TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 7/30/10

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• An independent's view of Obama (Stephen Hambric, Centre Daily Times - Penn State) Well, this independent male voter sees a president who is doing precisely what he promised to do. Perhaps my fellow male independents didn’t listen to Obama’s speeches carefully when he was running for office. As an independent, I paid a great deal of attention and believed (and still do) that his way of doing things deserves a chance after many years of an earlier, failed approach.
• The Red Flag of Partisanship - Gary Andres: Independents Are Increasingly Wary of Political Pitches (CBS News)

PROP 14

• Suit over Prop. 14 abolishing party primaries (Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle)
• Calif. Governor Schwarzenegger Issues Statement on Lawsuit to Block Prop 14 (Edited by Valerie Gotten, California Newswire)
• California: Lawsuit challenges legislation implementing open primary election (By Eric Messinger, San Jose Mercury News)

FLORIDA

• Democrats,Independents behind Crist’s Lead (Fox News)
• July 30, 2010 - Crist On Top In 3-Way Florida Senate Race, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Dem Sink Tied With Either Republican In Govenor's Race (Quinnipiac)

KENTUCKY

• Metro Council independent Deonte Hollowell files for 6th District seat (By Sheldon S. Shafer, Louisville Courier Journal) A professor of Pan-African studies at the University of Louisville, Hollowell filed Thursday with the county clerk’s office as an independent candidate. He is the only independent ever to serve on the metro council, which was created through city-county merger in 2003.

MICHIGAN

• Steve Gunn: Open primary would improve Michigan politics (Steve Gunn, The Muskegon Chronicle)

OREGON

• Editorial: Defeat leaves pols in charge (Albany Democrat Herald - OR) Politicians have a stake in the system we have. It’s what got them elected.

RHODE ISLAND

• Candidates for R.I. governor discuss homelessness, mental illness (By Paul Davis, Providence Journal)

NEW YORK

• Indies in party uprising (By DAVID SEIFMAN, City Hall Bureau Chief, EXCLUSIVE NY Post) Charles Flynn, who helped install MacKay in 2000 and served as his first vice chairman for six years, said he plans to take on his former boss in the fall because MacKay has abandoned the party's reform principles and has "done exactly what we campaigned against."
• Diana Taylor for mayor? Really? (By GREG DAVID, Crain's New York)
• Poll says Cuomo still swamps opponents; voters split on whether next AG should have more power (Empire State News)
• Bloomberg of Tammany Hall (Alan Singer, Huffington Post) [Singer is a social studies teacher at Hofstra]

NYC CHARTER REVISION

• Charter panel meeting at PS 58 on Monday (Peter N. Spencer, SI Advance) Non-partisan elections - a pet issue for Bloomberg - may also get on the ballot. Nonpartisan elections eliminate party primaries and let anyone run for city office in an open September election, with the top two finishers facing off in a November election. 
• Will New York Revisit Non-Partisan Elections? (By MICHAEL SCHENKLER, Queens Tribune) While we believe the impact of passing such a proposal will have little effect in the end on who wins what, we do believe it is worthy of consideration and should be put to the voters.