TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Campaign for America's Future and Media Matters for America, say new polling and demographic data show that the country has shifted to the left
• Here's the Media Matters article
• Here's the full report
• What do we think about government take-over of failing corporations?
• Howard Dean says Congress should do what it needs to do for health care

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

POLITISOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS

• Increasingly Centrist Obama Ruffles Left And Right Feathers (By JOE GANDELMAN, The Moderate Voice) It’s not unusual for centrists to get it from both sides. As many on this site, Avlon and others have noted, anyone who chooses a centrist path will get it from some on the right (you MUST be a secret leftist masking yourself as a centrist and you’re mushy) and some on the left (you MUST be a secret Republican and you’re mushy).
• 60 Is Not a Magic Number for Democrats, Party's Failure to Win a Filibuster-Proof Majority in Senate Isn't the End of the World (By Mike Lillis, Washington Independent) Many of the experts contend that the Democrats’ belief that securing 60 seats would have been the key to legislative success ignores the regional and ideological nuances that influence voting patterns on both sides of the aisle.
• Don't Blame Obama For Disappointing Liberals (Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Huffington Post) He is what he's always been, namely a pragmatic, centrist, Democrat who when circumstances dictate will conciliate moderates and conservatives on a hot button issue that might cause political trouble.

LOCAL NEWS OF INTEREST

• Minorities boost Dems' numbers-Party sees big gains in Brevard (BY JOHN McCARTHY • FLORIDA TODAY) Overall, there were 23,850 more people who cast ballots in Brevard this year than in 2004. More than 10,000 of those were Democrats, while fewer than 4,000 were Republicans. The rest had no party affiliation or membership in minor political parties.
• Senator Clinton, 2001-2008: Smart, Hardworking, Unextraordinary (by Jason Horowitz, NY Observer)
• Is Anh Cao A Model For A New Republican Party? (By Justin Gardner, Donklephant)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS
America's Best Days: GOP Voters Grow Slightly More Optimistic About America’s Future (Rasmussen Reports) Democrats say America’s best days lie ahead by a 53% to 30% margin. Among unaffiliated voters, 48% say the nation’s best days are in the future while 35% say they are in the past. h/t to Jazz Shaw at The Moderate Voice

OPEN PRIMARIES
Old Issue, New Twist (NY Daily News/Daily Politics) The New York County Lawyers' Association's Election Law Committee will hold a public forum TODAY on the question of open primaries, and the line-up - from Independence Party attorney Harry Kresky and CUIP's Jackie Salit to Post City Hall Bureau Chief David Seifman (acting as the moderator - is sure to make for a lively discussion.

POLITOSOPHOCAL INVESTIGATIONS

• Obama is walking, cautiously but with purpose (Fosters Daily Democrat/Sanford) The United States is governed from the center — sometimes from the center-right, at other times from the center-left. Change born of dissatisfaction occurs when those in positions of power lose sight of the wide center and focus only on narrow interests.
• Obama Policymakers Turn to Campaign Tools - Network of Supporters Tapped on Health-Care Issues (Washington Post) "President-elect Obama believes that change really comes from the ground up, not from Washington," Salazar said in an interview. "The drumbeat for change is one which goes across every single state -- red, blue and purple. That kind of a drumbeat will be very effective in achieving the change needed on health care."
• Liberals to keep pressure on Obaman (Casa Grande Valley Newspapers) He promised to lead with a bipartisan spirit, the kind that could unify a country and allow him to get deals through Congress. From the moment he won, he implored people: "Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship."
• Change is … changing (Michael Reagan, Asheville Citizen Times) A funny thing happened on his way to the White House: that old, left-wing community organizer Barack Obama has suddenly veered toward the center, and his incoming administration is looking more and more like the Daley Machine in Chicago than Hugo Chavez’s administration down in Venezuela.
• Pragmatic leadership (The State) The candidate of change now demonstrates an understanding of the need for continuity where practical.
• How Will Obama Enrage The Left? (Chris Weigant, Huffington Post) By appearing to "stand up" to the left wing, Obama will be seen as charting his own course as a strong and independent leader, beholden to no special interest group of radical progressives. That's how the news media will portray it, at any rate. His approval ratings will likely rise after he does so, since it will serve to calm fears from suburban Republicans and Independents that Obama is going to make too many radical changes too fast.
• Op Ed: Point-of-Attack - Now Preparation For Policy-Change (Salem-News.com) Pragmatic is the right word for this new President. What he seeks is rapid but practical approaches to matters left far too long open to direct attack by the neocon-shiftless he replaces.

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

INDEPENDENT VOTERS
Swingers: The New Voting Bloc That Could Change Politics Forever (Huffington Post) It wasn't the Democratic base that nominated Barack Obama; the establishment was solidly in line for the coronation of Hillary Clinton. But Swingers stepped in and turned Obama from an inspiring story to the real deal.... Find out if your state has open primaries and push your elected officials to make the switch if it doesn't.


OPEN PRIMARIES/POLITICAL REFORM

• Possible Solution to the Conflict Between Supporters of “Top-Two” and Minor Party and Independent Activists (Ballot Access News)
• The New York County Lawyers' Association's Election Law Committee will hold a public forum Thursday on the question of open primaries, and the line-up - from Independence Party attorney Harry Kresky to Post City Hall Bureau Chief David Seifman (acting as the moderator - is sure to make for a lively discussion. (NY Daily News/Daily Politics) CUIP's Jackie Salit also speaking in favor of open primaries...
  
• Prop. 11 won by not talking about redistricting (San Francisco Chronicle) instead of running a campaign about the glories of "communities of interest" and "geographically compact districts," the Prop. 11 team leaned on one of those evergreen slogans of California politics: "Let's throw the bums out."

WHAT'S IDEOLOGY GOT TO DO WITH IT?

• For Obama, moderates held key to election (Politico) these voters want a transformation in politics and government that is every bit as profound as those on the left. Yet they are often frustrated by what they see as a series of false policy choices, hemmed in by narrow and outdated ideological battles. Thus, for a transformation to take hold with the American middle, it must reflect the values of post-partisanship, pragmatism and patriotism.
• Third Way President Jonathan Cowan’s Statement on the Election of 2008 -- “A Moderate In Moderate’s Clothing” - Obamism and The Future of Progressive Politics (Third Way Press Release)
• Calling U.S. center-right gets it wrong (Atlanta Journal Constitution) Before the election, Republicans argued that Obama’s proposals on issues such as the economy and health care were so radical they amount to socialism. Now some of those same people argue that Obama ran as a centrist, and therefore has no mandate to pursue progressive policies (The day after the election, Karl Rove claimed, “Barack Obama understands this is a center-right country and he smartly and wisely ran a campaign that emphasized it.”). Both of these things cannot simultaneously be true.
• Obama from change agent to pragmatist (AP) Obama: "One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in group-think and everybody agrees with everything and there's no discussion and there are no dissenting views," he said. "So I am going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.
• 18 Million Independents Voted for Obama (Independent Voting) In 1992 the independent movement in America was a center-right movement. In 2008, the independent movement is center-left. That's a shift...
  

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Upcoming Events in The Legal Community (Brooklyn Eagle) Dec. 4, Public Forum: Open Primaries, the Problem or the Solution? 6 p.m. NYC Independence Party attorney Harry Kresky and CUIP President Jackie Salit will speak in favor of open primaries
  
• Will the RNC Push for 'Closed' Presidential Primaries? (Human Events)
• Governor Schwarzenegger: Please Don’t Declare 2009 the Year of Anything (Frank Russo, California Progress Report) There is now talk of an “open primary” as if that is a panacea for our problems. If this is the kind of ethereal pursuits our Governor focuses on and he is unwilling to tackle the real problems our state faces that are difficult to solve, we will have precisely what Professor Murray Edelman wrote about in, "The Symbolic Uses of Politics"--a symbolic gesture that is a lot easier to achieve and will make people feel good.

LOCAL INDEPENDENT NEWS

• Working Families Party boosts vote count (New Britain Herald News - CT) After a change in the state’s election laws last year made it easier for parties to cross-endorse candidates, a Working Families line appeared on every ballot this year.
• Marion County election demographics (Salem Monthly - OR) While the registered Democrats outnumber the Republicans, the unaffiliated voters easily could have been the deciding votes in some of the closer races.
• Change is essential (Lower Hudson Journal News) Those who refuse to register with any party are now the fastest growing group of voters in many districts. These voters represent a huge opportunity for a new Republican Party willing and able to meet their needs and tap into their frustration.
• How to have minor parties that are more than spoilers (Minneapolis Star Tribune) A little more than a hundred years ago, Minnesota and the rest of the nation allowed third parties to grow without simply being spoilers. The process is called fusion politics.

CENTER-LEFT PRAGMATICS

• America transformed (Eugene Robinson, The Detroit News) It's meaningless to argue whether ours is a center-left or center-right polity; the midpoint of the nation's political spectrum is, by definition, center-center. Ronald Reagan took office as the whole spectrum was moving to the right, and he pushed it further in that direction. Obama was elected as the spectrum was shifting back to the left, and he will try to give it a helping shove.
• Obama's historic moment (Philadelphia Daily News) Thus far, Obama refuses to be a prisoner of party ideology, admitting that he' be "happy to adopt ideas that work, whether they come from FDR or Reagan."
• Obama's change: minor or major? Our policies will change: Will our values, too? (Christian Science Monitor) Clearly then, Obama's values have American roots. The question, however, is whether these values are necessarily American. If people view pragmatism, pluralism, and positive human rights – which include the right to healthcare – as American values, they will see Obama as an inspiring agent for Change 2. But if they think these values are inimical to true American values, say, of personal responsibility, strict property rights, and limited government, they will fear Obama as an agent for Change 1.

LAST WORD(S)
Busty Bimbettes, Bombs and Brand Obama (CounterPunch)
Enough of 'Barbituate' Left Cynicism, Obama Is a Victory over White Supremacy (By Tim Wise, Red Room/AlterNet)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

CENTER-LEFT

• Liberals to keep pressure on Obama for results (Associated Press) Obama adviser David Axelrod said the new president will not renege on winding down the conflict in Iraq. Obama says the challenges are simply too huge for the politics of labels; Democrats and Republicans must work together. Pragmatism rules. "I think what the American people want more than anything is just common sense, smart government," he said. "They don't want ideology."
• Battle Royale: Center-Right Versus Center-Left In the Democratic Party (Thomas B. Edsall, Huffington Post) The center-right vs. center-left conflict is now a dispute over the range of politically tenable policy options open to Democrats -- whether party leaders are significantly constrained by a pull to the right, or whether Obama and Congressional Democrats are free to enact aggressively progressive programs and legislation.

ELECTION REFORM
In open contests, voters beat politicians (by Paul Jacob, Town Hall) Term limits serve to shorten the time elected citizens must endure near the sulphurous pits of power, allowing a citizen to stay “citizen legislator” and not morph into a professional politician.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

ELECTION ANALYSIS

• Pollsters Debate America's Political Realignment (Washington Post) Yet realignments are often predicted and rarely occur. One reason is that they can occur only if the least political Americans, the swing voters who consider themselves independents (though they often lean toward one party), have to participate.
• Obama Should Govern from the Left--Center--Right--All of the Above (Commentary By Lee Russ, Watching the Watchers) I'd venture that most of us who voted for Obama did so at least partly because he appears to have the character and temperament to make wise choices, to listen to many opinions, to be persuaded by external facts that a change in course might be needed, and to see beyond rigid, divisive labels that constrict rather than further debate.
• Obama's identity crisis - Pundits can't decide who they want him to be (By Michael Mccord, Seacoastonline.com) Virtually ignoring that an election just took place, Newsweek sets its ideological boundary by claiming yet again that the country remains "right of center" politically (even before the election, Newsweek offered a take-your-cod-liver-oil cover story, assuming Obama's victory and warning him not to forget it's a center-right country).

NEW YORK POLITICS
Comptroller Gives Mayor Low Marks on Schools (by Vladic Ravich, Queens Chronicle) The conference featured a wide variety of speakers, such as develpmental psychologist Lenora Fulani, who advocated “play, curiosity and exploration” as crucial factors for lifting young people out of neighborhoods filled with crime and poverty. h/t to David M. Quintana at Lost in the Ozone

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• The 2008 election in perspective (New Hampshire Business Review) there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans in New Hampshire, although unaffiliated (independent) voters are the largest single voting bloc.
• Voters show their independent streak (Morgan Messenger - WV) While Democrats used to account for the other 40% of the vote, the proportion of Democrats has actually dropped to 32% locally. The real boom has come in the number of people who don’t identify with either political party.

CENTER-LEFT/SCHMENTER-LEFT

• Is it OK to be liberal again, instead of progressive? Come out of the closet, liberals. Stop using the fashionable euphemism "progressive" and relaunch the old, tarnished L-word. (Salon)
• Lyons: Should Obama lean now to right? (Courier Express/Tri County - PA) Arguing over meaningless phrases like "center-right" versus "center-left" would be a foolish. Because while much of the electorate may be uneasy about what they've been taught liberals think about symbolic social issues like abortion, guns and "gay marriage," strong majorities agree with Democratic approaches on more concrete matters.

OPEN PRIMARIES/POLITICAL REFORM

• California initiatives: A fighting tradition (Oakland Tribune/Wenatchee World Online) If California voters always had their way, illegal immigrants wouldn’t get public education and health care; the state would have “open” primary elections; landlords could practice racial discrimination; and cable television would be either free or illegal. All these stances have been approved as ballot initiatives, and all were later struck down by the courts.
• EDITORIAL: Still battling term limits - Many sitting politicians aren't about to go quietly (Las Vegas Review Journal)
• EDITORIAL ; So This is `Reform'? (iStock Analyst) A hastily arranged package of reforms from politically ambitious lawmakers will do little to inspire public confidence in state government.

LAST WORD
The end of the Sixties - In Chico as in the rest of America, voters tired of polarization and the culture wars are looking to liberals to solve problems (Chico News Review)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

RISE OF THE INDEPENDENTS
Variables Working Against a Republican Revival (By PETE ABEL, The Moderate Voice) Continued expansion of unaffiliated or independent voters would spell grief for both parties

POST POST ELECTION ANALYSIS

• Newsweek asserted as fact that America "remains right of center," but a former Wash. Times editor disagrees (Media Matters)
• Outlook: The Electorate's Left Turn (Tod Lindberg, Washington Post) 'The decline of Republican strength occurs by having strong Republicans become weak Republicans, weak Republicans becoming independents, and independents leaning more Democratic or even becoming Democrats.' This is a portrait of an electorate moving from center-right to center-left."

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

POST-POST ELECTION TALK

• Licking wounds, GOP determined to heal (Philadelphia Inquirer) Some say the party has drifted from its fiscally conservative, small-government principles. Others say too much emphasis on issues such as opposition to abortion and gay rights, important to the party's dominant social conservatives, created an image of intolerance that repels large numbers of moderate and independent voters.


• FOLLOW THE LEADER: ADVICE FOR REBUILDING THE GOP (NY Post) Dem activists busied themselves trying to create a carbon copy of this infrastructure of think tanks, sophisticated voter lists, media watchdog groups and talk radio outlets.... History shows that while ideas matter, personality trumps all.

Be sure to check out independent strategist Jackie Salit's new November video 18 Million Independents Vote for Barack Obama... "The independent movement in America has become a center-left movement." You can read more of Salit's salient points at IndependentVoting.org

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

POST ELECTION ANALYSIS

• GOP must reinvent itself after trouncing (Hendersonville Times News/BlueRidgeNow - NC) So what is to be done? Lenin said, “in order to make an omelet you have to break eggs.”
• The Christian Party (by Jeffrey Hart, The Daily Beast) George W. Bush transformed the center-right party of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and his father, George H.W. Bush, into the political instrument of the religious right, tying the party to the evangelical protestants and to such Catholics as made the culture war central to their politics.
• AT LARGE: Hume says U.S. is still ‘center right country’ (Tuscaloosa News) In his jumbled syntax, Hume, the most pontifical of the television pundits, was trying to advance some sort of theory about how despite the election of Barack Obama, who you will remember was branded as the “most liberal senator in Congress” by the Republicans, we are still a “center right country.”
• A Shift In Direction (The Tampa Tribune) Nonetheless, many people are now advising Barack Obama to "govern from the center."
• Mark Green: 7 Days: FDR = Obama? Alter, Huffington, vanden Heuvel & Green Discuss and Compare Their Transitions (Huffington Post) Jonathan Alter: It's a bit of an oversimplification to think that we're going to move left in lock step across the board, but as a general proposition there's no question that the country is moving left, the last line of my piece was "leftward ho".
• Can Obama Truly Deliver? (CBS News) "The country must be governed from the middle," Pelosi told reporters on November 5. One reason, Democratic advisers say, is that so many new members of Congress are centrists that the party won't be able to hold its majority in 2010 if it lurches left with meddlesome social programs and vast new spending schemes.
• Obama's community-organizing skills valuable in presidency (The Morning Sentinel) The CEO says, "Hire me and I will fix this company." The community organizer says, "Let me help you fix this community."

POLITICAL THEATER Bread and Puppet livens gathering of pro-secession advocates at Statehouse (Burlington Free Press) "We think the empire is going down," Naylor said. "Everyday it gets worse and worse and the leaders are clueless."

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

POST-ELECTION

• Democrats weigh how hard to hit agenda (Chicago Tribune) The coalition that put Obama in office depends on support he secured from independent voters.
• What I've Been Saying for Weeks (American Spectator) if you incorrectly assume that the independent voter is a "centrist," you're going to miss the chance to make the libertarian populist argument.
• Former GOP Sen. Chafee relishes Obama’s victory (The Providence Journal) In early September, Chafee campaigned in Florida as part of “Republicans and independents for Obama.”
• The Center-Right Nation Exits Stage Left (Washington Post) And so far, center-left government is largely an abstraction for the country. People like the sound of it, especially against the backdrop of a financial crisis and recession. In these center-left times, voters are receptive -- or rather, it is their receptiveness that makes these times center-left.
• Democrats' victories portend a new political era (By David S. Broder, Seattle Times) there are signs in this year's returns of voter shifts that could herald a new political era — and which certainly define the challenge facing the Republican Party.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

POST-ELECTION

• Vast Obama network becomes a political football-Some Obama advisors want to blend his campaign operation with the Democratic National Committee. Others worry that such a move could cause the grass-roots organization to unravel. (LA Times) "A lot of these warriors on the ground are not Democrats, and that's by choice," Figueroa said.
• Obama carries precincts in traditionally Republican Inland region by substantial margins (Press Enterprise - southern CA) The results suggest that many of the region's increasing number of independent voters -- those who decline to state a party affiliation -- went for Obama.
• America Throws Long - If Obama doesn't connect, more than the game is lost. (By PEGGY NOONAN, Wall Street Journal) Does it mark the beginning of a center-left era? That's the kind of thing you know in retrospect. The vote will prove to be a realigning one if Mr. Obama does well enough over a long enough period that people come to see themselves not as voters who picked him but as people who are his followers. If they choose to follow him, their self-identification as Democrats will sink in and formalize, and the vote they cast in 2008 will come to seem not a decision but an affiliation. Without affiliation, everything remains in play and will be in play in the coming years. If Mr. Obama doesn't catch the pass and cross the goal line, it will mean this election marked a moment, not a movement.
• Lurching center-left (Washington Times) It is now abundantly clear that America is a center-left nation, and healthy majorities of the American people agree with Mr. Obama's liberal economic policies.
• OR: A blue election tide -- or a white one? (The Oregonian/The Stump) While the rest of the nation celebrates a transformational election that couldn't have taken place without minorities in general and Barack Obama in particular gaining access to political power, the Oregon Legislature will convene in 2009 as the least diverse it's been in decades.
  

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

OPEN PRIMARIES
Open primaries another path to moderation? (Contra Costa Times) "The next thing is open primaries," Schwarzenegger told a crowd during a late October rally in San Diego. "That's how we have to walk down that road and create the real change."

ELECTION ANALYSIS

• Analysis: What does NM's Democrat shift mean? (Silver City Sun News) Nearly three-fifths of independent voters backed Obama in the presidential race and Democrat Tom Udall for the U.S. Senate.
• Prop 8 Myths (FiveThirtyEight.com) At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two.
• Obama The Uniter - Three ways Barack Obama can quickly prove his bipartisanship. (Forbes)
• Don’t Exaggerate Election Impact in Dixie -- "The Deep South white vote for Obama was generally not too different than that in Alabama, where nearly nine out of ten whites turned out for McCain." (A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford)
• Editorial: A generations influence can be felt through votes (Baylor University/The Lariat Online) An analysis from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported, "Without a doubt, the overwhelming backing of younger voters was a critical factor in Obama's victory."
• Have We Witnessed a Revolution? (RealClearPolitics) The electoral evidence at least suggests that something big is happening to America's ideological moorings

NEW YORK POLITICS/INDEPENDENCE PARTY
The Long View On Term Limits: Not About Bloomberg (Daily News/Daily Politics) Sources close to the mayor have suggested that he will run as an independent. But there has also been speculation he will seek another line - the most likely candidates, of course, being the GOP and the Independence Party, but both might present problems to him this time around.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

INDEPENDENT VOTERS
Sorting out an elusive constituency: independent voters (MinnPost) The emergence of a sizable independent voting bloc has often foreshadowed a paradigm shift in national politics, and has occasionally signaled the demise of a major party.

ELECTION AFTERMATH
Exit Stage Center-Right (Washington Post LETTER) In fact, the election showed that America is a center-left country. But more important, the clear message sent to Congress by Americans across the country was that the partisan fighting must stop and that collaborative efforts must be made to move the country forward.

OREGON MEASURE 65

• Looking Back at the Senate Race (The Oregonian LETTER) Has anyone noticed that Gordon Smith would have won this last election if Measure 65 had been in place?
• Oregon initiative campaigns hit $20 million (The Oregonian)
• In our view Nov. 8: Cheers & Jeers (The Columbian) Voters wisdom questioned on Measure 65

NEW YORK POLITICS/INDEPENDENCE PARTY

• Legis. Jack Eddington moves to Independence Party (Newsday)
• Suffolk County, New York Has Two Independence Party Members in its County Legislature (Ballot Access News)
• Battle for New York State Senate Was Also Battle Between Working Families and Independence Parties (Ballot Access News)
• Working Families Party workin’ it (Albany Times Union/Capitol Confidential)
• GOP gets help from Independence Party (Newsday)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

ELECTION FALLOUT

• Presidential election highlights growing gap between generations - Young voters, universities buck trend, back Obama (Citizen Times Asheville NC) At Western Carolina University in Jackson County, the student body is actually split evenly among Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters, said Gibbs Knotts, head of the political science department.
• Analysis: Results show Kansas red, not purple (Joplin Globe) The number of registered Democrats was nearly 7 percent higher than it was in 2004, and the number of unaffiliated voters had climbed nearly 9 percent. Meanwhile, the number of registered Republicans slipped 1.5 percent.
• A Progressive Congress Under President Obama (Beyond Chron - San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily News) But the country’s leftward shift that gave Obama a landslide victory also produced a new crop of Democratic legislators – making waves that bode well for the future. This should embolden progressives to demand more from Washington – not less – as a new Congress and President get sworn in.
• End Game for Ideology (North Star Writers Group) Brit Hume, longtime Washington editor for Fox and a man who learned his trade as a reporter rather than a pundit, declared that America, which had been a center-right country, was now, on new evidence, a center-left country. Shock! Horror! Creeping socialism!
• A 'Center-Right' Country? We Shall See. (By Steven M. Warshawsky, American Thinker) Douglas Schoen, who was Bill Clinton's pollster in 1996, similarly argues that Barack Obama "owes his victory not to the left, but to the middle." Huh??
• Dear Obama: Don’t go right; get it right (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Americans are fed up with government by slogans. They hunger for workable solutions to their pressing problems.
• G.O.P. Dog Days? (By William Kristol, NY Times) What’s more, this year’s exit polls suggested a partisan shift but no ideological realignment.

The vote last Tuesday suggests that the country has shifted center-left. This is the debate now happening among the pundits and political class.