Talk Talk: Independents, Organized

Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009



Every week CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist/philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogues compiled on Sunday, November 8, 2009 after watching selections from "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" and "Hardball with Chris Matthews."


Newman: Because I don’t know what “it” is and I don’t know what “power” is in this context. Look, you have what you have. That’s what you have. And you organize what you have.

Salit: Yes.

Newman: When I say I don’t know what “it” is, I mean that it’s still very embryonic, very new. And it’s emerging at the rate that it’s emerging at. And it does the things that it does. So, when you say that they’re looking for trends, that’s not quite accurate. They’re looking for trends which they take to be comprehensible and possible, but only from a two-party point of view.

Salit: True enough.

Newman: So, they’re not looking at trends at all. They won’t look at our trends. They’re not even looking at trends in the same way that we consider trends. We know that there are two dominant major parties. But we also know that there’s something else going on. It’s a “becoming,” if you will.

Salit: Yes.

Newman: And they don’t consider that when they analyze what the elections are all about. It’s all swing, swing, swing, swing. Last year they swung one way. This year they swung another. Well, what if what you’re calling a “swing” is the emergence of a new kind of political movement?

Read Talk/Talk in its entirety here.

Grading the Media on Coverage of Independent Voters

I've decided to give out grades today on the media coverage of independent voters.

John Fund gets a D for his midterm paper. While he recognizes that independents are in revolt, he simply regurgitates Repub spin about independents' lack of support for Dems and draws a questionable conclusion: But independent voters are clearly swayed by arguments that the Obama administration and Democratic Congress are moving too far to the left too quickly. Mr. Fund needs to think harder about this and possibly get some help. 

John Zogby gets a B+ on his paper for drawing attention to the fact that ""Moderates" and "Independents" are not the same thing". This is a very good start to correcting some of the misinformation that Mr. Zobgy has been spreading about who independents are.

And Wendy Kaminer gets an F for anti-independent thinking for her piece in The Atlantic today and for referencing Nancy Rosenblum's claim that "partisanship, not independence, is the morally distinctive political identity of representative democracy."

Overall, this is a mediocre class of journalists this year who don't seem to understand that independents have an agenda of political reform and just don't like parties. Period.
-NH

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Poll: Anti-incumbent sentiment surges (By KENDRA MARR, Politico) “Independents have taken a much more negative view of Congress than they did earlier this year,” said Doherty.
• Oregon voters increasingly none-of-the-above (By Jeff Mapes, The Oregonian) What's striking is that all of that loss - and a little bit more - has come from the two major parties, each of which had a drop of a little over 2 percentage points...
• Revolt of the Independents - The newest Gallup numbers show independents leaning to the GOP by 52% to 30%. (By JOHN FUND, Wall Street Journal)
• Gridlock and Indecision Spur Polling Shift from Obama to Republicans (By Peter Roff, US News & World Report/Thomas Jefferson Street blog)
• The big confusion: "Moderates" and "Independents" are not the same thing -- a Zogby poll (By: By John Zogby & Zeljka Buturovic, Detroit Lakes Online)

ATLANTA MAYORAL

• Barnes Backs Fellow Democrat for ATL Mayor (By Susanna Capelouto and John Sepulvado, Georgia Public Broadcasting) Party affiliation has become an issue during this non-partisan election runoff election, scheduled for December 1... “The party machine system is dead,” Barnes told GPB after the rally. “It’s been headed that way for a long time, and it’s not [a motivating factor for my endorsement].

COLORADO'S JOELLE RIDDLE

• Colorado Independent Candidate Will Sue to Overturn Ballot Access Law (Ballot Access News)
• Riddle takes on state election law (The Durango Telegraph/Quick and Dirty)
• Press Release Announcing Lawsuit (Joelle Riddle, Independent Commissioner blog)

MEDIA

• Independent Voting: Virtue or Vice? (The Atlantic, Wendy Kaminer)
• Anything but Partisanship: Anti-partyism, Bipartisanship, and the Luster of Independence (Nancy Rosenblum, Dissent Magazine)

Where the Independent Voters -- and Independent Candidates -- Are in 2010

You'll never see what happened last Tuesday looking through a two-party microscope! Nope. You need an independent historyscope to get this one!


I had the pleasure of hearing independent strategist Jackie Salit give her analysis of the November elections on Sunday night on her regular national conference call which is attended by around 150 activists around the country every six weeks.


Jackie is a long-time independent activist based in New York City, the president of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (aka IndependentVoting.org), the executive editor of the Neo-Independent Magazine, and the campaign manager of Mike Bloomberg's Independence Party campaign. She's someone I follow very closely -- and so should you if you care about independent politics.


A statement released by the campaign via email on Wednesday after the election said: This year, the IP delivered 13% of the total votes cast - the largest percentage ever by a minor party for a cross-endorsed mayoral candidate.


The Hankster (my blog) and Donklephant (where I am a guest blogger), in addition to The Independent View (NYC IP activist Michael Drucker's blog) and the NY Daily News' Brawl for the Hall blog seemed to be the only media outlets that even referenced this astounding result from the election. And then today, I caught Maine's independent mayoral candidate Alex Hammers' post on The Moderate Voice "Independents are a Sleeping Giant".


In the CUIP conference call, Jackie emphasized that, far from being the "margin of victory" for Bloomberg's win as an independent in NYC, the vote on the IP line was the foundation of the campaign. At a time when the votes of both major parties Dems and Repubs went down, the 15 year old grassroots Independence Party doubled its vote.


It is indeed wonderous that no other media picked this up.


But if your framework is a bipartisan -- indeed partisan -- system, you don't pay a lot of attention to the margins, no pun intended! You don't see what's happening on the horizon. You're not looking to the future -- you're looking to the past and how pollsters have been able to parse the vote based on prior elections. Polls are supposed to be predictive. They're interesting, and we all follow them. But predictive?


You'd have to have a 6-billion-person polling operation to figure that one out. And still, you'd get it wrong because what the NYC mayoral race points to is the power that independents have as an organized force. It's something like what the unions used to call "strength in numbers" when we still sang Solidarity Forever and meant solidarity forever for everyone.


Old-fashioned as it may be, independents in NYC have banded together, we have talked with each other, we have made endless phone calls night after night year after year, we have fought back against a stupid and vicious state party chair, we have constituted 5 county committees under state law that are directed by a collective 94-person executive committee, and have inched our way forward into NYC politics as players.


We just led New Yorkers to elect our first independent mayor.


In my book this is something that ordinary people can be proud of. And that ordinary people -- nonpartisans -- all over the country can learn from and emulate.


And indeed they are. Take Joelle Riddle in Durango CO, a former chairwoman of the La Plata County Democratic Party who won her post in 2006 with party support and decided to go independent in August, would have to run as a write-in candidate after inadvertently missing a deadline to change her registration.


“I seek to remedy this burden that falls unequally on small political parties and independent or unaffiliated candidates, unfairly discriminating against them and not affording them the same privileges as the major political parties,” she wrote in a statement announcing her decision Tuesday.


Partisan politics isn't the future of our country, but the search for an independent alternative might be.


You/we independents can do it. If we're organized.


NH

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

ABOVE THE FOLD

• Independents are a Sleeping Giant (By Alex Hammer, The Moderate Voice) Twenty-six per cent of Mayor Bloomberg’s re-election votes in New York City this past week — well over 140,000 votes — came on the Independence line and not on the Republican line. Think about that for a minute, and why the national media keep it “hush hush". [Alex Hammer is an independent candidate for Gov of Maine]

PHOTO: NYC Independence Party members Ramon Pena, Vito Serra and Yvonne Lee at the City-Wide meeting at Grand Hyatt in Manhattan the Sunday before Election Day.

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Going To A Party (By Raynard Jackson, Afro.com - Balt-Wash) Political parties now face the same fate.  They, by their very existence, tend to be static and bureaucratic.  If you believe like I believe, then you can join my party.  But, what these parties are missing is the fact that people now want choices and these choices are constantly changing.
• The end of independents (By Carl Golden, NJ.com)  NOTE: Carl Golden is a Republican strategist who worked as Gov. Kaine's press secretary (hence the wishful thinking of the title....)
• Republicans Narrowly Lead Democrats in 2010 Vote (Holly Bailey, Newsweek/The Gaggle) The reason for the slight GOP edge: Republicans now have a 22 point lead over Democrats among so-called independent voters.
• Republicans Edge Ahead of Democrats in 2010 Vote - Registered voters prefer Republicans for the House, 48% to 44% (by Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup) Independents are increasingly coming to prefer the Republican candidate for Congress, and now favor the GOP by 22 points.
• Republicans pass Democrats: Swing '09-A 21-point shift in sentiment among independents underlies the swing. (by Mark Silva, Chicago Tribune/The Swamp)
• Pelosi plays whack-a-mole on health care (By Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst) Indeed, while the two political parties continue to shrink (with the GOP almost at oblivion, at nearly an all-time low of 24 percent), the independents may be the only healthy political entity in the nation.
• Indie voters nix O's Rx (By GEOFF EARLE, NY Post)
• The most important number in politics today (Chris Cillizza, Washington Post/The Fix) 44: That's the percentage of independent voters who told Gallup they would advise their Member of Congress to vote against a health care bill while just 22 percent said their elected official should support it...
• Now, GOP Has The Numbers-Democrats Have Some Crunching To Do After Republicans Turn Their 2008 Deficits Into 2009 Gains (by Amy Walter, National Journal Online) Democrats need to do more than just turn out those Obama "surge" voters of 2008. They need to do as well as he did among those more traditional groups like independents and whites, too.

THIRD PARTIES

• Oral Argument Set in Reform Party Battle over National Party Officers (Ballot Access News)

GOVERNORS RACES

• AP exit poll: NJ voters not thrilled with choices (AP, Daily Record)
• Democrats, incumbents get wake-up call (By John F. Harris and Jonathan Martin, Politico, Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

BLOOMBERG 09

• Big Jewish Turnout For Bloomberg (by Adam Dickter, The Jewish Week) Three-quarters of Jewish voters supported Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his narrow third-term victory in last week’s election, according to a New York Times exit poll. If accurate, that would be a sharp increase from the 53 percent of the Jewish vote the independent mayor garnered in 2005, when he was a Republican running against Democrat Fernando Ferrer.
• Christine Quinn Stands Pat (By Azi Paybarah, NY Observer) “She can’t just continue to stay in the mayor’s shadow,” said Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City. Speaking about the bill, which her group opposes, Ms. Wylde said the question is whether Ms. Quinn “can now steer a course independent of Bloomberg.”

LOCAL RACES

• Tulsa Election Results (Tulsa Today) Independent Mark Perkins picked up 18 percent of the vote.
• EDITORIAL: Olanta residents, leaders need unity for town’s success (South Carolina Now) In small towns with nonpartisan elections, we have to take a different approach. We all have to live closely together and see each other on a daily basis, so it’s important to remain civil.
• Canvassing completed at Lenoir County Board of Elections - Murphy's margin of victory over Harper: 52 votes (Bryan C. Hanks, ENC Today)

kim's blues

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 11/10/09

Continued wrap-up commentary of November elections with the addition of some of those wonderful non-partisan independent voices from New Hampshire. Up-tick in self-financed campaigns. Rhode Island has a serious independent candidate and a new third party for 2010. New York's fusion election shows media ignoring NYC Independence Party's 142,817 votes (double the 2005 vote) -- in an election where Dem and Repub votes went down -- and going after Working Families Party. And d. eris at Poli-Tea has an interesting post. I hope he'll consider a brief study of what the NYC IP has been able to accomplish within a duopoly ideology!


NONPARTISAN POLITICS

• Local voters are the core of the political process (Citizen.com - Laconia NH) Democrats have been on a roll since capturing control of Congress and it was reinforced a year ago by the election of President Barack Obama. Democratic leaders want to keep the machine well oiled and Republicans are struggling to make a comeback. But looking for partisan gains in nonpartisan elections is a poor exercise in terms of time and energy. It underestimates the intelligence of people who live in those communities. 
• Idaho races get scrutiny (AP-Idaho Statesman) Steve Shaw, a political scientist at Northwest Nazarene University, noted that nonpartisan elections in Idaho tend to draw much lower turnouts than the higher-profile partisan races for state and national office. Shaw said a switch to partisan races for cities might attract more voter interest. [Waaaat?? Partisan logic has no bounds!]
• Greg Moore: Tuesday's message from voters: Butt out, party bosses (Union Leader) These two races should be a warning to party leaders nationally. Both the Republican and Democrat brands are tarnished, and voters want ideas and principles from candidates, not a partisan seal of approval.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

• Candidates pour more of own cash into races (By John Fritze, USA TODAY) Driven partly by a growing number of competitive primaries, self-funding in the first nine months of the year outpaced a 14% rise in all campaign receipts. The number of candidates who gave themselves $500,000 or more jumped to 15 from five in 2007, Federal Election Commission data show.
• Politics & Poker: Self-Funders Could Influence Several ’10 Contests (By Josh Kurtz, Roll Call)

GOVERNORS RACES

• Nontraditional candidates spice up 2010 governor's race in R.I. (Ben Schreckinger, Brown Daily Herald) “It has the potential to be a very unique general election,” said former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75, who is running as an independent. ....The high proportion of unaffiliated voters in the state benefits third parties, Hunsinger said, and the Moderate Party’s statewide organization is already comparable to Republicans’, she added.... 

BLOOMBERG 09

• Bloomberg wins third term (By Brian Donohue, Irish Emigrant Online) Many New Yorkers were troubled with this turn of events [overturn of term limits], however the strong Bloomberg supporters including the Irish American community came out in full force and a last minute surge of votes from Bloomberg strongholds in Queens pulled him into a clear lead. [I was at a Sunnyside poll and I'd say not only did the Irish American community come out in force, they also voted on Column C, the Independence Party line!]

WORKING FAMILIES PARTY

• Who'll dare to probe the WFP? (By JACOB GERSHMAN, NY Post) Spurred by an election lawsuit filed by Randy Mastro, a top aide in the Giuliani administration, Donovan's office has "begun a preliminary review" of Debi Rose's WFP-boosted campaign for City Council, say sources.

ON THE BLOGS

• On the Dialectic of the Subjective and the Objective in the Reproduction of the Two-Party State (d.eris, Poli-Tea) It may well be the case that the greatest barriers to third party and independent politics are subjective in nature, the set of political prejudices that constitute duopoly ideology and create the conditions necessary for the reproduction of the two-party state even against the better judgment of a majority of the population.

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 11/6/09

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• What Independents Want (By DAVID BROOKS, NY Times) Independents, who are the largest group in the electorate, don’t have any of this. They don’t have institutional affiliations. They don’t look to certain activist lobbies for guidance. There aren’t many commentators who come from an independent perspective.
• Election message: Voters want results (USA Today)
• Voters Take Aim at the Status Quo (By GERALD F. SEIB, Wall Street Journal)
• The Big Question: Will we see the rise of a viable third party? (By Mary Ann Dreas, Sydelle Moore and Tony Romm, The Hill)
• What Did the Independent Vote Tell Us? (Jeff Alworth, Blue Oregon) And there are independents to the left of the Democratic Party, too... If the Democrats make the mistake of confusing independents for moderates (as Rep. Cooper did), they'll take away exactly the wrong lesson. 
• Live Election Night Analysis With Marc Ambinder and Matthew Cooper (The Atlantic) Many disassociated with the GOP -- at least in terms of what they tell pollsters -- because of the GOP brand problems and because it's cool to be independent in parts of the country and in parts of states. Don't confuse "moderates" with "independents."  Still, it seems clear that for people who call themselves independent, Republican messages wear better than Democrats.
• Tuesday's Suburban Vote Swing (By KARL ROVE, Wall Street Journal)
• What the Voters Said--Tuesday's election results send a very clear message to everyone in Washington: change your tone, lower your voices, get things done. (Doug Schoen, Fox News) Indeed, the only incumbent managing to survive –albeit with a reduced majority – was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who ran an explicit and avowed centrist campaign, putting progress before partisanship. 

NJ GOV RACE

• The third-party effect in New Jersey (EJ Dionne, Washington Post/Post Partisan)

BLOOMBERG 09

• NYTimes Results with interactive map
• New York reelects Bloomberg as mayor; Mayoral contests in Atlanta and Houston are too close to call and may be decided by runoffs. In Pittsburgh, incumbent Luke Ravenstahl wins decisively. (By Richard Fausset and Kate Linthicum, LA Times)
• Election Remakes City Council, and May Give It More Bite, Too (By SEWELL CHAN, NY Times)
• NYC mayor's Dem foe might run again (By SARA KUGLER, AP)
• Queens: White, Sanders easily outpace Council rivals (By Ivan Pereira, Your Nabe.com)
• Bloomberg Declines to Say Whether He Voted R or I (By Azi Paybarah, NY Observer)

New York City Independence Party Breaks Records

142,817 VOTES FOR BLOOMBERG ON COLUMN C
DELIVERS MARGIN TO
CITY'S FIRST INDEPENDENT MAYOR

New York, NY-The Independence Party vote for Mike Bloomberg yesterday broke numerous records and re-enforced its ongoing mandate for independent governance and non-partisan reform.

Unofficial returns released by the Board of Elections put the IP total on Column "C" at 142,817 votes, nearly 26% of Bloomberg's total and 13% of all votes  cast. This means that 1 in 4 Bloomberg voters chose to vote on the Independence Party line.

The vote for the mayor on the Independence Party line was an increase of 91% over its total four years ago, when it drew nearly 75,000 votes on its crucial Column "C".

Jacqueline Salit, who has run all three IP campaigns for Bloomberg stated: "The Independence Party's 143,000 votes grows out of the strength of our grassroots organization, the popularity of political independence as a new option and a longstanding partnership with our independent mayor, Mike Bloomberg. This record breaking vote makes plain our growth and our role in the emerging shift in New York City politics. We're a new kind of minor party with an agenda for non-partisan reform. We have a broad and diverse base of support. We gave Mike his margin in a close race. And we made history by electing the city's first independent mayor."

In three consecutive elections, under varying circumstances, the Independence Party has made its mark on the NYC mayoral. In 2001, its 59,091 votes gave Bloomberg his margin over Democrat Mark Green, who lost by 35,000 votes. In 2005, the IP vote for Bloomberg grew by 26%, making it the only political party to demonstrate growth at the polls that year. This year, the IP delivered 13% of the total  votes cast- the largest percentage ever-by a minor party for a cross-endorsed mayoral candidate.

For the last 20 years, other minor parties polled between 32,551 (the Working Families Party vote for Mark Green in 2001) and 62,469 (the Liberal Party vote for Rudy Giuliani in 1993).

Atlanta Mayoral Race: New grassroots video for Kasim Reed

There is a new grass roots support commercial that has been released in support of Kasim Reed.
New video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnauZD2FNhA


Sincerely,
concerned citizens

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 11/2/09

BLOOMBERG 09

• Bloomberg, Thompson make final push (By Dave Evans, ABC Local) Clip of IP Citywide meeting includes statement by Jackie Salit on 2nd clip
• Bill goes radio silent vs. slur--Keeps mum during caller's anti-Semitic slap at Mike (By SALLY GOLDENBERG and MAGGIE HABERMAN, NY Post) Later, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Midtown, Bloomberg joined a crowd of 500 in a standing ovation for controversial activist and Independence Party leader Lenora Fulani at a get-out-the-vote rally.

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• The Early Word: Election Week (By ASHLEY SOUTHALL, NY Times)
• Off-Year Races May Provide Insight (By ADAM NAGOURNEY, NY Times)
• Handful of elections shed light on US politics (By LIZ SIDOTI, AP)
• Extremism and the 2009 Elections: slouching toward the future. (Gather)

NJ GOV RACE

• Independent stirs up New Jersey governor contest (by Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters Washington Post) Independents seldom poll as well as Daggett has, said Douglas Muzzio, a public affairs professor at Baruch College in New York. "He's tapped into some anger, some fear, some distrust but overall a dissatisfaction with the incumbent and his Republican challenger," Muzzio said.
• Christie, Corzine a Point Apart in N.J., While Daggett Fades (Politics Daily, Bruce Drake)

LETTER: Incredible grassroots support for Kasim Reed in Atlanta Mayoral Race

The Hankster received this email:


Hello All,

I am a concerned citizen of Atlanta and have been following the Mayoral election closely. Out of all the candidates, the incredible grass roots support that Kasim Reed is receiving has particularly struck me. Please take a moment to view these grass roots video that I came across supporting Kasim Reed. Help to spread the word about this support by passing on these videos. Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dz1kCTEd2s (From the little people of Atlanta)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsK_2JycWhc (From Atlanta voters)

- Concerned Citizen


GO Little People of Atlanta, GO! -NH

don't be a ghoul!

vote independent
bloomberg on C!

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 10/30/09

Hi everyone!

I'm on the stump for electing the first independent mayor of NYC on Column C the Independence Party line (no surprise there!) and will keep you up to date as best as I can. Lots happening! Note the majority of voters in New Jersey are independent. New Jersey is one of my (many) home states (and my first home state out of the South) so I'm especially proud of us Garden Staters, whoever you decide to elect for Gov!...

Here in my current home state (and more accurately, my home town of the Big Apple) Mike Bloomberg, in coalition with the NYC Independence Party, carries out an independent nonpartisan race for the future of New York City. See the photo from last night's phone shift in Jamaica Queens -- a coming together of a long-time coalition between Imam Charles Bilal (that's organizer Martha Oliver (r) in the picture) the Queens County Committee of the New York Independence Party, and Bloomberg's local operation (that's Etoy Tharpe, second from left here)

And in LAST WORD(S) -- I hope you'll take a peek at the left/right Dem/Repub dialogue that permeates the print media and the blogosphere. As a long-time leftist and still true Marxist (I got my bonafides in the 1970s in the labor and new left party-building movement and never gave up...), I'm always happy to see progressives take on the right wingers as in Radical? Not! (By Eugene Debs, New Majority) below.
-NH


NJ GOV RACE

• Bergen County a key factor in governor's race (By Cynthia Burton, Philadelphia Inquirer) Democrats outnumber Republicans there, 169,000 to 111,200. But the biggest voting group, as it is everywhere else in the state, consists of unaffiliated voters, who number 250,300. Unaffiliated voters have recently been voting with the Democrats.
• Election not a big draw to Gloucester County voters (By Jessica Landolfi, NJ News-Star Ledger, Trenton Times) Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 with 70,744 registered Democrats, 35,637 Republicans and 82,607 unaffiliated.

BLOOMBERG 09

• Thompson Endorsed by Cuomo (By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, NY Times)

NY SPECIAL ELECTION UPSTATE

• Hoffman and Owens in a Tie for New York Special Election (CQ Politics/PollTracker)
• A GOP Civil War in Upstate New York (By KATE PICKERT, Time) But then, the race in the 23rd is no longer about local issues. It's about a Republican Party with little current power inside the Beltway searching for a way out of the wilderness. And it's about conservative Republicans sending a message — the future of the party is the conservative base. (It's also, incidentally, about money; according to the Federal Election Commission, more than $650,000 has flowed to the candidates from independent groups just since Oct. 24.) "The 23rd has as little significance as Gettysburg. It's just where the Armies met," says Bob Gorman, managing editor of the Times and my old boss. "Everybody was looking for a fight and that's where they found each other."

WORKING FAMILIES PARTY

• ACORN: Vann, go (By DAVID SEIFMAN, NY Post)
• Court of Appeals won’t hear Bethlehem WFP case (by Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, Albany Times Union/Local Politics)

LAST WORD(S)

• Radical? Not! (By Eugene Debs, New Majority)
• Our Heritage  Newt Gingrich weighs in on events current and Founding-era. (interview by Robert Costa, National Review Online)
• Are the Tea Partiers good or bad for the GOP? A round table discussion of whether the revolt of the conservative base is a blessing or curse for the Republicans (BY THOMAS SCHALLER, Salon)  EXCERPT: Agne: What we found was that even as these independents have started to pull back from Obama and the Democrats in Congress a bit -- some concern about healthcare, some concern about spending, a few other things -- they still fundamentally want them to succeed. They want to see the edges come off some of these policies, but they want to see it go through. They want the change that Obama promised them in the election, they're just not quite sure what that change should look like. The Republican base voters fundamentally want Obama to fail. They believe that he is intentionally trying to lead the country into a ditch, essentially, that he is trying to lead the country to failure, and thus to socialism. And so they see it as a moral responsibility to oppose every single step of his agenda. There's no sense of compromise. There is a clear moral obligation to stand firm and oppose him, no matter what. And that's really the fundamental dilemma that we were just discussing.
• Self-Image and Party Politics (By DAVID BROOKS AND BOB HERBERT, NY Times/The Conversation) Is it possible for both parties to lose at the same time?
• More Signs of Trouble for 2010 (William Galston, The New Republic)

turnpike series

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 10/29/09

As we head to Election Day 2009, everyone is talking about the Yankees and the Phillies. And a few people are talking about the Mayoral race in NYC, where independent candidate Mike Bloomberg is poised to become the first independent mayor of New York, running on the Independence Party (Column C) and Republican lines. But not Karl Rove. Kind of a big omission, don't you think? Check out Jon Noltie's Examiner article. However, other independent and Independence-backed candidates in New Jersey, New York and Virginia are soaking up the ink. See today's news for independent voters below:

POLITICAL REFORM

• New York Improved One Ballot Access Law In July, 2009 (Ballot Access News)

STATE RACES

• Tuesday's Elections and the Democratic Agenda (By KARL ROVE, Wall Street Journal) A year ago, Democrats crowed that Mr. Obama had reshaped the political landscape to their advantage. Voters have lived under Democratic rule for nine months, and many of them, especially independents, don't like what they're seeing.
• Strength of independent candidates indicates GOP missing opportunity (Columbus Republican Examiner, by Jon Noltie) In 2 of the 3 most watched electoral races this year, the GOP stands a good chance of losing due to the strength of independent candidates, in addition to not even fielding a candidate in the New York City mayoral race.
• Dividing And Conquering In State Races (John Zogby, Forbes)
• Quinnipiac Sees a Different New Jersey Race Than Rasmussen, PPP (National Review)
• Corzine Up 5 Points In New Jersey Gov Race, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Governor Tops Christie On 'Honesty' Score (Quinnipiac) Corzine leads 79 - 8 percent among Democratic likely voters, with 10 percent for Daggett. Christie leads 79 - 7 percent among Republicans, with 9 percent for Daggett, and 45 - 30 percent among independent voters, with 20 percent for Daggett.
• NJ Gov Poll: Corzine Takes 5-Point Lead (RealClearPolitics)
• Daggett: Republican urged him to quit gov's race (The Associated Press, Philadelphia Inquirer)

BLOOMBERG 09

• Queens Gazette Endorses Bloomberg, Other Candidates (Queens Gazette)

LOCAL RACES

• Bloomberg, Liu Favored In Tuesday Voting; Some Close Council Races Expected (BY JOHN TOSCANO, Queens Gazette)

Independents Endorse Kasim Reed in Atlanta Mayoral Campaign

Atlanta, GA --- Georgia Independent Voters (GIV), a state-based association representing independent voters, announced today its endorsement of former State Senator Kasim Reed for mayor of the City of Atlanta.

“We’re proud to announce our support for Kasim Reed for Mayor of Atlanta,” said Thyrsa M. Gravely, a long-time independent political organizer and a key player in GIV’s candidate screening process. “Reed has been on the just side of important electoral issues here in Georgia, and in our conversations he indicated a willingness to address our concerns regarding political reform by being a spokesperson at the state and national level.”

"I am very grateful to receive the endorsement of Georgia Independent Voters. A political process that is open to all is a major concern of mine," said Reed. "Too many voters are disillusioned and kept out of the political process. As Mayor, I will work with the Governor and the state legislature towards opening Georgia's electoral process, and making it more accessible to all voters."

GIV’s endorsement came as a result of candidate screening sessions and numerous dialogues over the course of the summer. In July the group met with nine of the hopeful candidates, but elected not to endorse at that time. “We wanted to see how the field would shape up after the filing period closed in early September,” said Murray Dabby, a co-founder of GIV. “We wanted to endorse when we thought we could have the biggest impact.”

Numbers of independents continue to grow, and independents currently form 39% of the electorate according to a recent Pew Research poll. As a result, independents have played an increasingly important role in elections around the country. In the 2008 presidential election, independents tipped the scales for Obama, helping him secure the Democratic Party nomination over Clinton.

“Kasim Reed is a part of a new generation of Democrats, like President Obama, who appreciate independents. Reed is very conversant on issues of concern to us and is clearly the most independent-minded, and most reform-minded candidate in the race,” said Dabby. “Issues of political reform are a mystery to many old-guard, traditional politicians, but things like lowering ballot access barriers, making voter registration easier, and making the redistricting process less political are issues that are important to independents, who are left out of the political process in so many ways.”

Georgia Independent Voters is a grassroots organization working to reform the political process and develop the voice of independent voters around Georgia.

http://www.georgiaindependentvoters.org

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)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 10/22/09

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• How Dems Can Cut Their Losses (by Charlie Cook, National Journal) Part of the genius of the 1994 GOP "Contract with America" was its message that resonated with the independent voters and others who voted for Ross Perot in 1992. It was less ideological and more outsider.
• Morning Fix: A premature celebration for the GOP (Chris Cillizza, Washington Post/The Fix)
• Public option gains support (By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen, Washington Post) Only 20 percent of adults identify themselves as Republicans, little changed in recent months, but still the lowest single number in Post-ABC polls since 1983. Political independents continue to make up the largest group, at 42 percent of respondents; 33 percent call themselves Democrats.
• The Return Of Coughlinism (Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic/Daily Dish)

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Our View: Plan won’t hurt Dems in S. Dakota (By: Editorial Board, The Daily Republic)
• California “Top-Two” Proposal Compared to Washington State’s “Top-Two” Law (Ballot Access News)

BLOOMBERG 09

• CFB: Candidate Contributions Are Campaign Expenditures (BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Daily News/Daily Politics)
• In endorsing Bloomberg, Rep. Michael McMahon compares mayor to Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson (By Tom Wrobleski, SI Advance)

I'M JUST SAYIN':Weird Stuff for Independent Voters and Mothers of All Stripes

Here's something weird for ya' -- in a search for "Whitney Larkin" (an indomitable young woman, a grassroots organizer for CUIP) -- word has it she was in the Styles Section of the New York Times on Sunday... (not surprised--she's definitely on the cutting edge of style!) -- I came across this article by Ann Hood about the sad and unfortunate loss of her daughter Grace and her subsequent adoption of a Chinese child and then a near-death experience with that child.... 


But here's the weird part: the title of the article that came up in the Google search was "To Mother Again, With Courage" [which in my weird Nancy Hanks World was a word play on Bertold Brecht's play Mother Courage, one production of which I saw at Target Margin in NYC] but which was titled "To Nurture Again, With Courage" on the online version.


I'm just sayin'....


Hanks

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 10/18/09

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Forces lining up against Democrats in '10 (By Dan Balz, reprint in Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Tea Party insurgency marches into key states--But will Tea Party protest energy help or hobble the Republican Party? They're challenging some GOP candidates and could split the vote in those races. (By Patrik Jonsson, Christian Science Monitor)
• Party Moderate Purge (By Kellyn Brown, Flathead Beacon)
• WARNING: INDEPENDENTS MAY GO REPUBLICAN IN 2010! (Jack Jodell, The Saturday Afternoon Post)
• Serious as a heart attack: The independents' story (By Jackie Salit, Rapid City Journal)

GOVERNORS RACES

• Fight Night in Jersey: Christie Can Get the KO Without Throwing a Punch (By Bill Pascoe, Politico) He's risen from 13 percent support from Independent voters in August to 20 percent today, while Christie has slipped among those same Independent voters, from 55 percent in August to 40 percent today. Coincidence? I think not.

BLOOMBERG 09

• Stumping With Mayor, Giuliani Stirs Old Fears (By DAVID W. CHEN, NY Times)

Independent Voters: Health Care or Partisan Politics?

I have been an independent activist for many years, and I created what is now considered to be THE independent political blog, The Hankster, because I felt that independent voters were not being represented accurately -- or at all -- in the mainstream media.

There are lots and lots of polls out there mainly concerned about the critical independent vote in the upcoming mid-term elections. These polls are being interpreted by media outlets without comment and without input from "on-the-ground" independents. It's as if our national record of the Civil War ommited Matthew Brady's battlefield photos...

Personally, I think the story that Jackie outlines in this commentary below is a "sea-change" story that "big media" picked up on briefly in 2006 and again in 2008 (election fever) but is now somehow completely missing from today's analysis. More than 40% of the American electorate identify as independents. And that growth was produced in large part by the progressive wing of the independent movement. If you blink on this, you will miss the story.

Independents are vulnerable to being peeled away by the Republican right. The Pew Research Center reports that were the 2010 midterms to be held today, independents would lean towards Republicans by a 43 to 38 percent margin. But, the evolution of a 21st century independent movement is not that simple. First, the movement is very fluid and very new. Historical movements develop through twists and turns, not in a straight line. The far right has attempted to take over the independent movement before. In 1994, Newt Gingrich crafted the “Contract with America” to woo Perotistas back into the Republican tent. And in 2000, social conservative Pat Buchanan hijacked the Reform Party presidential nomination, though he was roundly repudiated by independents in the general election. [FULL PIECE BELOW]

Please feel free to use this article in any way you feel appropriate. And let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Nancy

SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK: THE INDEPENDENTS’ STORY

By: Jackie Salit

When we finally get far enough down the road on health care reform, it will become clear that a driving force in the intensity of the fight was a heart attack. Not the medical kind. The political kind.

Independents swung decisively to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. And it is this shift by independents – who repositioned themselves from center-right to center-left – that gave the Republican right the political equivalent of cardiac arrest.

In 1992, 19 million independents voted for Ross Perot. In 2008, 19 million independents voted for Barack Obama. Over the span of 15 years, the largely white, center-right independent movement re-aligned itself with Black America and progressive-minded voters.

This did not happen out of the blue. It did not happen by magic. It happened because the progressive wing of the independent movement did the painstaking and often controversial work of bringing the Perot movement and the Fulani movement together at the grassroots. The Fulani movement refers to the country’s leading African American independent, Dr. Lenora Fulani, who exposed the black community to independent politics and introduced the independent movement to an alliance with Black America.

No doubt the dramatics that the right wing brought to the Town Hall meetings this summer were intended for the television cameras. But the organizers, strategists and radio personalities who orchestrated the theatrics had a particular audience in mind: Independents. If they could tarnish Obama’s image with indies, they could damage the black and independent alliance and re-establish the Republican Party as an influential force amongst independents. Some of that could be accomplished, they felt, by claiming Obama’s health plan would drive up the national debt – a concern that animated the early Perot movement. Some Republican strategists felt that if they simply branded Obama a socialist, it would scare independents away – not from the health care plan (everyone recognizes a plan of some kind will get passed) but away from the center-left coalition that elected him.

If indies are feeling somewhat disillusioned with President Obama over the health care reform fight, it has more to do with fears that he is being overly influenced by the partisans in Congress. Since independents voted for him to be a more independent president, it’s easy to see how some felt disappointed by his handling of the Republican onslaught. Obama’s independent appeal was based on his challenge to the prevailing culture of Clintonian opportunism in the Democratic Party and partisanship inside the Beltway. Put another way, the independent vote for Obama was an effort to define a new kind of progressivism, one that was not synonymous with Democratic Party control.

After years of hard work and organizing, independents have become a sought-after partner in American politics. They elected President Obama and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, arguably the country’s two most independent and pragmatically progressive elected officials. No wonder the Republican Party right wants a clawback.

Independents are vulnerable to being peeled away by the Republican right. The Pew Research Center reports that were the 2010 midterms to be held today, independents would lean towards Republicans by a 43 to 38 percent margin. But, the evolution of a 21st century independent movement is not that simple. First, the movement is very fluid and very new. Historical movements develop through twists and turns, not in a straight line. The far right has attempted to take over the independent movement before. In 1994, Newt Gingrich crafted the “Contract with America” to woo Perotistas back into the Republican tent. And in 2000, social conservative Pat Buchanan hijacked the Reform Party presidential nomination, though he was roundly repudiated by independents in the general election.

If Republicans are increasing their influence among independents, it’s also because the Democratic Party Left has not been a friend to the independent movement. Sure, Democrats were happy that indies broke for Obama. But they were disappointed that we didn’t become Democrats. They equate progressivism with being in the Democratic Party. But they’re wrong.

Neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party has been enthusiastic about the development of indies as a third force. For different reasons, surely. But they share a common goal: to maintain the primacy of two-value logic (where there is only one or the other, never neither) and make sure independents are passive companions. That’s one reason that the fight for open primaries – which allow independents to cast ballots in every round of voting – and the campaign to appoint independents to the Federal Election Commission are so important. Those fights are about our right to participate and our right to represent our interests in changing the political culture.

The independent movement went left in 2008, after many years of grassroots organizing to link it to progressive leadership. Now the right wants to peel it back. Obama, presumably, wants to hold on to the partnership, but must also privilege his own party, which turns independents off and makes them more susceptible to Republican attacks. Meanwhile, independents are working hard at the grassroots to hold our own.

Jackie Salit is the president of IndependentVoting.org and the campaign coordinator for Mike Bloomberg’s mayoral campaign on the Independence Party line.

Dr. Lenora Fulani speaks in Harlem on the significance of Mike Bloomberg's independent run for Mayor of NYC for the Black community

Must see for independent voters, not only in New York City, but throughout the country: Lenora Fulani speaks out on the Mayor's race in NYC -- Black or Independent? How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Synthesize, synthesize, synthesize!

Don't let the big shots tell us what it means to be Black, don't let the parties tell independents we don't stand for anything. Au contraire, mon frere!

Fulani says in her speech "It's no longer about 'Yes we can", it's about 'Yes we did'." It's a new day. We are creating a new Black community, a new world of peace and world security... Let's get to work."

Ditto from Hankster readers: Let's kick some more!

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 10/8/09

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

Should the US get out of Afghanistan?

• Parsippany independents hold key to mayoral race (By Eugene Paik/For The Star-Ledger)
• Voters More Favorable to Afghan War Troop Hike (CQ Politics)
• Terror-Free Afghanistan Is Worth American Blood, U.S. Voters Tell Quinnipiac University National Poll; But Only 38 Percent Want To Send More Troops (Quinnipiac) Independent voters came down in the middle, but a plurality of 40 percent favored a troop increase, while 28 percent said there should be fewer US troops

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Term limits tweak maybe heading back to ballot (By Anthony York, Capitol Weekly) The term-limits change is just one of the government reform measures that may be headed to the ballot next year. Gov. Schwarzenegger has endorsed the concept of an open primary. Signatures are already being collected on a part-time legislature initiative. And labor groups are contemplating pushing changes to the legislative vote requirements to eliminate the current two-thirds requirements to pass new taxes and state budgets.

BLOOMBERG 09

Independence Party and Working Families Party together will determine the election of top NYC posts, and some status-quo-ites are unhappy about that!

• New York’s Two-Party System--Public-sector unions on one side, billionaires on the other (Harry Siegel and Fred Siegel, City Journal) The Democrats will also have competition of sorts from the Independence Party...
• NYC Mayor: What's In A Party ID? (National Journal/Hotline)
• Betrayal! Boro’s two top Dems are supporting non-Democrats (The Brooklyn Paper / Ben Muessig)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 10/6/09

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• On healthcare and other hot issues: Follow the independents--The number of voters not tied to Democrats or Republicans is expanding fast. Both parties need to adjust. (By the Christian Science Monitor's Editorial Board) Were the 2010 elections to occur today, 43 percent of independents say they would vote Republican (in a generic congressional ballot), while 38 percent would vote Democratic, the Pew Research Center finds. That's quite a shift from 2006, when independents favored Democrats over Republicans, 44 to 33 percent.

OPEN PRIMARIES

• South Dakota Democrats Will Allow Independent Voters to Vote in their Primaries (Ballot Access News)
• Re-enfranchising New Yorkers (by Richard Flanagan, Gotham Gazette) Voters overwhelmingly rejected Macchiarola's plan for nonpartisan elections, 70 percent to 30 percent. But only 13 percent of registered voters bothered to show up for the off-year election of 2003, and many had ties to the unions, interest groups and political clubs that benefit from the status quo and know how to pull the levers of the current system to their advantage. They were loathe to expand the electorate and risk the surrender of power.

BALLOT ACCESS

• Alabama Ballot Access Plaintiff Files Brief in 11th Circuit (Ballot Access News)

GOVERNORS RACES

In an unsettled political environment where voters are exercising independent options, independent candidates like NJ gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggett pick up support....

• Poll: New Jersey gubernatorial race a virtual tie (From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart)
• Daggett gets little help from ballot position (Press of Atlantic City) New Jersey laws reserving the top two spots on any ballot for the two major-party candidates. Last month, Daggett - along with Libertarian Party candidate Kenneth Kaplan - took the step of filing suit against the practice.
• Daggett for guv? Why not? (By ALEX GECAN, For The Trentonian)

BLOOMBERG 09

NYC Dem machine targets independent run by Mike Bloomberg with 2 darts: money (the Mayor is very wealthy...) and term limits (which the Dem-controlled City Council extended....) Good luck with that! Meanwhile, it's the NYC Independence and the Working Families Parties that are supplying the spark in this year's city-wide elections. In a city of 5-1 Dem registration, that's gotta hurt the clubhouse...

• Bloomberg's Line Dance (BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Daily News/Daily Politics)
• Voters Like Mayor, but Not His Path to 3rd Run (By MICHAEL BARBARO, NY Times)
• New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg received the endorsement of the Hotel and Motel Trades Council (From msnbc's First Read with Chuck Todd)
• After term limit tiff, Bloomberg still gets hotel endorsement (ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, NY Daily News/Brawl for the Hall) The only union with a major field operation that remains unpledged is 1199, which voted for Thompson during the WFP endorsement process. Neutrality is not out of the question for 1199, a union source said.
• There's just one real contest in the races for borough president this fall [Jim Molinaro's Repub-Independence-Conservative Party run on Staten Island], but next year could see a debate over whether the city still needs the post. (By Jarrett Murphy, City Limits)

independent queens for mike

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 10/4/09

OPEN PRIMARIES
California's independent-minded gov Arnold Schwarzenegger still fighting for open primaries--Repubs officially reject his reform leadership

• A Report from California’s GOP Convention (Jon Fleischman, National Review Online) The delegates to the convention overwhelmingly opposed an open-primary measure that will appear on next June’s ballot. This measure is expected to be championed by the lame-duck Schwarzenegger — his final attempt to knife conservatives before returning to Hollywood.
• Calif GOP looks to 2010 races for gov., US Senate (By JULIET WILLIAMS (AP)
• Gush of reform proposals hit state (By LISA VORDERBRUEGGEN, Daily Democrat-Woodland CA)

GOVERNORS RACES

• Daggett: Time's right for independent (By MICHAEL SYMONS, Cherry Hill Courier Post)
• N.J. Debate Reveals Weaknesses Of Incumbent, Main Challenger (By Dan Balz, Washington Post) The wild card in the race is Daggett, the independent candidate, whom Corzine's team sees as a possible lifeline in the final weeks. With sharp critiques of his rivals and a sense of humor, Daggett turned in the most entertaining performance on Thursday night.
• Taxes, jobs, health care dominate first gubernatorial debate (By DEREK HARPER, Press of Atlantic City) With a link to videos of the debate and expert reaction.

BLOOMBERG 09

Mike Bloomberg, a registered indy, is running for mayor of NYC on the Independence Party line and on the Republican Party line. (NY is one of the few states that allows candidates to appear on the ballot on more than one line, and the vote totals are aggregated; it's called "fusion.") His Democratic opponent, William Thompson, is a career politician who currently serves as the city's little known comptroller.

Mike's expected to win; the real question is whether he'll pull a a big enough vote on the IP line to make the statement that New Yorkers aren't voting for Republican-ism but for nonpartisan governance. Proponents of partisanship -- including the so-called liberal intellegentsia (which, it's been pointed out, is neither) -- are doing whatever they can to prevent such an outcome. See:

• Bloomberg's Term Limits Scheme- How Mayor Mike gamed the system (By Tom Robbins, Village Voice) He cut the same insiders' pact with the cultish local chapter of the Independence Party. The party's nominating convention this spring featured all the democracy of a Chinese Politburo meeting, including a ruling clique that fawned over the visiting mayor.
• Liu, de Blasio Win Democratic Nods for NYC Controller, Advocate (By Henry Goldman, Bloomberg.com) “Let’s get serious; there are a couple of Republican candidates, but they have no chance whatsoever,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during a City Hall news conference yesterday. “You have one party that so dominates that it’s very unlikely that anybody will win but whoever wins the runoff.”... The current city comptroller, William Thompson, 56, is the Democratic candidate opposing Bloomberg’s bid for re-election on the Republican and Independence party ballot lines.

WORKING FAMILIES PARTY

• ACORN attack misses mark (Ben Smith, Politico)
• The Politico Gets Played By ACORN (By Matthew Vadum, American Spectator)

ON THE BLOGS

• Housing (Mansfield for PA) I am Robert Allen Mansfield and I am candidate for Lt Governor for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania