Catching up with the campaigns

Despite last-minute Christmas insanity (try waiting until today to start sending cards!) I’m trying to keep track of the elections.
Lest you thought the elections were over, think again. (They are never over; we’re still stuck in the last election, and already holding the next one.)
I’ll start with what’s supposed to be “local” politics. There’s a cliffhanger of an election for a Pennsylvania state asembly seat which is so close that the winning candidates keeps shifting back and forth as to who won. Normally, this wouldn’t be of a lot of interest to anyone except the candidates and the residents of their district, but in this case, the results determine whether the balance of power in the Pennsylvania legislature. Republican Shannon Royer originally won by a hair, but then missing ballots were discovered and counted and Democrat Barbara McIlvaine Smith won by a hair. Now they’re doing a hand recount, and the Republican is ahead again:

One day into a manual vote recount, Republican Shannon Royer had a slim lead over Democrat Barbara McIlvaine Smith in the race for the 156th District state House seat – and control of the state House.
With less than half of Chester County’s 23,000 ballots tallied, Royer leads with 5,236 votes to Smith’s 5,141. Not included in that count are nine ballots that are missing and 15 others that have been challenged. And Clifford Levine, an attorney for the Democrats, said Smith had actually gained two votes in the counted precincts.
Chester County Court Judge Howard F. Riley Jr., who settled whether the recount should be done by machine or by hand, will review the challenged votes today. Election officials are still trying to find the other ballots.
The recount will continue today and, according to a court order, “every day thereafter.” A Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has decreed that the recount must be completed by Dec. 26. Both parties currently have 101 representatives in Harrisburg.

Political junkies might enjoy reading the whole thing. The election has every indication of being the type of political sausage mess that Bismarck warned ordinary people should not see.
Moving from local to national elections, Pajamas Media links Daniel Drezner’s analysis of Giuliani’s chances of winning the presidency. While there’s surprising support despite conservative opposition (an anomaly Glenn Reynolds has noticed), Drezner just doesn’t trust the data:

Now is normally the time when I offer my sage bits of wisdom on the matter…. and I’ve got nothing. I don’t know how much to trust the data. It’s all anecdotal, except for straw polls, which at this stage of the campaign are only a slight bump above anecdotal.
Do any readers believe that Giuliani’s popularity with the GOP base is anything other than an ephemeral phenomenon? Will they continue to support a man who endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994? If so, why?

I can only speculate about the reasons, but I’m hoping they might include wanting to win.
But there’s another election looming, and I think it might be more important than it looks at first blush. Pajamas Media reports on this development by linking an election announcement at Gay Patriot:

VOTING BEGINS FOR GRANDE CONSERVATIVE BLOGRESS DIVA.

I just voted for Ann Althouse, and I don’t mind saying so. Not only do I like her politics, her small-l-libertarian attitude just plain rocks. But is she really a “Diva”? It’s somewhat of a contradiction, because divas are generally not subtle, and while Ann Althouse might not appear to be subtle, her appearance belies one of the subtlest senses of humor I’ve ever seen. (And if you’re an avid reader of Ann Althouse, remember that “avid” is “diva” spelled backwards.)
With that in mind, I want to return to the future (2008). As I said before, despite my reservations I could easily manage to vote for Giuliani. But I think it’s still a wide open field. I’m thinking back to July of 2003, when I seconded Jeff Soyer’s proposal for a Reynolds-Lucas ticket. After presenting a list of 13 features the candidate would have to have, Jeff said that Glenn Reynolds and Rachel Lucas have them:

I was thinking about who I would like to see in the White House in 2008 or 2012. Who meets these requirements? And my thoughts keep coming back to my blogfather Glenn Reynolds for President and for Vice-President I could suggest (grooming her for eight years hence) Rachel Lucas. Folks, we have plenty of years of preparation for this and I really think we can do it.

Kevin at the Smallest Minority leaped into the fray, prepared an official poster, and the campaign was soon in full swing. To make life easier for Glenn, a cabinet was even selected, and as Jeff announced in a follow-up post, Glenn accepted the nomination added a few thoughts:

Government-via-blogosphere? Why not? I mean, how much worse could it be? And it would figure that the whole thing was started by a self-described gay gun nut, wouldn’t it?

The reason I’m recalling this is because it occured to me that Ann Althouse might want to consider running for Vice President in light of Rachel Lucas’s retirement from blogosphere politics.
But first things first.
While there was a lot of excitement generated by Jeff’s and Kevin’s and the others’ posts back in the summer of 03, I think that in today’s more cynical world, candidates for higher office need to show that they have what it takes. Serious candidates need to show they’ve proven their mettle by holding important offices. Let’s face it, the main reason Hillary Clinton is in a position to be taken seriously as a candidate is that she’s a member of the United States Senate.
But let’s look at a couple of hard, cold facts:

1. there are 100 members of the U.S. Senate

By definition, there can be only one “GRANDE CONSERVATIVE BLOGRESS DIVA.”

What that means is that if Ann Althouse wins this first election, she’ll be in a very powerful position to join the “unstoppable juggernaut” himself.
So vote today! And tomorrow!
I heartily endorse Ann Althouse for GRANDE CONSERVATIVE BLOGRESS DIVA!