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This Week's Theme: Party Conventions For the next two weeks, Independent Voter Network will be covering the two main presidential conventions, their messages and implications for the parties. Follow the coverage on IVN. A Growing Platform for Unfiltered News. IVN is expanding its platform every week to help bring independent contributors into the news cycle. Are you a delegate? A protestor? Are you a blogger or journalist? Then we want to hear from you!  At IVN, we dont filter the news. Our

Credit: csmonitor.com One of the recurring themes in the aftermath of the Todd Akin debacle is that it may cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate where they currently hold 47 seats, needing a net gain of four seats to win a majority. It is well known that vulnerable incumbent Claire McCaskill spent millions to push for Todd Akin believing he would be the easiest to defeat. Whether it was Missouri's Republican primary voters or Democrats crossing over to vote in the open primary to get the

Credit: realclearpolitics.com The presidential race is won by obtaining 270 of the 538 votes in the Electoral College. President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney are campaigning relentlessly, but much of their focus is on battleground/swing states. Each party has states that they can rely on to vote in their favor, but achieving 270 electoral votes requires reaching out to those undecided states. To refresh memories, the Electoral College is a process by which we select our Pr

Credit: LA Times The Republican platform committee pushed a number of anti-illegal immigration platform planks on Tuesday. On top of advocating a completed border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and requiring employers to use a national E-Verify system when hiring new employees, the committee took a  stance against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. There haven’t been too many changes made from the 2008 GOP platform. The party is moving more to the right on several issues, including i

Credit: LA Times The Republican platform committee pushed a number of anti-illegal immigration platform planks on Tuesday. On top of advocating a completed border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and requiring employers to use a national E-Verify system when hiring new employees, the committee took a stance against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. There haven’t been too many changes made from the 2008 GOP platform. The party is moving more to the right on several issues, including im

Photo: organicconnectmag.com Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin recently told reporters that he opposes the Senate version of the 2012 Farm Bill due to the legislation’s spending on the National School Lunch Program. Reiterating his point to farmers at the Missouri Farm Bureau's Political Action Committee, FARM-PAC, the Columbia Daily Tribune reports that the six-term congressman representing suburban St. Louis County said: "I've never been a big fan of the government, and particul

Independents are poised to make an impact on multiple races this fall, on national, state and local levels. Americans identifying as independents are at a 70-year high. But what comes next? In a new book, Independents Rising, long-time independent organizer Jacqueline Salit recounts major independent and third party campaigns throughout the past 20 years. She also examines political critics and the nature of the independent voter surge. Heavily involved in the execution of several independent

A candle light vigil is held following a July attack against a woman in Lincoln, Nebraska. Credit: TED KIRK/Lincoln Journal Star In America today, we often consider ourselves to be politically divided and diametrically opposed. However, we are not all that different. The two political parties maintain their ranks by sharpening our contrasts and blurring our commonalities. Therefore, we cannot reasonably expect the parties to resolve the conflicts they manufacture. The recent tragic shooting in

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Certainly pictures of candidates can be very important information in a voter’s decision process. But, unfortunately, a vast majority of voters have no idea what the candidates on their ballots look like, especially for State, county, and local offices. To get those pictures, many voters turn to the Internet. Recently, I had several shocking experiences regarding the pictures I found, or didn’t find, of candidates. The first incident was whe

Credit: usnews.com The drought that has been plaguing vast areas of the nation this summer, has intensified dramatically over the past week according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The unrelenting heat and dryness of the regions most severely affected has caused the increased drought conditions stretching across 29 states. Drought Monitor author, Brian Fuchs, stated that the recent jump is the highest ever recorded since the inception of the nation’s drought monitor. The states in which drought