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)