Oh, phooey! I screwed up, and it’s a week too late to change it now! I just saw — 3 minutes before today’s post time — that Eddie Geller did not win his primary and is not the Democratic candidate. My apologies; I thought I’d checked and was only using candidates who’d already won their primaries, but last week I carelessly wound up using Geller as a puzzle answer before he’d won his primary (and then he didn’t win it). My apologies.
But I’m fairly certain that all of today’s puzzle answers have won their primaries, are the Democratic candidates in their races, and are good candidates worth supporting. At least they were the last time I checked, and that was today.
Becca Balint, Beto O’Rourke, and Eddie Geller were three Democratic candidates featured as the answers to last week’s Sunday Puzzle.
Most of you probably know that Becca Balint is the candidate for Vermont’s seat in the house, now that Vermont’s current member of congress, Peter Welch, is running for the senate seat which will be open now that Patrick Leahy is retiring.
Vermont used to be one of the most Republican states in the union, but in the years since Bernie Sanders’ election as mayor of Burlington in 1980 Vermont has become amazingly more Democratic, and it is highly likely Becca Balint will win the house seat in November. Here’s a link to Becca Balint’s website if you’d like to learn more about who she is and where she stands on the issues (and maybe I’ll include more about her farther down the page).
Most of you probably also know that Beto O’Rourke is running for governor in Texas against Lou Costello’s comedy partner... Although Abbott seems to have grown a lot less funny since the various film features he used to appear in, so maybe the current governor is a different Abbott? I should look it up on Wikipedia when I have time to see if that’s the case. Anyway, in the meantime here’s a link to Beto O’Rourke’s website for those of you interested in learning more about who Beto is and where he stands.
Which brings us to Eddie Geller, whom some of you may not be familiar with yet. Eddie Geller is running for congress in Florida’s 15th district, and is a very interesting candidate. I’ll let him tell you who he is since he can do it a lot better (and a lot more entertainingly) than I can:
Tonight’s puzzles spotlight three more Candidates Worth Supporting. But before we get to tonight’s puzzles, let’s look at the answers to last week’s puzzles.
These puzzles are JulieCrostics (called that here in honor of Julie Waters, who started the Sunday Puzzle series back in October 2007 as juliewolf). In these puzzles, the clue answers are entered into rows. Each word in a row has all the letters of the previous word, plus one new letter. The add-on letters make columns which spell out the answer to the puzzle.
For example, here are the clues to last week’s puzzle:
1. kind of rummy
2. search engine
3. aptly named streaming service
4. famous large clock
5. friend
6. kind of deal or bargain
7. propel a bicycle
8. jumped
9. anger
10. brown, fried, or Spanish
11. apple juice
12. kind of card
13. social insect
14. isn't able
15. The ___ __ The Hat
16. lawsuit
17. 60-min. periods
18. hasty
19. let a friend have what you've got
20. on land
21. before
22. alcoholic drink
23. aquatic bird
24. creator of Howard (the duck)
25. followers of Q
26. graphic or liberal
27. look at intensely
28. gets on a soapbox
29. agency that goes after dealers
30. pass out cards
31. soup-serving tool
32. refer to indirectly
33. took a class
34. sparkling white wine
35. follows
36. Appalachian and Iditarod
37. star
38. sisters
39. Devin
40. underwater
41. body of water
42. chair
43. flower (see picture below)
44. puzzle
And the answers (and add-on letters) are:
gin B Bing E binge B Big Ben
pal E plea D pedal E leaped
ire C rice D cider T credit
ant C can't I Cat In O action
hrs A rash E share O ashore
ere B beer G grebe R Gerber
rst A arts E stare O orates
ade L deal L ladle U allude
sat I asti L tails R trails
sun N nuns E Nunes K sunken
sea T seat R aster E teaser
As you can see in the first row, BING contains all the letters of GIN, plus a B. BINGE contains all the letters of BING, plus an E. And BIG BEN contains all the letters of BINGE, plus another B.
And the add-on letter columns spell out BECCABALINT, EDDIEGELLER, AND BETOOROURKE — which read Becca Balint, Eddie Geller, and Beto O’Rourke when spaced and capitalized and apostrophed correctly. Simple and easy, once you get the hang of it.
So if you’re ready, let’s move on to today’s two puzzles. I’ll let this friendly serval introduce them:
1. an expression of sorrow
2. priests or monks
3. wooly-haired South Americans
4. Brooks and Gibson
5. eating occasions
6. posts a really insulting comment
7. black, green, white, and herbal
8. sales and income
9. unnamed movie characters
10. take a nap
11. scatter about
12. clock, bell, ivory and Trump
13. let off steam
14. happening
15. scary King
16. couch
17. young horses
18. parade vehicles
There are 3 answers to each row, and the answers in each row are 4, 5 and 6 letters long.
Well, that looks short and easy. Only 18 clues to solve, and once you solve one clue in a row the others are pretty easy to get.
So if you’re still in the mood for a little mental exercise, and if you’d like to see the names of two more Candidates Worth Supporting, here’s a second puzzle you can play with. There are 3 answers to each row, and the answers in each row are 3, 4 and 5 letters long.
1. plant fluid
2. junk mail
3. wild onions
4. passports and membership cards
5. helps
6. so long
7. a way to go downhill quickly
8. go down
9. Castle, Cannon, and Fury
10. one or more, or even part of one
11. Warhol
12. useful
13. favorite
14. Seeger
15. cone-shaped tent
16. use a chair
17. a straight and narrow cut
18. stationary
19. pig's home
20. remain
21. like potato chips
22. piece of wood
23. online journal
24. sphere
25. kind of potato
26. what you might do with a book
27. A, B, C, D, or E
28. something you might do in a card game
29. something you might feed
30. something you might do to hair
31. night before
32. not odd
33. Jules
34. short name for a kind of dog
35. group of turtles
36. bright flame
37. sit in the sun
38. famous Lee
39. Cruz or Fe
“Wait a minute! I want to know more about Becca Balint. You didn’t tell nearly enough about her up at the top. I’ve been patiently waiting through all the rest of the words you posted to hear more about her, and you still haven’t gotten around to telling more. I’m comfortable up on this branch at the moment, but I can come down to, let’s say, discuss this with you if you don’t put up more information about her right now.”
Oh. All right. Hang on a minute, I remember seeing a really good 3-minute video on her website…
And now Poll Cat has a question they’d like to ask you folks reading this:
Question:
What’s your favorite kind of large cat?