I work with small farms, and this summer has been an incredible year for pouring concrete...to make the packing spaces cleanable. These farms want very much to comply with good food-handling practices.

Exemption is not the way to go. That increases the risk of foodborne illness, and decreases consumer confidence in produce from small farms (even the good ones).

Small farms need protocols that make sense on their scale, and thrid-party verification that can reasonably be done on a farm with only a few hundred thousand in revenue. Those things can be achieved if people who understand small-farm safe handling write the rules.

Scale appropriate rules, and readily available training for small farmers would avoid the onerous big-processor requirements,yet assure safe food for those of us who buy form the little guys. That is the good way to go.

The Hillary for Senate sign, that is. She's been good there and has a lot more to do.

Pleasing Joe Scarborough will have to be a lower priority for a while! There's a big difference between building coalitions and pandering to the Right. With the hyperpolarization during the Bush administration, many have forgotten the former.

Arcuri should have been re-elected rather easily, but it ended up a nail biter. He had 50.1% with 80% counted, for instance. Curently he's up just over 5,000 votes. In the NY Times list of NY House Districts where "Democrats expected to win easily", most of the winners Upstate has 70 to 80%. What was wrong here? The opponent wasn't that impressive.

I attribute the closeness of the race in part to a weak Democratic Party organization in the district. The Obama campaign and the DNC have done great infrastructure development in many places, but not here. The Arcuri campaign has not been up to the huge task of organizing. (They seemed to have trouble managing to get a recognizable picture of the candidate on the lawn signs!)

The Democratic Party now has a lot of people who are good at local organizing. (I remember all the complaining Here on MYDD about the lack of it during the 2006 election!) I really hope that the state Democratic Party can get the county-level organizations functional again. That can include ditching the dedicated fossils who have been county chairs for decades in which there were no expectations. A measure of success would be to get candidates for county offices, State Assembly and State Senate who have a lot to offer. In some cases the main qualification of the Democratic challenger seems to be that they are too naive to realize they are just cannon fodder.

So please, Howard Dean, take note that there is some low hanging fruit for good organizers here in the bluer part of the country.

I'd put Kirsten Gillibrand's resounding reelection (62%!) on the list of successes. She won the seat last time from Republican John Sweeney in part because he made the papers for being a drunken fool more often than for legislation. This district could easily have elected a qualified Republican candidate, but Gillibrand has done an excellent job.

In Alaska, she's been pretty successful in her putsch against a group of corrupt good ole boys. She's succeeded in installing her own group of corrupt and incompetent syncophants in their place. I suppose that is reform Dick Cheney style.

The problem is that the law treats her corruption in the same way it treats Stevens, Young, et al. By 2012, she'll also have done jail time. When she gets out, maybe the Republican base will treat her the way urban gangs treat a member after their first stint in prison.  

Clinton, Gore and Spitzer were all running for different offices, and all got huge majorities. I don't think the small differences in their overwhelming support can be used to extrapolate to anyone's performance in other states or in future races.

Clinton will win the NY Dem primary in '08. I think everyone already takes that as a given.

Democrats have traditionally been tremendously uncomfortable with disagreement whereas Republicans have traditionally loved to argue and debate.

I prefer to see Democrats get elected and to implement progressive policies when they do get elected. I find it counterproductive to complain about them not squabbling enough during the campaign.

It's important to get more Dems in local seats throughout NY-29. There are more municipal races coming up this fall, and similar opportunities to turn campaigns around by bringing in a little political savvy and activity.

Here are some results from this weeks elections, thanks to the Corning Leader. First a democratic sweep in Bath, but with a turnout that shows how much work is needed to hold it. Then two elections that could have gone D for lack of 4 votes and one where a D candidate would have needed fewer than 4 votes total!  Are there any DFAers who want to score some easy wins?

In the village of Bath, Democratic candidates won the two open trustee seats on the village board. Political newcomer Tom Sears was the top vote-getter with 190 votes. Former trustee Donna Simonson garnered 176 votes. James Stewart, another political newcomer and the Republican Party's only nominee for village trustee, took in 155 votes.

Turnout for the Bath election was lackluster, with less than 1 percent of the registered voters casting ballots.

In Hammondsport, incumbent village trustee Republican Stella Pulver won 93 votes while former trustee Democrat-turned-Republican Bruce White squeezed out a win, tallying 70 votes to newcomer Democrat Mary Ryan's 67 votes.

In other contests in the Southern Tier, most candidates ran unopposed in village elections for mayors and trustees.

The village of Odessa in Schuyler County was the exception, with no candidates officially in the running for two vacant trustee seats.

The Massa campaign builds on local organizing, and is a valuable catalyst for organizing. For political creatures who are frustrated at not getting candidates elected, there is fantastic opportunity for satisfaction. I have copied excerpts from an article in the Corning Leader about yesterdays municipal elections.

• Don't you wish you had worked on a race the Dem losing by 4 votes?
• How about doing some get-out-the-vote in a race with 1% voter turnout?
• How big a difference could you have made in a race where there were two open seats and no candidates?
• How satisfying is it to see a Democratic sweep in Republican Bath?

In the village of Bath, Democratic candidates won the two open trustee seats on the village board. Political newcomer Tom Sears was the top vote-getter with 190 votes. Former trustee Donna Simonson garnered 176 votes.

James Stewart, another political newcomer and the Republican Party's only nominee for village trustee, took in 155 votes.

Turnout for the Bath election was lackluster, with less than 1 percent of the registered voters casting ballots.

In Hammondsport, incumbent village trustee Republican Stella Pulver won 93 votes while former trustee Democrat-turned-Republican Bruce White squeezed out a win, tallying 70 votes to newcomer Democrat Mary Ryan's 67 votes.

In other contests in the Southern Tier, most candidates ran unopposed in village elections for mayors and trustees.

The village of Odessa in Schuyler County was the exception, with no candidates officially in the running for two vacant trustee seats.

I have also seen her speak in person, and I agree that it is exhilarating. It's just not the same on TV. I bet a few personal appearances in Des Moines will affect the perception of her communication skills among Iowa D primary voters.

That said, my lawn sign reads "Hillary for Senate". That applies to '08 as well.

It is difficult to read the "we still suck" comments, but it is a hopeful sign. I think a lot of people who worked on campaigns realized how inefficient it was, and imagine how much more success progressives would have if those campaign operations were to run even acceptably.  The frustrated people who bother to comment here include many who will put in hard work if given the right guidance, and given the chance to see the fruit of their efforts.

The theme is very common--we need a permanent local structure everywhere. That structure can provide critical local resources to a campaign if given the right resources in the 6 months before the election

The primary challenge concept seems completely misguided. There are many political tools beside that. What about the most obvious and conventional approach: Montana taxpayers and Medicare recipients tell Baucus "Max, we like you but you are screwing us with your position on this." A lot of them. In many places. It may not be enough, but it is vastly more effective for influencing pending legislation than someone on the internet organizing for a far-off election.

I saw that, and heard the waterboardee say that he was physically unscathed just a short time afterwards. I thought they should do a followup with the same reporter getting raped. Gun to the head, maybe, but no lasting physical damage. I wonder if the (female) anchor would nod understandingly in the same way when he says that it wasn't actually damaging.