This cannot be good news for Anne Northup.

It's a fairly quiet day politicall, so at the risk of being negative I thought I would use my diary to go through my own "hard realities" as they pertain to the presidential, Congressional and state elections. If some do not make you happy or you disagree with some or all, feel free to argue your point. But please, do not shoot the messenger.

I do not like to come to this site for personal advice, but it is a matter that affects not me, but the life of another person and the greater good of my neighbors with whom we share this building. You see, when you live in a big city apartment building, especially one that is downtown, you grow to care about and for your neighbors just as they do the same for you. However, the implications for one person involved are considerable and that is why I wanted to seek out opinions before making the next move.

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.

I'm going to go way out on a limb and call it. Barack Obama has chosen Evan Bayh as his running mate. According to NBC:

Those people who personally know me also know that I have been struggling with my weight and diet oer the past couple years. Fortunately for me, my 6'4" frame gives me a little room to spare. But I will be blunt, I feel fat and Tim Russert's recent death was a wake up call. But according to the Wall Street Journal, Obama is just not fat enough to be president.

Maybe it is just me reading the tea leaves, but if I am interpreting this report from The Hill, Ted Stevns is throwing the Republican Party under the bus by requesting that his trial takes place before the election.

Damnit, why didn't anyone tell me about this fundraiser. One of the Republican Party's stalwarts of family values, Pete Session, reportedly held a leadership PAC fundraiser at a Vegas strip club last year, according to the Washignton Post.

I do not know how much I agree with this, but I thought it would be worth presenting the very good analysis by Talking Points Memo's Eric Kleefield who makes the argument that the Stevens indicment guaratees that the Alaska senate seat will flip.

Vito Fosella gets picked up for drunk driving and is bailed out by the mother of his "love child". He drops out of the race and the annointed candidate dies. Republicans choose as a substitute some guy whose guts they hate. But when I get my daily email from PolickerNY (no site up for this state yet), I see the following title:

Dems reel in the Fossella aftermath

When we look at Texas, we've been pretty much preoccupied with the prospects of Barack Obama carrying the state, the chances of Rick Noriega unseating John Cornyn, or whether we can hold onto the TX-22 congressional seat. But what most of us from outside the overlook is what may be going on at the county level. But this past week, the Houston Chronicle examined local Democrats' efforts at turning Harris County, TX, into another blue oasis in a red landscape. Things look pretty good.

When I lived in Michigan, Detroit had her share of problems, one of which as the ever-controversial late Mayor Coleman A. Young. He was brash, foul mouthed and confrontational. He was investigated numerous times with the feds, sparred constantly with suburban officials and hated Democratic governor James Blanchard with a passion. He had a few good traits such as good working relationships with former president Jimmy Carter and Republican governor William Milliken and, hey, the was entertaining to say the least.

I am heading out the door to work so this will be relatively brief. The story speaks for itself, anyway. John McCain is being forced to step up his campaign in Arizona, of all places.

You know how much I like to cover election races from every corner of the country, and today I deliver yet again. This time, the news comes straight out of Hawaii where Honolulu Councilmember Ann Kobayashi has just announced that she will run a grass-roots campaign against incumbent mayor Mufi Hannemann.

Mitt Romney wanted badly to be president, but he didn't get his pony. However, it turned out that he is so eager to settle for a rocking horse that the Boston Globe is reporting that Willard is prepared to eat his $45 million campaign debt.

What does a $54 million hammer feel like? According to The Politico, House Republicans are about to find out.

John McCain must be confused these days. According to this report, he either doesn't know what office he is running for or he fully expects to lose. While at a stop in New Mexico, he made a quick plus for senate candidate Steve Pearce and said

If you listen to McCain's campaign and his apologists in the Mainstream Media, you would think Americans love a president who doesn't pay his credit card bill, "forgets" to pay property taxes, makes crude comments about presidents' daughters and, as reported by John Arivosis on Americablog, tells rape jokes.