Wednesday's Notes

Making up for self-indulgence

Damn, that Cheap Trick thing was self-indulgent and too damn long. Listen to them anyway, while you read some short stuff:

A couple items from the always concise Ballot Access News:

Obama opting out of public finance may mean more $$$ for the third party candidates who qualify.

Colorado may have as many as 18 presidential candidates on the ballot. (Iowa's record is 14, back in 1992.)

This is what happens when a community organizer runs for president:

Barack Obama could make major gains in at least nine states the Democratic ticket lost in 2004 if he can achieve a relatively modest increase in turnout among young and African-American voters, a Chicago Tribune analysis of voting data suggests.

That potential helps explain why the Obama campaign chose to forgo federal funding and also why it is engaged in a massive voter registration drive.

Which begs the question asked in this MyDD diary: whose job is it to track down the information gaps in all those new registrations: the canvassers or the election office?

The third congressional incumbent bites the dust in a primary this year, as arch-conservative Chris Cannon of Utah loses to arch-arch-conservative Jason Chaffetz in what is, on paper, the number one GOP district in the nation. It's had a colorful history. Cannon first won the seat in 2000 when he knocked off arch-arch-conservative and certifiable loon Merrill Cook in a primary.

With the congressional primary season roughly half over, two Republicans have been knocked off from the right and one Dem has been defeated from the left, pushing the magnetic poles of the parties incrementally further apart.