects looked at John Edwards.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Scapegoating the Social Right (RAMESH PONNURU, National Review) Avlon is mistaken in thinking both that all centrists are social liberals and fiscal conservatives and that all people who talk about “the center” have this type of voter in mind.
• Record Turnout for Harvey Milk March (Beyond Chron: San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily News) The recent passage of Proposition 8 calls into question whether the campaign bothered to learn how queers defeated Prop 6 thirty years earlier. A cautious, poll-driven campaign that kept gay couples out of the limelight de-sensitized the subject – allowing the other side to scare swing voters with emotional appeals about “the children.” In stark contrast to Harvey Milk sticking his neck out by campaigning across the state, SF Mayor Gavin Newsom was reduced to campaigning in “safe” areas – not willing to step out of his own comfort zone to engage the opposition.

PRAGMATISM/IDEOLOGY

• Barack Obama: Pragmatist or Liberal? How About Both? (US News & World Report/Thomas Jefferson Street blog) I'm getting a bit tired of hearing about how Barack Obama's cabinet choices thus far have reflected a pragmatic approach to governing, rather than a liberal one. That's rather like saying that my lunch today will taste like chicken, rather than like purple.
• Shifting Landscapes: Obama & The Movement (By Max Uhlenbeck, Source: Left Turn, ZNet) Obama was able to accomplish this feat by building a coalition ranging from the far left to the center-right, and by utilizing a variety of new technologies (blogs, YouTube videos, social networking sites) to raise a record three quarters of a billion dollars, much of which was re-invested in staff and organizing infrastructure.

CENTER-LEFT

• 2008: An extraordinarily ordinary election or an historic shift? (Politicker ME) That's the real lesson of the 2008 election: For the first time since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, a credible case can be made that the United States is now a center-left country instead of a center-right country. moderate voters, by far the largest slice of the American electorate, chose Barack Obama by a 60 percent to 39 percent margin.
• The Real Rivalry In the Team: The Cabinet vs. The Campaign Promises (David Sirota, Huffington Post) In fact, there already is - it's no accident that the conservative noise machine from Karl Rove on down is praising Obama's appointments, and effectively creating that rightward pull. If there isn't similar progressive pressure now, don't be surprised if the debate - and thus the policy - starts slowly creeping right.

BOOK REVIEW

• The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life by Michael Lind: A Pragmatic Book for a Pragmatic Time (TPM Cafe) Regardless of where you fall on the progressive-idealistic/republican liberal-instrumental spectrum, it's clear that we desperately need to shift to a much more intensely pragmatic way of reasoning about democracy as a function of our national security goals.
• The evolution of American liberal internationalism (By Michael Lind, TPM Cafe) Both of the elements of traditional liberal internationalism -- the norm of nonintervention and the idea of a concert of all great powers, democratic or otherwise have been rejected by many self-described liberal internationalists since the end of the Cold War.
  

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

REFORM WINS
Electoral Reform on the Ballot: Wins for instant runoff voting and more (Huffington Post) A round of electoral reform victories in key ballot measures suggest that Americans have had enough of antiquated electoral laws.

INDEPENDENT EFFECT DOWNBALLOT

• Minnick edges Sali in upset (Idaho Press-Tribune) He said he won because Idahoans are independent voters. “I would like to thank the thousands of Idaho Republicans and independents who chose to look at the race in terms of who could do the best for Idaho,” Minnick said.
• Colorado Democrats ride Obama's coattails - after a fashion - Democrats split on how Obama affected contests (Rocky Mountain News) Udall's statewide margin of victory was wider than Obama's, and a pre-election Rocky Mountain News poll suggested he drew more support from men and independent voters than Obama did.
• Minnesota Senate race heads into automatic recount (Associated Press) An analysis of exit poll data showed Franken wasn't able to win over independent voters at the same rate as fellow Democrat Barack Obama, providing a clue as to why his race ended with such a tight margin.
• NYC mayor, NY governor hail Obama election (Newsday) As Obama and Republican John McCain began to emerge as front-runners earlier this year, Bloomberg ultimately concluded he could not win because they both appealed to independent voters that he would have sought to attract.
• What about Bob? Michele Bachmann owes re-election to third-party unknown (MinnPost) when the IPs endorsed Tinklenberg, Anderson grabbed a golden opportunity. He ran, unopposed, in the primary as the IP representative. He won the IP spot on Tuesday's ballot and, coupled with that comfortable Minnesota name, managed to win thousands of independent votes.
• Evans-Novak Political Report (Human Events) Some exit poll data suggest this was a base election rather than a swing-voter election.

CAMPAIGN

• Obama Wins Florida's Hispanic Vote (Hispanic Business)
• The Obama Realignment - This could be the start of a lasting Democratic majority like that created by FDR. (Wall Street Journal) In fact, President-elect Obama presents an ideological mix of social liberalism, fiscal conservatism and cultural moderation that attracted a 20-point margin Tuesday among self-described "moderates" -- including crucial crossover moderate Republicans from suburban and exurban areas previously considered safely part of the Republican/Reagan conservative base -- as well as a majority of self-described independent voters.

"Why are they saying that independents are swinging to McCain?"

The Hankster received another email today from a reader (very busy Hankster day!) who asked "Why are they saying that independents are swinging to McCain?"


Here's my answer:


1. First of all, GOOD QUESTION! And, for starters, the question includes the proposition that independents had been supporting Barack Obama (hence, the "swing"). This is "true" (to the extent that truth has any bearing on this election....) Fully 60% of independent voters in states that required voters to "pick a party" in the recent primaries chose a Democratic ballot. Of those, 65% voted for Barack Obama.



2. They (and by "they", we mean the Pollsters and Pundits and MSM -- which we'll call the PPMSM -- which unintentionally sounds like a Post-Partem Menopausal Stressed Mom, or something like that...) confuse "swing voters" with independents. They also confuse independents with moderates, centrists, middle-of-the-roaders, etc. -- not to mention third party voters...*

3. As David Brooks said recently: Weirdness wins. Independents are weird. Will we win? Hmmmm.... I don't know....

In my opinion, independents are voters who don't like partisan politics. They don't care for either party and do not attest loyalty to ANY party, nevermind the two major parties. Most independents don't care for the minor or "third" parties either. Third parties are marginalized in our corrupt two-party system. Independent voters are all over the place politically -- left, center, right and every point in between. After all -- we're INDEPENDENT! We "plays 'em as we sees 'em..."

3. Basically, the PPMSM is saying that independents are "swinging" to McCain because they (the PPMSM) are running polls that indicate that. The polls are very very volatile. These polls they are talking about now are in the Swing States -- FL, PA and OH...... Also, it's unclear how they are counting indies. They are categorizing voters in basically 5 boxes -- Strong Dem, Lean Dem, True Independents, Lean Repub, Strong Repub.... Hmm.... Our voters are the 3 middle categories. Our voters are split 50/50. Many indies are not impressed with either candidate.


4. And then there's the "true independent" (the PPMSM category of choice) -- As a NY indie said to me on Tuesday as we were knocking on doors for an Independence Party primary in Queens NY: "I like Obama, but because we here in New York have had the experience of black leadership when David Dinkins was Mayor, to me Obama is just another Democrat." I think a lot of independents are thinking like that. I wish Barack Obama would speak for the country and not for his chosen party. I think we'd be a lot better off. Is Barack a leader, or "just another Democrat?" We'll find out. In the meantime, I'll see you at your door.

5. And then, well there's this whole post-modern thing. What is the post-modern campaign? We don't know. That's what's post-modern about it. The PPSMSM are beginning to chirp about this.... See Jonah Goldberg for example on USA Today. In the meantime, I'll see you at the door....




A FIVE-LINE PLAY
By N. Hanks



Knock, knock.



Who's there?



A community organizer.



A community organizer what?



A community organizer. Tell me what to do.





Email The Hankster and let me know what you think we should do!

Thanks!
Hanks



PS -- For community organizers, please read LAST WORD TODAY on TODAY'S HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS: Rx for Election Anxiety Disorder-New Chemical Compounds to Help Get You to, and Through, Election Day, take a walk around the block, drink a glass of water, and call a friend! And email The Hankster -- I'd love to help!





* Presumably, independents are not "swinging to McCain" from a preference for Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, or any other so-called "third party" candidates, OR from Democrat Dennis Kucinich or Republican/Libertarian Ron Paul. The PPMSM are not confused about members of third parties, whom the PPMSM largely consider to be fringe, subhuman and probably unAmerican. I don't agree with Sarah Palin's politics -- from what I can assess, she is a right-wing Republican who speaks with a populist voice, and certainly NOT an independent -- she's a partisan opportunist from what I can tell. However, I think the PPMSN has gone to great lengths (which is the only lengths they go to) to demonize Palin's somewhat shallow association with the Alaskan Independence Party. I also don't agree with many of the positions that the AIP takes, however, I strenously object to the demonization of this party. This is America. Probably half the country would like to seceed from the other half. We re-live the Civil War every day. So what's new? How long does it take for a nation to come to terms with its basic contradictions? Maybe forever. We have the time. We don't have the patience. Personally I don't care if Alaska is a state or not. I've heard more than one New Yorker express the opinion that New York City should have its own government separate from the state of New York. I can sympathize. But above all, I think the people of Alaska or New York or any other specific geographical area of the world need to be heard. But I digress..... continue above...

So my advice: Read the LAST WORD TODAY on The Hankster: Rx for Election Anxiety Disorder-New Chemical Compounds to Help Get You to, and Through, Election Day (The Stranger), pour yourself a glass of tap water, and go for a long walk! I'm about to head out now! - NH

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Obama might be mixing up independents with libertarians in Elko NV (Washington Post)
• The case for Repub soul-searching (Zachary Roth in Washington Monthly)
• Rank and file Dems move left, along with "swing voters"(Steven Thomma in The State)
• House rules, but who rules the House?.... (Beaumont Enterprise)
• Disappearing (partisan) voters in Florida.... (St. Petersburg Times)

Nonideological swing voters flipped the '06 election

A Moderate Failure: It wasn't for want of conservatives that the GOP lost in 2006. by Fred Barnes (Weekly Standard) ...Conservative voters had plenty to be unhappy about, particularly excessive spending by the then-Republican Congress and the growth of the federal government. Many conservatives detest President Bush's education and immigration policies. But it wasn't conservatives who flipped in the election. They showed up and voted for Republicans. It was independents who jumped to the Democrats. They tend to be nonideological swing voters, not the type who would ditch Republicans because they weren't conservative enough....

Who are the independents?

Big change expected in American politics, By Mary E. O’Leary, New Haven Register — A major realignment in American politics is in the offing with independent voters — who think like liberal Republicans — likely to fill the pivotal role of swing voter. That’s the conclusion of Arthur Paulson, a political scientist at Southern Connecticut State University, who just published a book, "Electoral Realignment and the Outlook for American Democracy."...