DCDL

This afternoon I noticed that the lampposts, trees, and bus shelters along Connecticut Avenue and some side streets around Van Ness have been blanketed with bright yellow signs reading as follows:

PETITION CAMPAIGN
Earn $500-$100 weekly
Hiring Immediately!!
202-544-6359
Work FT/PT
Citywide Signature Drive - looking for circulators
Requirements:
Must be 18 years or older & eligible to vote in D.C.
Must have valid D.C. ID

The signs are attached with plenty of strong tape to make them hard to remove, and there are many per block. Granted, such illegal postings occur all the time, but this one seems particularly egregious.

Google reveals that the number belongs or belonged to someone named Odell Mcdaniel, but the trail goes cold after that (I’m not a real reporter).

This sounds like the work of the unethical proponents of the unkillable slots initiative, people who never let little things like telling the truth or obeying the law get in the way of attempting to make big bucks at the expense of District residents. If they are the ones behind it, I’d suggest that any circulators demand payment up front, to avoid being stiffed like the homeless people they hired last time around.

I’ve already mentioned that the Washington Post had all seven of its endorsed candidates win in Tuesday’s DC primary, but I thought I’d see how well other groups and publications did with their endorsements. My simple scoring system awards 1 point for each endorsed candidate who won and subtracts 1 point for each endorsed candidate who lost.

Here are the scores:

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I see that NOW (WETA Friday 8:30 PM, MPT Saturday 1:30 PM) is doing a segment on the lefty blogosphere airing locally tonight and tomorrow afternoon:

NOW visited one of the blogosphere’s biggest events, the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas, to see if the bloggers can turn their online advocacy into on-the-ground results.

[…]

NOW also talks to Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos, one of the Internet’s biggest and most influential political blog sites. “You have a couple million people reading liberal blogs…and they’re looking for ways to get involved. And they’re looking for ways to participate and take hold of their own democracy. And that is powerful,” says Moulitsas.

I’m glad to hear that PBS is giving some visiblity to the lefty blogosphere. I do sort of wish we could get beyond the notion that Kos is the lefty blogosphere.

I should also mention they have a link for finding a progressive blog in your area, or a conservative blog.

Did you know that there’s no progressive blogs in DC? Sorry, you’re just out of luck. Plenty of conservative blogs, though.

The partnership between DC Drinking Liberally Wednesdays and Mark & Orlando’s has come to an end, so the group must find a new location. Here’s what Micha, the DCDL Wednesdays organizer, has to say about his search:

I am currently looking at other venues in Dupont Circle, and have contacted Frontpage about the possibility of moving there. However, my knowledge of DC bars is limited. We need a place which has either a separate room, or an area which is somewhat separate from the main bar so our speakers don’t have to shout over the rest of the bar. If the venue has a TV as well, we could continue to host occasional movie screenings as well. And, of course, if anyone knows the owner or manager of a place, that’s helpful as well. I am considering the Dupont Circle and Capital Hill areas right now. (and, for people who suggested Busboys and Poets, it is a wonderful venue, but they do charge for their space, and they already have events scheduled for most Wednesdays)

If you have any ideas or connections, e-mail Micha at dcwed{at}drinkingliberally.org.

Is a squeeker.

Al Wynn and Donna Edwards are neck and neck for House District 3. The Baltimore Sun has the online results.

Looks like it’s going to be a couple hundred votes either way.

Update: If you want to read a horrific first-hand account of voting in Maryland, I suggest Avi Rubin’s blog. I gather he’s a CompSci professor at Johns Hopkins and has been looking at issues of electronic voting.

Here’s a choice excerpt:

“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it’s all money. They are too cheap to do this right. They should have a real tech person in each precinct, but that costs too much, so they go out and hire a bunch of contractors the day before the election, and they think that they can train us, but it’s too compressed.” Around 4 pm, he came and told me that he wasn’t doing any good there, and that he was too frustrated, and that he was going home. We didn’t see him again.

If you’re tired of the current fashion of nail-bitingly close elections decided only after recounts and court battles, yesterday’s DC primary is the election for you. In every one of the ten contests, the winner beat the closest opponent by at least 15 percentage points. You can get results from the Board of Elections site.

Here are the winners (almost certain to be the winners in November as well):

• Mayor: Adrian Fenty
• Council Chair: Vincent Gray
• Council, At Large: Phil Mendelson
• Council, Ward 1: Jim Graham
• Council, Ward 3: Mary Cheh
• Council, Ward 5: Harry Thomas Jr.
• Council, Ward 6: Tommy Wells
• US Delegate: Eleanor Holmes Norton
• Shadow Senator: Michael D. Brown
• Shadow Representative: Mike Panetta

All seven candidates endorsed by the Washington Post won, as did all three incumbents running for reelection (Mendelson, Graham, and Norton). Despite the victories for incumbents, the council will see a big turnover (assuming no bizarre occurrences in November), since next year we’ll have to have a special election to fill the seats in Wards 4 and 7 that Fenty and Gray are leaving for higher offices. So within several months the seats for Wards 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, as well as the chair, will likely have new occupants.

On Thursday, September 14, DCDL regular Ian Fried, director of Blue Catapult PAC, will be among the panelists discussing “Taking Over Congress: Democratic Chances in the 2006 Elections” from 6 to 8pm (including dinner) at the Woman’s National Democratic Club, 1526 New Hampshire Ave NW (Dupont Circle Metro). The discussion will be moderated by Shelly Livingston, chair of the WNDC PAC. The other panelists are

• Joshua Ulibarri, vice president of Lake Research Partners
• Jim Gerstein, executive director of Democracy Corps
• Phyllis Busansky, Democratic candidate for Congress (FL-9)

The event is free (though you’ll have to pay if you want dinner or drinks). Sounds like it’ll be an interesting conversation. For more information and to RSVP, see the Blue Catapult announcement.

All the intra-party conflict, signs, phone calls, flyers, mailers, and door knocking of the past months and weeks come down to this: the primary election. If you’re registered to vote as a member of a party in DC or Maryland, get out and vote today! The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

If you still haven’t decided on your candidates, you might be interested in lists of DC Democrats and Maryland statewide Democrats, as well as other articles you’ll find if you look around the site.

If you have questions about voting, check the site of the DC Board of Elections and Ethics or the Maryland State Board of Elections. In DC, be aware that the precinct number on the cover of your voting guide is probably wrong; for your polling place, check the online form or your voter registration card.

Update (5:15 pm): Voting hours in Montgomery County have been extended until 9 p.m. in an attempt to compensate for the disastrous incompetence with electronic voting machines this morning.

Anyone who has seen Marie Johns speak, trump her rivals in debates or read her solid proposals for reform knows that she is the best qualified candidate. The former local Verizon president has the management experience and reformist zeal needed to make a difference in the life of the city’s most neglected and poorest people.

I was inspired to support Johns after a friend of mine, Monica Yin, a victim of the city’s criminally negligent emegency medical services (her case was described in a series of Colbert King columns) decided after much research into the candidates that Johns was the best candidate to save this mismanaged city that has also allowed poverty, crime, drop-out rates and despair to flourish.

But progressives are asking themselves: Are we throwing away our vote if we vote for Marie? Will we help the veteran hack and council chair Linda Cropp become mayor if we vote for Johns instead of the front-runner, Adrian Fenty?

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Al Wynn is a Democratic congressman running for reelection in Maryland’s 4th District. A. Scott Bolden is a former president of the DC Chamber of Commerce running for the at-large city council position in the DC Democratic primary. Both candidates have been accused of resembling Republicans — Wynn because of his support of Bush and the Iraq war, Bolden because he’s a K Street lawyer who’s extremely friendly to big business. Both have underfunded opponents who portray themselves as more liberal: Wynn faces challenger Donna Edwards, while Bolden faces incumbent councilmember Phil Mendelson.

But the similarity doesn’t end there. Both men list on their campaign materials endorsements from organizations or persons who say they have made no such endorsements. According to today’s Washington Post, Wynn claimed the support of a Montgomery County council member and two unions, all of whom deny endorsing him. His claimed support from the Teamsters is particularly incongruous, since last month two of his campaign workers were accused of beating up a Teamsters officer who was a supporter of Donna Edwards.

Similarly, Bolden claims on his website and campaign literature that he’s been endorsed by the Ward One Democrats, but a press release from Kathy Boettrich, chair of the Ward One Democrats, disagrees:

The Ward One Democrats did not endorse Mr. Bolden, or his opponent, Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D - At-Large), for the September 12 Primary. Records confirm that Mr. Mendelson received more votes than Mr. Bolden received at the July 17th forum, but did not reach the required two-thirds threshold.

Of course, once the false information is out there, there’s really no way to entirely correct it. As Mark Twain said, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”