According to this article, New York city Mayor Mike Bloomberg and former Independence Party founder Tom Golisano are teaming up to “revitalize” the New York State Independence Party. Not everything in the article seems completely accurate, but the gist of it seems to be that both men desire to wrest control of the New York City Independence Party away from Lenora Fulani and her political allies.

Also, see this article from the Daily News that says it is not obvious that Bloomberg will get the Republican nomination for re-election in 2009; nor can he count on the Democratic nomination. He is a registered independent.

The California Libertarian Party has been on the ballot in all elections starting with 1980. In the November 2008 election, it polled a higher share of the vote for its Assembly candidates (in the districts in which it had Assembly candidates) than ever before in its history. Even though all of the party’s 2008 Assembly candidates had both a Democratic and a Republican opponent, the party’s share of the vote in the districts in which it ran Assembly candidates was 6.87%.

California Libertarians running for U.S. House also did relatively well, receiving 4.33% of the vote in the districts which had Libertarians running. Excluding districts with only one major party candidate, that was the best showing for U.S. House for California Libertarians since 1992.

Pamela J. Brown, Assembly candidate in 2008 in the 40th district (San Fernando Valley), polled 14.76% against both a Democrat and a Republican. That was only the second time in the history of the California Libertarian Party that one of its nominees in a partisan race (with both major parties in that race) had exceeded 10%. The other instance was in 1980, when Roberta Rinehart polled 16.78% for Assembly in the 70th district (Anaheim).

On January 16, Illinois Republican State Senator Dale Risinger (R-Peoria) introduced SB 46, to move the Illinois primary from February to June, in all even-numbered years.

Illinois has never been one of the states that has an early presidential primary, and then a later primary for other office. Illinois has always had just one primary per year, for all federal and state offices. The Illinois primary had always been in April, until 1965, when it was moved to June. But in 1969 it was moved to March, and in 2007 it was moved to February. The 2008 Illinois February primary was the earliest congressional primary in any state, in U.S. history. Many observers felt it was absurd for a state to hold a congressional primary that was at virtually the half-way point for a normal term for a member of the U.S. House.

The 1968 Illinois presidential primary, the only late presidential primary Illinois ever held, was one of the most interesting presidential primaries that year. It was the only presidential primary held after Senator Bobby Kennedy had been killed. Eugene McCarthy won the Illinois presidential primary, defeating Hubert Humphrey and Teddy Kennedy at the June 11 event. All votes in that presidential primary were write-in votes.