TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

POST POST ELECTION ANALYSIS

• Obama tries to pick GOP leader (Paradise Post) McCain generally hovered abound 35 percent - meaning most of the GOP voters had someone else in mind. Unfortunately, those who allege themselves to be moderate, voted in open primaries for McCain in numbers enough to defeat Romney who was also dealing with Mike Hucka-bee.
• In region, voting ‘blue’ is about economy (Business North - Duluth & Superior - MN, WI) Iron Range historian and instructor at Vermilion Community College, traces the ties of the Iron Range and the DFL to the turn of the last century. Reforms had given mining workers greater rights — the adoption of the secret ballot and an open primary system.
• Nader questions media coverage (LETTER by Ralph Nader, Frost Illustrated) We asked one top editor of a major daily why his paper was not covering us at all and he said, “Because you can’t win.”
• Age a big factor in voting (John Sowell, News Review) The older Douglas County voters were on Election Day, the more likely they were to vote. And members of one of the two major political parties were more likely to fill out and turn in ballots than those registered as independents or as members of the smaller political parties.
• Commentary: 2008 election marked fall of far-right wing (The Advertiser) As a registered independent, I find it seems strange to watch these political parties fall from grace.
• CQ Transcript: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer Speaks at National Press Club on 2008 Election and Agenda for Congress (CQ Transcriptswire) We did not just make a full-blown ideological conversion of the other half of the country. What we did do -- and this in and of itself was a huge accomplishment -- was convince majority-making independents, whether they be Democrats, Republicans, or actual independents, or declines, that we will govern responsibly and effectively at this time of national crisis.
• Shrill Partisanship Not Embraced By Some New Lawmakers (By JOE GANDELMAN, The Moderate Voice) The tug against politics aimed at seeking broad coalition building, consensus and defusing partisan anger will continue to be independent political groups plus talk radio, which gets and maintains audiences by pushing emotional hot-button issues and polarization.
• Winning in a new South (Charlotte News Observer) "It isn't so much that Obama changed things, but that he built on the changes that already existed," says Guillory.

NEW YORK POLITICS

• The Transformation of Mike Bloomberg-How the benevolent billionaire with no political debts ended up owning us all (By Wayne Barrett, Village Voice) Last month's 29-to-22 council vote to do Bloomberg's bidding was the most tawdry moment in city politics I've ever seen.
• Union Endorses Gioia for Public Advocate (NY Times) In what seems to be the first major endorsement in next year’s race for public advocate, City Councilman Eric N. Gioia is being endorsed by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The union will make the endorsement official at a press conference on Tuesday.

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

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.