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.

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.

Mary Ann Lindley, editorial page editor of the Tallahassee Democrat, has commentary about Americans Elect in the September 24 issue of her newspaper. I haven’t linked to it, because if I do, anyone who clicks on the link simply gets a notice from the newspaper that the reader must pay to read the column. But anyone who uses news.google.com and searches for “New player takes on the two-party system” should find the column and then it can be read freely.