Thirdpartydaily blog has this interesting link to several articles about leading political consultants who are thinking of helping build a new political party.
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On October 15, the Denver Post, the biggest newspaper in Colorado, endorsed Kathleen Curry for re-election. See the editorial here; scroll down to State House district 61. Curry is being forced to run for re-election as a write-in candidate because she changed her registration last December from “Democrat” to “independent.” Thanks to Nancy Hanks for the link.
On October 20, the North Dakota Supreme Court will hear Recall North Dakota v Jaeger, 2010-0228. The issue is whether members of Congress may be recalled. North Dakota is one of the states that permits recall. The state law has no exception for members of Congress. However, the Secretary of State refused to furnish petition blanks to a committee that wants to recall U.S. Senator Kent Conrad, a Democrat whose seat is not up until 2012.
The same issue is pending in the New Jersey Supreme Court, with a decision likely to come out at any time. That case is Committee to Recall Robert Menendez v Wells. The oral argument was on May 25, 2010. UPDATE: see this news story about the oral argument. It seems to have gone badly for recall proponents.
The print and internet editions of the New York Times of October 18 have this article about the five non-major party gubernatorial candidates in New York. This coverage is very rare for the New York Times. The article itself would not exist, surely, except for the fact that all of these candidates are in tonight’s gubernatorial debate.
Other media are also covering this debate. Some press reports grumble that the stage will be “crowded”, but these articles never mention that at the beginning of the major party presidential primary season in 2007, there were numerous debates for the major party presidential candidates, in which there were as many as ten candidates on the stage for the Republican race, and nine for the Democratic race. As various presidential candidates dropped out, that number shrank. But for months and months, there were many Republican presidential debates with seven candidates on the stage.
This year, two Mississippi state court judges died after they had filed to run for re-election. Both had been running unopposed. Therefore, voters will elect someone to each judicial post by write-in votes. See this story.
One of the judges died in July, so his name was removed from the ballot. The other died on October 1, so his name remains on the ballot. If he gets the most votes anyway, then there will be a vacancy in his position.