Like I said, too bad for the GOP. Rogers may still be able to beat Schapira if the “female advantage” is big enough, but it won’t be nearly as easy. Schapira can seem impressive at times, especially to those who don’t look too deep, which probably describes most LD17 voters.

Shaw seems like a good candidate, but he only has a decent chance as a single-shot. If the GOP has two candidates, it would be a true long shot for either to win.

1. Meg Burton Cahill is retiring for health reasons. Wendy Rogers *is* an energetic candidate, but she’s not intimidating. That’s not a shot at Ms. Rogers, but officeholders (from either party) don’t get intimidated by challengers, else they wouldn’t have become officeholders in the first place.

2. Ben Arredondo hasn’t so much played “both sides of the fence” as worked to serve the interests of his community. I have not always agreed with him in the past, and probably won’t agree with him all the time in the future, but I have never and will never be able to argue with his motivations.

Any opposition had better know how to sell the benefit of voting for X better than Cahill/Ableser/Shapira. Democrats sell the benefits of government with the active support of the newspapers and most of the media to a voting base that likes what they have to offer.

I hope that come next November that there are at least 3 candidates selling less government. How many Republicans or Libertarians (or Green or Independent) are hep on that idea and are willing to run in district 17 is a question yet unanswered (well 2 if you count the Republicans).

WOT!?!?

That can’t be right. Everyone knows a massive wave of tea or something is about to wash all the Democrats out of the government and put all the conservatives in charge of the parts of government they don’t strangle with their bare hands.

I read it on the internets.