The Swing Voter

By Patrick Appel
Marc ponders a new poll on independent voters:

Among the key findings: Democrats have a built-in structural advantage among independents to the score of between five and ten points. But McCain remains competitive because a lot of those independents are ideological conservatives who have weak partisan attachments to the Republican Party. Without being pushed, 45% of the sample, including 59% of the self-described moderates in the sample, said they would vote for Obama and 39% said they would vote for McCain. With leaners, McCain makes up two points of the margin.