Yeah, I know I was unopposed.  But getting 99.31% of the vote feels good.:)

There were 10 write-in votes that kept me from getting 100%.  I’ve already dispatched Wizardkitten to find them and help them "get their minds right" as my former Drill Sergeant liked to say.:)

There’s some good news you can use, though.  When I entered the race, I was told that the strong Democrats (the people that will vote for me just for being on the ballot) was around 1,000 voters.  I received 1,437 votes, and the total number of Democratic primary voters was 1,882, which means my job is about 882 votes easier.:)

We’re going to be hitting doors very soon, so please volunteer and donate whatever you can.

The Senate race in Georgia, once left for dead, just got a lot more interesting, as former state Rep. Jim Martin has won the Democratic primary runoff against DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones.

DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer on Martin's victory:

“Georgians chose an impressive candidate today who has the experience and vision to change the direction of our nation. As a public servant under both a Democratic and a Republican Governor, Jim has a proven record of working across party lines, and he will be an effective and independent voice for Georgia families. This is a winnable race.”

With 97% of districts reporting, Martin leads 60% to 40%. That's a commanding victory which should inspire confidence in Martin's candidacy for the general election, in which he faces a tough but viable battle against incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss. Martin is a candidate we can be proud of as progressives and Democrats, and he will be a serious and legitimate challenger to the senior Senator.

In Missouri:  The Republican nomination for Governor of Missouri has gone to U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, who will face off against the favorite, Missouri's Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, in the general election.

Meanwhile, in Hulshof's old district, Blaine Luetkemeyer haswon the Republican nomination for MO-09, edging out state Rep. Bob Onder.

If you're curious, Brock Olivo finished a distant fourth, with 10% of the vote.

On the Democratic side, the AP has not called the race, but with 90% of the vote in, state Rep. Judy Baker has a 9-point lead over former Missouri House Speaker Steve Gaw, 42% to 33%. It will be extremely difficult for Gaw to win this race. If Baker is the candidate, it should prove to be an exciting and high-profile race between herself and Luetkemeyer.

In Kansas, the big news is that Phill Kline has lost his race:

Steve Howe defeated incumbent Phill Kline Tuesday night for the Republican nomination for district attorney in Johnson County, Kansas.

Howe collected 60 percent of the vote to Kline's 40 percent, according to complete but unofficial returns. He'll face Democrat Rick Guinn in November.

About 22.5 percent of registered voters turned out in Johnson County, the election office reported.

Kline made his reputation seeking to prosecute abortion providers in Kansas as the state's attorney general. He lost his bid for re-election in 2006 after the Kansas Supreme Court overturned his subpoenas for abortion records.

In the U.S. House race in the Second District, where former Rep Jim Ryun faces off against State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins for the right to do battle with Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda, the race is too close to call. Jenkins leads by 2% with 93% of precincts reporting, but the AP has yet to call the race.

Finally, in Michigan, more of the same in Michigan's 13th District. Rep Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick faced the toughest challenge of her life, and leads state Rep. Mary Waters by just over a hundred votes at this juncture. It should remain too close to call until the morning.

Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick's "Y'allz Boy" boy speech defending the scandalous mayoralty of her son, Kwame should have been the end of her career.  But as of 11:34 EST , the race seems extremely tight.

Events have now justified the argument that seating Florida and Michigan in full back in May would have had no material effect on the outcome and could have been done then.

I read earlier today a proposal to use the rights of way that currently
(pun intended) carry transmission lines to be used for solar projects.  Which reminded me of the many times I've wondered why we have so much negatively used space in our highway medians.  

I'll explain more after the jump.

In my last job before I moved from Michigan to California, I was a grant writer and capital budget analyst for a major transit agency in the Detroit area, and it was a difficult period for us. The bottom fell out of the national and state economy and funding was sometimes difficult to come by. Demand for transportation, on the other hand, did not decrease and we constantly felt the pinch of these two pressures.

Fair warning - I like to cuss.

The current block of News headlines at Yahoo's homepage sums up everything for me. Right below the hurricane watch headline sits this one:

Poll: McCain's attack strategy paying dividends

And then right below that one sit this one:

Obama wants Fla. and Mich. delegates to have full voting rights

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

That's the breaking news in the NY Times--Senator Barack Obama wants Michigan and Florida delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

I was working at an Obama field office in my city.  We had just finished a voter registration drive, where we registered 14 new voters, identified four potential volunteers and many other supporters who were going to stop in the office and get yard signs.  I thought that was pretty good since we were only out for 2 hours and we were in a republican area with good turnout usually.  We were all sitting around eating lunch, planning the Birthday Party we are having for Barack, when this wierdo walked in.

Almost two months after the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee voted to restore the voting rights of Florida and Michigan, but with a 50% reduction in voting strength, Barack Obama has urged the Democratic National Convention Credentials Committee to fully restore the delegations from Florida and Michigan at 100%.

Below is the text of the letter sent by Barack Obama to the chairs of the credentials committee:

    DKOS readers are now familiar with the Obama inevitability argument. If Obama carries the Kerry states plus Iowa and New Mexico, then he only needs one more battleground state to top 270. That can either be Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Indiana, or Florida. Therefore, Obama can't lose. Yada, yada, yada.

    The problem with this line of thought is that it treats the election as a machine running by statistical dynamics. What are the compounded odds of Obama losing all those independent contests? Pretty damned slim.

    But the election is not a machine, it's a chess game. Each side employs strategy, and that strategy includes elements of psychological warfare and tactical surprise. McCain is not going to just stand still while all the applesauce falls around him, if you can imagine that. No, he's going to make his moves, and he's already pulled dead even in the national tracking polls. So what is McCain's winning move?

Some major developments this week involving corruption and domestic terrorism. Shootings, anthrax, and indictments. I have been talking for quite some time about Republican corruption and Ted Stevens of Alaska is somoene I declared as the most corrupt politician in America. Well, this week he was indicted. I have also been writing for some time about right wing fanatics in government and on talk shows inciting intolerance and violence. Well, we had another example of right wing terrorism in Knoxville, TN, quite possibly inspired by right wing talk shows.

Meanwhile, speculation about who Obama and McCain will pick for the VP spot is is the current rage. Everyone has tips, inside info and rumors to share. Well, I have no idea who either will choose, but one possibility for McCain was mentioned to me that would be interesting: Eric Cantor, Congressman from Virginia who makes Joe Lieberman look liberal. I discuss him this week. I also review my past coverage of Republican election fraud in Florida and Georgia. I am sure we will see the same kind of fraud in both states again this year. Plus I have been trying to flesh out my state-by-state coverage.

I can't sleep and it's all Obama's fault... and no, I'm not a concern troll or suffering from insomnia.

I can't sleep because I had a very busy week and I am way behind on finishing up some very important work that I've got to have finished by 9:00am tomorrow morning.

I know you're probably wondering what could possibly be so important that it would keep me up until 5:00am when I've got to be up so early the next day and how could it possibly in any way have anything to do with Senator Obama?

The answer is simple:

Parades.

I swear, Republican straw-man fearmongering will never cease to amaze me.

Republican Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan's 7th District, running a tight race against Democrat Mark Schauer, was the only member of the House Education Labor and Committee to vote against reauthorizing Head Start.

Considering there are 43 members of the committee, this is rather significant. So naturally, more than a few people were peeved:

This made the Walberg campaign sad, so they responded with their best defense: "we fear the Wiccans, and their lawsuits".

In other words, say a Baptist or a Catholic church wanted to continue to offer its Head Start program and a Muslim or "a Wiccan from a coven in Ann Arbor" wanted to apply for a job to teach there, now it couldn't discriminate based on religious grounds anymore, or vice versa.

He said he offered an amendment that would have made that change, but it didn't get any traction.

He said he doesn't oppose Head Start, but by keeping that provision in the bill, he said religious organizations might decide it's better to get rid of Head Start.

Walberg said he didn't initiate the efforts, but was contacted by people in his district that were concerned about this provision.

It would also open all of them to lawsuits, because the Wiccan, or the Catholic or the Muslim who wasn't hired, could say it was because of their religious beliefs, he said.

So basically, Walberg voted against Head Start because...he is afraid of the potential complications of Wiccans teaching in Catholic churches or something. Or their mean Wiccan lawsuits, anyway.

Of course.

Nearby, Rep. Joe Knollenberg has bigger things on his mind than Walberg does, bigger even than his difficult reelection race against Democrat Gary Peters.

Knollenberg is busy protecting our families from Asian invaders. Seriously.

Witness what happens when you do a Google blog search.

Now, when you actually click on Knollenberg's blog, of course, he's wiped all mentions of "Asian invaders". The title is now "Protecting our Families from Harmful Products".

Exactly the same thing, you know.

I don't know what he's trying to pull, but it sure looks ugly. As Swing State Project's James L. writes:

This sort of thing -- especially coming from a United States congressman -- is disgusting.

Indeed.

One has to wonder what the hell is wrong with these Michigan Republicans.

On the web:

Mark Schauer for Congress
Gary Peters for Congress

Those who read our diaries know Project Vote as the organization that fights voter suppression and helps election protection efforts. What you may not know is that in addition to being on the frontlines in the fight for voter rights, Project Vote is also the largest voter registration organization in the United States.

Since 2003 over one-third of all registration applications submitted through voter registration drives in the U.S. have come through Project Vote. In 2003-04 we submitted 1.13 million applications, in 2006 just over 547,000, and by Friday we will collect our 1,000,000th registration for 2007-08. Half of our registrants are under 30, and almost all of them are African-Americans or Latinos. One-third of them have never registered before in their lives.

With one month left in the drive we have 270,000 more registrations to collect and you can help!

I've posted in the past an opinion that the Obama campaign can't afford to ignore the rural, small town, white voter.  After witnessing the McCain attack machine revving up, and the blatant takeover of his campaign by big oil and the evil Rovians, it's becoming apparent that the rest of the show is going to be a nasty and very bloody dog fight.  It's going to be the New Deal, formerly Democratic, bin votin' Republican for the last 30 years, rural, small town, working-class, white vote that will be the difference in this election.

My grandmother was a "Rosy the Rivetter"--not because she wanted it, but because she had to do it. She was working for Ford when the "Battle of the Overpass" occurred. She was a union member for decades in Michigan.

Ever since that we've been a union family. Even during the "period of insanity" when I was an administrator, I found negotiating a useful (albeit dissonant) activity. My respect for unions was affirmed when after I stopped being "on the other side" I was asked to negotiate for the union. Mutual respect helps. So it's with pain and angst that I read that there is a serious effort to convert Michigan, the cradle of America's union movement, to a right to work state.

Never happen? Think again. Jump with me.

I'm a third generation Michigander, descendant of a Northern Michigan tribe, worked for a Michigan Congressman and am now an attorney.  My family lives all over Michigan, from Iron Mountain and Grand Marais in the north to Royal Oak and Rochester in the Detroit suburbs.  I very much care about the future of my home state.  But as I watch current events unfold I can only shake my head, ashamed of both our public officials and the citizens that elected these bums.  Let's review below the fold.