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So, now that Tuesday's primaries are in the books, what have we got?

Just more Democrats and Republicans to battle it out in the general election.

Same old same old.

What North Carolina needs is a Charlie Crist.

Crist is the Republican governor of Florida who last week said to heck with his party and announced he'll run for the U.S. Senate as an independent.

Sure, the move makes Crist look like an opportunist who pulled out of the GOP primary race because he was getting drubbed in the polls by the more conservative candidate, Marco Rubio.

So what? Crist answers with his new campaign slogan: Florida first. Which means: ahead of party.

That's a message I'd like to see take hold in North Carolina someday. And that's why we need an independent pathfinder, too.

If you only look at who wins elections, you'd think of North Carolina as a closely divided two-party state. Yet, voter-registration numbers tell a different story.

Only 45 percent of North Carolina voters are registered Democrats, and that number is slipping, having only dipped below 50 percent a decade ago. An even smaller number -- 32 percent -- are registered Republicans.

Meanwhile, the category of unaffiliated voters has grown steadily to 23 percent of the electorate.

That adds up to a lot of North Carolina voters who don't feel represented by Democrats or Republicans.

They shouldn't. In Washington, particularly, elected representatives usually stand with their party's leaders right down the line. A Democrat from North Carolina votes like a Democrat from California. A Republican from North Carolina votes like a Republican from Texas. Partisan barriers are rarely breached because party loyalty is all-important.

North Carolina's current Senate race is just like so many others across the country. Incumbent Republican Richard Burr has been a reliable vote for his party. And nothing I've seen of Tuesday's top Democratic vote-getters, Cal Cunningham and Elaine Marshall, leads me to think either one won't provide a reliable vote for the party's positions if one of them unseats Burr in November.

How refreshing it would be to have a Charlie Crist in the race. A senator elected as an independent would not be obligated for the millions in party money spent on his behalf. He wouldn't have to fall into line on every important vote. He could consider the arguments of both sides and support the one he thought best served the interests of North Carolina residents or the nation as a whole.

If one independent senator could do that, imagine the impact 20 independent senators could have. Or 50 independent members of the House of Representatives. They could force both parties to move off their hard-and-fast positions, to find middle ground, to address each others' concerns, to find solutions that would be acceptable to a majority of Americans, not just the political faction that momentarily holds the upper hand.

The problem in North Carolina is a strict ballot-access law intended to maintain the two-party duopoly. Independent candidates have to clear a difficult petition process to have their names listed.

In Florida, it's much easier to get on the ballot. That's why there were 13 presidential candidates listed on Florida's ballot in 2008 and only three in North Carolina.

With 23 percent of North Carolina voters not affiliated with any party, it's wrong to make it so hard for unaffiliated candidates to run for partisan offices. Voters should demand a relaxed ballot-access law and then encourage candidates to ditch party labels and run independent campaigns.

The ideal candidate likely could not win a Republican or Democratic party primary. He or she wouldn't be conservative or liberal enough to appeal to the extremes -- which is where both parties seem to be heading. This partisan polarization makes it more likely that the right independent candidates could attract a majority of votes in a general election.

One example is Heath Shuler, a Democratic congressman from North Carolina's 11th District. Shuler, who often bucks his party in Washington, is popular on his conservative home turf but could never win a Democratic primary in a statewide Senate race, which requires more liberal views. But switching to the Republican Party wouldn't get him anywhere, either, because he's not that conservative.

It may not be Shuler, but someone someday will be inspired to run a credible independent campaign in North Carolina. If Crist wins, it may not take long.