And They're Off.

Labor Day weekend has lived up to the campaign kickoff reputation. Friday night the three of us walked up to watch the intra-Bexley battle between Bexley H.S. and St. Charles. Although there are probably enough candidates to cover most of the stands, I'm pretty sure we landed in candidate central. I chatted with Hanz Wasserburger, who has noted that although I mentioned his site, I forgot to put the link up where it belongs. I have fixed this. He also introduced me to Matt Lampke, who was sitting two rows in front of us, right behind the string of Brennan Girls (6-8 teenage females wearing blue-and-white Brennan for Mayor T-Shirts).

If I had known sitting down next to Mayor Madison would make me so popular, I might have planned it.

The Honorable Mr. Madison is a very friendly individual, and the bulk of our conversation centered on how remarkable of a performance the drum major was putting on (I told y'all she rocked), but we talked a bit about the races. After I thanked him for making my autumn interesting ("his too"), I asked him if he was going to do an endorsement. For any race. It was no great surprise that he refused for mayor, but he did indicate that he would endorse a council slate. Even more interesting, he speculated on the process by which Council might go about appointing a replacement should Lampke or Jones win the mayor's race. More on that in time.

Anyway, we left the game with BHS still up (which unfortunately didn't last), and enjoyed our weekend.

The real kick-off, apparently, was at the Block Party today. I ran into some of the same folks, but Bill Harvey stole the show with an armada's worth of helium balloons, and Gene Weiss had his own set of young-folks-in-blue-and-white-T-Shirts. I'll be posting pictures in the near future, but not too many. The food line got long just as the food supply was dwindling, leading to one cranky bonobo triad, so we split early.

Substance is forthcoming, but pageantry is worth celebrating. Merry Campaign Season to All, and to All a Good Race.