Hey, hope you had a great 4th of July, hope you got your cookout on, I hope fireworks

displays were all that you had dreamed, and hopefully at some point we were all able to take

a moment to think about the things that make this country what it is, all of its idealism, its

boldness, its flaws, and of course its willingness to go it alone, its history of independence.

When we think about the future of this country, this year's

election is an inflection point and yet for all of our fixation over the

Democratic and Republican candidates, a growing number of Americans don't really

identify with either of those two parties.

And yet it's those unaffiliated independent voters that could easily swing this thing.

So today, in that independent spirit spirit we're going to focus on these

voices. We're actually going to hear directly from some voters. It's a special

edition of Start Here. I'm Brad Milkey. I'm going to start with a quick

primer from ABC's political director Rick Klein,

and Rick, thanks for being with us.

First of all, am I getting that right?

Or, it feels like there's more independence than ever, is that true?

The fastest growing political party is no party at all.

It's independence. It's people that don't associate

with either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party and that's true in

red states, it's true in blue states, it's really true in every corner of the

country, and it's been going on for the last couple of decades really and

it's important to just define the terms here I mean an independent voter

...