The standard question asked by surveys and exit polls is, "Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what?" Those who answer "Independent" are independents.

In the Pew study she talks about, about 36% of these self-professed Independents are true swing voters that can be persuaded from election to election. Most of the rest tend to vote as partisans even though they don't want to claim a party (with good reason).

You seem to think there are more votes to be mined in that 36% of Independents than there are by sticking to solid Democratic base-pleasing policies and getting out the vote. I disagree.

Every voter believes his or her positions and views to be the reasonable ones; I doubt most voters think they are extreme in either direction, but that doesn't mean they're independent.

Whether our views are liberal or conservative, we all want what we believe to define the middle - that's where we want to negotiate from if there has to be some give and take: start with what we think and let's see where it goes.

No politician is going to appeal to every ideological view, so they do what politicians always do (at least until recently): they try to sound reasonable, open-minded, and hope that people across the spectrum liked enough of what they heard to be able to vote for him or her.

About one-third of independents are important swing voters: The two other groups, the Disaffected Republicans and the Doubting Democrats, who make up 36 percent of Pew's sample, are swing voters who are not dependable partisans. They are overwhelmingly white. They are not likely to have graduated from college and many of them have not attended college at all. Most of them make less than $75,000. It's fair to characterize them as white working-class voters. Why are they independents and not Republicans and Democrats? According to the Pew poll, both groups believe that "parties care more about special interests than average Americans."

What accounts for the fact that the Disaffecteds are more likely to vote Republican and the Doubters Democratic? One source of difference may be the gender gap. The Disaffecteds are predominately male, and the Doubters female. Working-class women are more likely to see the Democrats as the party of economic security and to favor a liberal social agenda. But insofar as members of both groups vote for the other party about one-third of the time--they are not disguised partisans like the Shadow Republicans and Democrats--it's probably most useful to regard them as members of a single heterogeneous group of swing voters who identify themselves for the moment as "independents."
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The primary criterion by which these voters will decide who to support is the state of the economy, not the size or civility or transparency of the government.

I need a gadget that'll shut off a pump when the water reaches a certain level high.

I see plenty of sump pump controllers that turn the pump ON when the water reaches a certain height, but I need a controller that turns the pump OFF when the water gets high.

And a float switch won't work, I need a probe like the one on this controller.

Your guys should be doing well this weekend too.  Although I sincerely hope they crash and burn :)  I doubt that will happen.