“Electionline” is a daily news collector, run by the prestigious Pew Center on the States. The purpose of “Electionline” is to gather significant daily news about election administration.

Electionline for February 22 includes the story from Independent Political Report about Christina Tobin’s announcing her candidacy for California Secretary of State. Congratulations both to Independent Political Report and to the Tobin campaign. I have been reading “Electionline” for years, ever since it started, and I do not believe that Electionline has ever before included news about a minor party or independent candidacy announcement. Electionline is not a politics site; it is an election administration site. Here is the Independent Political Report story, which is the same story that Electionline linked to. And, here is the “table of contents” for Electionline for February 22.

Former Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee, who is an independent candidate this year for Governor of Rhode Island, has this op-ed in the New York Times of February 21. The op-ed suggests that a new centrist major party could arise in the U.S.

The San Luis Obispo Tribune has this column, by Bob Cuddy, about California’s Top-two Open Primary ballot measure. In the opinion of this blog, the Cuddy column is the best commentary yet written about Proposition 14. It makes a point that other commentary has not made. Why don’t politicians like Senator Abel Maldonado (author of the bill that put Prop. 14 on the ballot) and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have the courage to become independent candidates, if they are so dissatisfied with their own parties? The column does not mention those two particular politicians specifically, but that is the implication.