Last weekend, some of Seattle's eastside Democrats gathered and ran a booth at Redmond's annual Derby Days festival. We raised funds, recruited volunteers, registered voters -- and did our best to convince the eastsiders to vote for our great local Democratic Party candidates. For fun and fundraising, we had a button making project where people could make custom buttons from photographs. We also had an art station for the kiddies who wanted to color their own Obama buttons. It was a success, too. There are a lot of great new Obama buttons wandering around the eastside this week!

In addition to the local races, Washington's 45th and 48th Legislative Districts are home to two tough races that will have national impact: the race for Washington State Governor and the race for Washington's 8th Congressional District. These two districts intersect Washington's 8th CD -- where Darcy Burner is battling Dave Reichert for his seat in the House. Our race between Governor Chris Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi is also a nailbiter.

What is unique about these races? Both contests are rematches.  

That's right, folks!

And my reasons go much deeper than the feelings I have for McCain, or coat hangers, or FISA, or the debacle in Iraq. They transcend all immediate concerns with respect to the 2008 election.

Ladies and gentlmen, I have forgotten. Forgotten the talent that Barack Obama offers to grassroots politics. That the important part of change involves the people standing together as a cohesive unit and demanding it.

And I plum forgot about the unhinged abuses of power that W's administration carried out as a matter of course -- that were not sufficiently checked by citizens who were not well organized. Abuses that are likely to continue if We the People do not join together and usurp the status quo.

As I was reading the headlines over coffee, I ran across an article by Meredith F. Small, an anthropologist at Cornell University, suggesting that the ability to process sarcasm is an evolutionary survival skill.

The diary is quick, but I just have to share the article with the folks that might otherwise miss it.

I do not know where you took your last breath. Maybe it was on the beach at Normandy or Seoul or Saigon -- or maybe it was on the streets of Iraq. I do not know how you felt about the cause that took your life -- whether you saw it as just or unjust, or if you felt that your effort brought some good to the world. Maybe you thought that your life was spent in vain. But you kept your promise to serve.

I guess that you might tell me that we must end all wars -- if you could. But you do not have a voice.

It is early morning down at the Clinton headquarters, and a serious strategy meeting about their upcoming tactics toward the nomination is about to begin. In a smoky backroom, a number of high-ranking Clinton team members eat breakfast. Sitting at a table are Maggie Williams, Terry McAuliffe, James Carville, and Hillary Clinton. They’re flustered, exhausted, and a little ambivalent.

Maggie Thank you all for coming in this morning. We have a lot of business to discuss.

McAuliffe Bloody Marys?

Maggie What?

McAuliffe Do you have Bloody Marys?

Maggie Are you kidding?

Enter Mark Penn.

Penn Sorry I’m late.

Maggie Hillary, what is he doing here???

Today we've seen a number of diaries about feminism's role in the Democratic primary election. Amongst these, davidkc writes not only about how some are playing the victim card, but also how sexism didn't vanquish Hillary Clinton's bid for the nomination. Queen Alice channeled my frustrations about how some feminists are throwing cheap shots at women who support Obama. In addition, Ann Galloway offers straighforward point about HRC's record to argue why a feminist would pass over Hillary for Obama.

While I set out to write about conflicts between feminists, these diarists have done much of my work for me. What I am interested in now is how we can stop this feminist infighting and focus our strength not only against McCain, but on winning seats in offices across the board.

My mother is one of the most conservative people I know. She is a thinking conservative, though, and she never really warmed to the neocons. She sometimes held her nose when she voted (not always R, but never D), and she was never terribly crazy about the more radical conservative reforms such as deregulations that hurt the common folks, and increasing tax loopholes for the rich.

She and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but we talk about politics all of the time. We are continuously talking on the phone about current events, and no opinion is spared. Right or wrong, she is my metric for gauging a thoughtful conservative.

To me, the most terrifying thing about another Clinton presidency is the likelihood that the DNC will return to slicing the unwashed masses into states that matter and states that don't matter. We've been hearing about voters that do not count ad nauseum from Hillary ever since she started losing primary contests. We heard it from Terry McAuliffe again today.

My first DailyKos diary -- which I crossposted from what I just wrote in a comments section at TPM.

A person who calls herself Nash McCabe posted in the comments section of an article at Talking Points Memo. I don't know if it is really Nash McCabe writing there, but I wrote a short response to her about Obama's lapel pin.

And, as an exercise in learning how to post here, I thought I'd share it with you. Thanks...