According to a Gallup Poll released Monday, 40 percent of American voters identified themselves as poltically independent in 2011. This is the highest yearly yield in the poll’s history. But whether independents get burned out after their favorite spitfire candidate doesn’t make it past the primaries or if they successfully push mainstream candidates towards the fringe in 2012 is still unclear. To answer these questions, Linda Killian joins us. Linda is a Washington journalist, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson center, and the author of the upcoming book “The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents.”