A few months aback, when I first wrote about the vacancy in the 40th city council district, I had never in my wildest imaginations expected so much drama to a simple special election; but drama we had, and maybe the best is yet to come. No sense rehashing all the funky stuff of the past few months, but let me bring some of you up to date as to where we are, with just three days to the election (part two).

About 48 hours ago, a federal judge put candidate Wellington Sharpe back on the ballot, after he was removed by the NYC Board of Elections, who had upheld a challenge on Sharpe’s petitions from the Mathieu Eugene camp. Then yesterday, an appellate court held that despite the fact that Eugene had created the present vacancy in this district- by failing to take up his duly elected post- he should be still placed on the ballot, since his deceptive behavior didn’t reach the level of a felony. They arrived at this position despite the fact that the law is clear: once you create a vacancy, you cannot run for said office. The law is also clear that failing to swear in to office meant that “you” created the vacancy. So on Tuesday (4-24-07), there will be a special election in Brooklyn again, with Mathieu Eugene, Wellington Sharpe and Harry Schiffman as the candidates. So much for the law, its variations and violations; and on we go, and on we go, and we go on.

The papi chulo of ethnic polling has this to say about today's elections :

"You can expect the majority of Hispanics to show up to vote in New Jersey, where they are more than 10 percent of the electorate," Miami-based [Sergio] Bendixen said.

The border states of Arizona and New Mexico may also see Hispanics influencing the ballots in a year when immigration became a hot political topic.

Arizona was in the center of the immigration debate, and Republican congressional candidate Randy Graf has taken a hardline stance on illegal border crossings in his race against Democrat Gabrielle Giffords.

In neighboring New Mexico, Hispanics could play a key role in deciding whether Republican Rep. Heather Wilson (news, bio, voting record) loses her re-election bid to Democrat Patricia Madrid, the state's Hispanic attorney general.

"Graf could lose to a Democrat with his strong anti-immigrant speech, and in New Mexico, Patricia Madrid may very well take the congressional seat of Wilson," said political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia.

SWING VOTE IN FLORIDA
Bendixen said Hispanic votes could also play a key role in the Florida governor's race to replace outgoing Republican Gov.
Jeb Bush,
President George W. Bush's brother.

"Based on recent polls, this is going to be a very close race, so Hispanics can be the swing vote," he said.

Source : Reuters via Yahoo!News

I've met Sergio Bendixen and I have to tell you, nobody makes statistics sound sexier than Mr. B.

From WingNut Daily, on how to deport 12 million brown people:

" >Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

Yes, that's right, they used the extermination of the Jews as an example of how to do logistics right.

Next in the WingNut Daily series, 101 Happy Hitlerisms, "How to balancce the federal budget - invasions and their benefits", "Solving the healthcare crisis the Auschwitz way", and "Guantanamo is so last year - make way for Malkin-wald, Rush-witz and Coulter-Belsen".

History has so much to teach, and these days, such willing students.

En la red, nadie sabe si eres un perro, aunque todo el mundo se entera que eres una perra. On the web, nobody knows if you're a dog but everybody finds out you are a bitch.

Por eso cuando oí que el 1ro de mayo será la huelga "un día sin immigrantes", me pregunté : "¿Cual es la versión en la red de este evento?" That's why when I heard May 1st is the "day without an immigrant" strike, I asked myself : "What's the net version of this event?"

Bueno, en el caso de un blog ... en vez de desaparecerme es imperante entonces el reaparecerme comjo ... ahem ... la bitch latina que soy. ¡Ja! Well, in the case of a blog, instead of disappearing it's imperative that I reappear as the perra latina I am.

This blog has jumped the proverbial bilingual tiburón.