Stop Marginalizing Independent Voters Through Election Laws Set by Partisan Legislators

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Obama Shouldn't Use Bush's Reelect Strategy - Bush-Cheney '04 may have scraped through a victory, but the same tactics won't work for Obama. John Avlon on five reasons 2012 is different. (The Daily Beast)
• On the Agenda: Independent voters still up for grabs in 2012 (By: Harvey Kronberg, YNN Austin) Independent voters broke left in 2008, galvanized by a visceral dislike of Sarah Palin combined with anxiety that John McCain was over his head facing the possible financial apocalypse. While there is not yet a Republican candidate to contrast, the 2012 independent voter is now deeply unhappy with Barack Obama.
• Discrimination denies independent voters fair access (By OMAR H. ALI, News Record Greensboro NC) Across the world, here in North Carolina, where my own little family now lives and where I teach history at UNCG, I am part of a different movement for democracy. I am part of a movement of independent voters who do not want to be marginalized through election laws and regulations set by Democratic and Republican legislators.

John Avlon: Closed Primaries Too Easily Hijacked by Ideologes and Partisan Hacks

OPEN PRIMARIES

• Christine O'Donnell: Exhibit A for getting rid of closed primaries (By John Avlon, CNN Contributor) The lesson: Closed partisan primaries are fundamentally unrepresentative. They're too easily hijacked by ideological activists and party hacks beholden to special interests. And because these local primaries are the gauntlet that candidates have to run, they lead directly to the culture of hyperpartisanship that now threatens to paralyze our capacity for effective self-government.
• Primaries now 'the elections' (LETTER Clarion Ledger) Whether it's called "open primaries," or just equal right to vote by everyone, we need a system that gives everyone an equal voice, rather than independents being shut out of the "primaries" where most officials are chosen, and then have to pick between two party hacks in the general election.

Independent Voters: 40 Percent of the Electorate, Not Just Some Demographic Group

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• CBS Panel Cool on 'Far Right' GOP Candidates, 'Bush Looks Like Abraham Lincoln' (By Brad Wilmouth, NewsBusters) Avlon agreed that the GOP candidates are "far right": "That is a fundamental problem with the Republican Party that has moved from center right to far right, increasingly, and, look, independent voters are 40 percent of the electorate, the largest and the fastest growing segment. So this isn't just some, you know, demographic group you got to appeal to."


• Dan Walters: Older Democratic politicians clogging up the waiting line (By Dan Walters, Modesto Bee) Top Two: Regardless, it will empower the growing ranks of independent voters. And it may compel candidates to make wider appeals, rather than concentrating on the ideological true believers who have tended to dominate closed party primaries.

CBS Early Show: Independents Talk with John Avlon and Margaret Hoover About the Debt Debate

INDEPENDENT VOTERS
Independent voters pin blame in debt gridlock CBS News VIDEO (CBS News)
"The Early Show on Saturday Morning" put together a panel of independent voters to address the question. They were joined by two analysts of different political stripes who happen to be husband and wife: Margaret Hoover, who was an aide to President George W. Bush and is the author of "American Individualism: How a New Generation of Conservatives Can Save the Republican Party," and John Avlon, the senior political columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

Some of the independents were:
SUSAN SIMPFENDERFER, 48
JACK WYRICK, 28
MATT AMARAL, 23
JEFF STEVENS, 44
CANDICE HARRISON, 25
JESSIE FIELDS, 55
NICK JOHNSON, 62
SHANNA BROWN, 21
EILEEN KAUFMANN, 6

Deficit talks strain Obama's bipartisanship goals - He took office with a promise to overcome partisanship in the political process, but with debt negotiations apparently collapsing, the president's options are narrowing. (By Peter Nicholas, Washington Bureau, LA Times) But if no solution emerges in time to avoid a default, Obama may revert to a more partisan role rather than try to mediate between the parties.