2010: The voters voted against politics as usual.

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Two Regional Parties - Democrats, Republicans both retreating to geographic corners. (National Journal) The number of voters who consider themselves members of either party is dropping significantly, according to surveys. Independent voters fed up with the ways of Washington and politics as usual are inventing a new landscape in which neither party is safe.
• The Morning After: What Independents Want (POSTED BY NANCY HANKS, The Moderate Voice) Structural political reform like open primaries, nonpartisan elections, initiative and referendum, nonpartisan redistricting...
• Neither political party seems to get it (LETTER Des Moines Register) The voters voted against politics as usual.
• The Post-Midterms Game Plan for Progressives (Katrina vanden Heuvel and Robert L. Borosage, The Nation) Independents are not a stable group of voters with fixed opinions equidistant between two parties. Rather, independents tend to be voters who are paying less attention to politics, and with less information, than partisans. Most tend to favor one party over another. A fired-up base brings out the independents that lean to that party and may also help persuade true independents.
• What a 'write-in' avalanche tells us about election (By the Peninsula Clarion, Alaska Journal of Commerce) In short: No matter what the "rules" are, Alaskans are going to find ways to vote the person, not the political party.

REFORM

• Is winning an election enough? (By Tom Bell, Portland ME Press Herald)

BLOOMBERG 2012

• Bloomberg is a good pick for 2012 (by ROBBIE OTTLEY, The Red and Black - University of Georgia) Maybe it’s time for the nation to look outside the two-party system toward an independent candidate for president. And maybe that candidate is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

COLORADO

• New vote tally in HD 61 expected next week -State won't appeal ruling, Curry still trails Wilson by 495 votes (John Stroud, Glenwood Springs Post Independent)

CONNECTICUT

• Malloy Lauds Foley for Conceding in Governor's Race (By SUSAN HAIGH, Litchfield County Times)

NEW YORK

• Charles Barron Supports Mumia, discusses plans of Freedom Party (By Dee Knight, Workers World)
• Barron Denounces Mayor, Choice of Black as Chancellor (By Meghan Keneally, NY Observer)
• A new head of the class - An innovative chancellor steps down (The Economist)
• After the Shellacking: What D.C., Albany Power Shifts Could Mean for Commercial Real Estate Market (By Robert Knakal, NY Observer) I am a registered independent who has equal dissatisfaction for politicians from both parties when bad policy is endorsed and, conversely, I have financially supported, and voted for, independents as well as Democrats and Republicans.

LAST WORD

• Stewart to Maddow: ‘I like you’ (Politico) At one point, Maddow said she was not simply looking to lift up the left, and was looking for bad arguments wherever she found them. Stewart argued that the same could be said of Fox, which he said was “ideological but not partisan.”