The Staten Island Democratic Association, the Island’s progressive Democratic club, hosted a forum for candidates seeking to fill the late John Lavelle’s vacant North Shore 61st State Assembly District seat Thursday night at the American Grill, which was packed with onlookers and 11 office seekers.

There will be no primary. A relatively small cabal of County Committee members residing in the 61st AD will decide who gets the nomination. I moved to the 61st AD from the 63rd 2 days after Election Day. I was supposed to have been appointed to the County Committee back in June, but somehow I was never officially added, so I may be not be part of the cabal making the nominating decision.

Most Staten Island democrats live in the borough’s North Shore and those aspiring to run for office representing that part of the Island typically have to wait in line for a chance to do so. This is why 11 people at the forum sought the nomination, while there may be no Democratic candidate to contest Council special election winner Vincent Ignizio’s newly vacant South Shore Assembly seat, if his opponent Manny Innamorato doesn’t seek to represent the heavily Republican South Shore in Albany.

I've been taking the Times Empire Zone and Ben Smith to task today for being anti-Statenite.

Link Texthttp://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/its-election-day/#comments

Link Texthttp://www.r8ny.com/blog/ben_smith/turning_out_in_the_40th.html#comment-369392

Best wishes to Ben Smith over at The Daily Politics! We'd sing for you, but seriously, you don't want that .

Oh, and in the same item linked above, the special counsel in the Hevesi affair releases his report; not pretty.

As set forth below, it is my view that there is a valid legal basis for a recommendation to the Senate that the Comptroller be removed and that aggravating circumstances of his conduct may very well warrant his removal from office.

If you want to see the real face of today's republican party, point your browser over to The Daily Politics; Ben Smith has an item showing Hillary wearing a cross, which was linked on Drudge.

And like rabid termites, wingnuts from across America came out to leave comments. It's an unvarnished look at what republicans really think - check it out.

Or just consider it a preview of Hillary as the 2008 nominee. Here are some samples:

She has been able to eat garlic since 1997, and word is that wooden stakes will be ineffective by the Iowa caucuses in 2008.
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If it were up to you this country would be spaeaking Arabic or Korean.
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Smith, please publish more comments so the rest of the internet universe can see just what an idiotic left-wing Stalinist crackpot you really are.
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What a fraud she is, just like her husband but without the charm and charisma.
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The devil has been known to wear many faces -- simply changing a piece of religious bling from a Star of David to a cross is no sweat for this Machiavellian shape-shifter. Fact is, as a liberal, she hates organized religion as much as she hates the military (which is plainly documented).

Here is the link to the Ben Smith Interview with Chris Owens. Once again, I think race takes up too much of the dialogue, but in general I still feel that Chris Owens speaks to me and for me on all other issues. I am not as cynical about Yassky's motives as some, including Chris, are, but I agree that Yassky's endorsement of Sampson for Brooklyn DA, despite Sampson being black, was a bizarre and to date unexplained move where Yassky allied himself with the machine and endorsed the least qualified candidate.

I really wish Ben had asked a wider range of questions. He is one of the people who is milking the race controversy too much. Otherwise the interview was good, but come on. There is more to this race than, well, race. There were few questions asked about NATIONAL issues, though Chris does turn some of the questions to broader issues.

Anyway, for those handful of readers who aren't already set on who to vote for, you can hear Chris Owens speak by clicking on the link above. And for those who have already decided, let's at least avoid the same over used comments.

Cocktail party etiquette and general social graces dictate that you're expected sometimes not to mention the elephant in the room, certainly not within hearing range of the elephant; otherwise, you might get trampled. For example, it was until recently severely ill-advised to use the word "thunderbuns" "fat" on the same city block as Star Jones.

Ben Smith over at the Daily News, in a recent column, seems to have violated the Star Jones rule by referring to Fox News as "conservative".

In my mind, that's still kinder than "pitchfork-wielding reactionary lynch mob" and therefore far more circumspect than the network of Neil Cavuto, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, John Gibson and Ann Coulter deserves.

However, Fox is not amused at being called a grotesquely one-sided and spittle-flecked tool of the extreme right conservative. Therefore, they have now revealed that Smith is, in fact, an underpaid and irrelevant communist. Take that.

Will Ben Smith back down? Or will Fox come to terms with the fact that nobody believes their ludicrous "fair-and-balanced" claims being accurately described?

Stay tuned.