Wow, you can accuse the Cuccinelli of many things but being idle isn’t one of them.  The WaPo just put this story up about a recent ruling of the AG’s office.  It appears to enact rules somewhat similar to Arizona’s.  I don’t suppose I have much of a problem with it (I supported 287g in Manassas) but I would like to have seen it done as considered legislative action and not by fiat.  Don’t guess it matters much though….

I was checking out the WaPo this morning and I ran across a report on President Obama’s debt reduction panel.  Their report isn’t due until the fall but the Post was covering a speech given by one of the members of said panel to a Governor’s Association meeting.

The story itself was pretty much what one would expect but the quote that caught my eye was this: “The commission leaders said that, at present, available federal revenues are fully consumed by just three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. “The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans, the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries,” Simpson said.”

That’s pretty incredible and neither political party has done anything about it.  Worse yet, I don’t see any serious leadership on this issue anywhere on the horizon.  Leadership on an issue this big will have to come from the White House and we haven’t had that kind of gumption in a president for 20 years at least.

Can you imagine if we ran the City like that?

When I was running for office, one of the things that a local blog did (among other things) was a “sign survey”.  I think he even predicted the election outcome with it!  It was wildly informal and unscientific but fun to talk about.  Politics was still very new to me so it was all very cool and exciting.

As I have ridden around the community for the past several weeks on my bike I see three main signs in big numbers: Demeria, Sebesky and Williams.  Lately, Moore and Linehan have been coming on strong too but I think the first three have the most.

What does it mean to the election?  I haven’t any idea here but in my election the people that had the most signs did the most legwork.  I don’t know that this is some sort of universal maxim nor do I know if that factoid has any particular use but it is what I promised you up there in the title: an observation.

Oh, I don’t want anyone griping that I’m doing some sort of stealth campaigning here so in the interest of full disclosure, I would point out that I have endorsed both Pam Sebesky and Tim.  I don’t have anything against anyone else but they were the only ones who asked…

There is a Council election in May but there are 3 people running for 3 jobs so it isn’t drawing much in the way of excitement.  There is a contested School Board race with 6 contenders for 3 slots so you see lots of signs and door knocking going on in that race.  There was also a forum last night for the school board contenders but I couldn’t make it due to a Council meeting on the budget being held at the same time.

A race that is over the horizon that *is* drawing a lot of buzz amongst local politicos is the next round of State level races.  There is much speculation that Senator Colgan is going to retire (and the race for his seat has already begun in some circles) at the end of this term.  The reason that this is generating interest is the potential pin action here.  If Delagate Miller were to run for Senator Colgan’s seat, his seat would become vacant – they’re up at the same time so he can’t run for both.  This leaves a Delegate seat available and if a Manassas City Council member whose name is not Andy Harrover or the Mayor wanted to run for the delegate seat, you could have an open Council or Mayor slot.  I’m a City politician but the majority of the good Senator’s district lies outside of Manassas so you could also have a County Supervisor interested in that seat which could generate some pin action there.

Stuff like that is what local politicos live for!!

Further complicating this is redistricting.  Redistricting attempts to even out the number of people in each district but is also routinely used to redraw districts into “safe” territory to protect an incumbent in which event it is also called “gerrymandering”.  This goes on all over the country and is an abuse but I don’t see any way to really get around it short of having the courts involved in every redistricting plan.  Nevertheless, if redistricting goes as it should, the districts will be redrawn early next year, primaries held and then a fall election. 

However, if that doesn’t go smoothly and the politicos in Richmond can’t agree (which seems like a lock) then it gets way more complicatd.  Fortunately, I found an article in the Washingtonian that does a really good job of laying out what’s happened in the past and why it might happen again.