So the firefighter's union up in Saratoga Springs decides to endorse Sweeney. They arrange a big PR stunt at one of the city's fire houses, with Giuliani looking on just to increase the no doubt already high festivity level. But wait, the Saratoga Springs Public Safety Commissioner is a Democrat, and there's a prohibition on political events on public property. Fun is guaranteed for all.

Mike McNulty is a fairly conservative Democrat who replaced another fairly conservative Democrat (Sam Stratton) some years back. His district, which includes Albany, NY and a number of other nearby cities, is a Democratic enclave in a mostly Republican upstate area.

He's actually being challenged in the Democratic primary, which I think is an entirely new thing for him. This should be festive.

McNulty voted for the Iraq adventure, but has since changed his position. Raleigh wants to make Iraq the major issue in the election, and has a very detailed position outlined on his web site, but I can't entirely make sense of it. He seems to be calling for more international help in Iraq (like that'll happen.)

It would seem that John Sweeney doesn't like the new MoveOn ad. They seem to be busy disputing what the definition of the term "red handed" is.

Maybe the race in this district is going to be more interesting than I expected.

I'm a resident of NY-20, John Sweeney's district. It's a funny district, tending to vote Republican with occasional pockets of Democrats. It is, I think, mostly anti-tax small government right rather than rascist wingnut right, which makes Sweeney's new campaign materials a little odd.

We got a Sweeney flyer in the mail the other day -- he's gone full tilt wingnut anti-immigrant looney on us. It makes no sense; this is upstate NY and we don't have a lot of immigrants, other than maybe local university students from overseas who might decide they want to stay around, and I don't see how a flyer like this energizes much of anyone in these parts. But he's gone and done it. I'm hearing he may be in trouble; maybe he has bad consultants telling him this is what he needs to do, but I have to think that if there were many typical, not terribly well informed voters who were going to default into voting for Sweeney without thinking about it, this might get there attention -- and not in a good way for Sweeney.

I put the flyer in the burn pile, but it probably isn't gone yet. Maybe I'll dig it out and post details at some point.