On September 26, New Jersey bill A3777 was signed into law. It moves the presidential primary from February to June. The bill has no effect on petition deadlines for minor party or independent candidates. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for this news.
On Friday, September 23, a jury was finally chosen in the case known as People v Haggerty, the case involving the 2009 election for Mayor of New York city. See this story. Mayor Bloomberg contributed more than $1,000,000 to the Independence Party. It appears he expected the party to give the money to John Haggerty (which it did, apparently), and that he expected Haggerty to use the money to pay people to watch the polls on election day, and perhaps to challenge certain kinds of voters. Haggerty allegedly took the money but did not perform the service. The mayor may have used the Independence Party because the money was coming from Bloomberg’s own personal funds, instead of from his campaign treasury. This method of moving money would have delayed disclosure of the expenditure.
The Tampa Tribune has published this editorial, condemning the part of Florida’s new election law that makes it impossible for political parties to nominate someone who was a member of another party at any time during the year preceding the filing deadline.
Oddly enough, the editorial says the law was motivated by Republican anger that former Republican Governor Charlie Crist ran for U.S. Senate in 2010 as an independent candidate. However, the new law does not restrict who may be an independent candidate. Crist was a registered Republican when he filed as an independent, and the new law does not prohibit that.
Matt Miller, regular columnist for the Washington Post, has published this column, “Why We Need a Third Party.” The column has a link, toward the end, to a lengthy additional commentary on what the new party should advocate.
Pollster Stanley B. Greenberg has this interview in New York Magazine. He says poll data shows that independent voters “are a hodgepodge”; they are not a monolithic group of moderates. On the other hand, he then proceeds to characterize them, which seems somewhat contradictory.
He also says that it is virtually inevitable that there will be a strong presidential candidate in 2012 running outside the two major parties.
