In The New Republic, Thomas Edsall recently wrote about Matt Dowd, GW's chief pollster in 2000, concerning the memo he penned that asserted independent voters "are in name only" and that "seventy-five percent of independents vote straight ticket."

Related to this revelation, about two weeks ago Kevin Drum featured a graphic from an LA Times poll which showed some very interesting, and yet seemingly unnoticed, results. Three questions are asked, all about Iraq, and here are the responses broken out by affiliation (the questions are not important to my point, just the % answers):

Question #1: Democrats "No" 83%, Independents "No" 64%, Republicans "No" 22%

Question #2: Democrats "Diverting Resources" 79%, Independents "Diverting Resources" 71%, Republicans "Diverting Resources" 31%

Question #3: Democrats "Separate" 73%, Independents "Separate" 59%, Republicans "Separate" 21%

Notice a trend? For all three questions, the responses for Democrats and Independents are very much alike, with the Republican answers clearly deviating from the Independents in each case.

Based on Dowd's insight, the pattern evident in this poll is a very encouraging sign. Bottom line: this November, don't be surprised if the many registered Independents vote straight ticket in favor of the Democrats.