Yesterday W (worst ever) said that winning the war in Iraq was key to his plans for maintaining civilization as we know it. Today, the pentagon gave Congress a very sobering account of the war. It appears that the insurgents are more entrenched than ever before and stronger than at any point since the invasion.

In a statement yesterday, Senator Harry Reid (Nevada) said “the administration is increasingly disconnected from the facts on the ground in Iraq.” This comment strikes a cord with Vietnam veterans who remember that same disconnect in the late 1960’s. Washington is convinced that it must win the war at all costs. But, at the same time, the local populaton is becoming more and more convinced that it is America that must go. The insurgency, like the VC, are continuing to grow and recruit more and more troups and oil revenues are buying the arms that will be used against our soldiers.

Anyway, click here to read the Pentagon’s assessment.

John Whitesides, political correspondent for Reuters, writes today that Democrats are poised to make significant election gains in the fall eletions.  He foresees the possibility that the House of Representatives may be controlled by Democrats and that significant gains may be in the wind for the United States Senate.  Click here to read his article.

This item is a followup to our recent article about the Republican National Committee pouring money into the coffers of Steve Huffman. It has been announced that all the Republican candidates for CD8 are holding a joint news conference Tuesday. No topic has been announced.

But it is widely andicipated that the candidates will be howling and screaming that the Republican National Committee is not playing fair by pouring almost $189,000 in to the PRIMARY candidacy of Steve Huffman. Click here to read the story on Arizona Congress Watch.  This is an interesting webblog site that shows news about the various congressional races in Arizona.

Scientists have begun to comtemplate the possibly irreversible release of billions of tons of methane gas trapped in peramafrost of the artic regions.  Potentially this problem is huge and not suspetable to reversal by anything we can do.  The United States and W (worst ever) continue to deny that global warming exists.  To do otherwise might mean that we would take steps to curb greenhouse emmissions, a step not welcomed by the corporations that bankroll the Republicans.  Click here to read the story.

The Pinal Democrats are holding their bi-annual Hall of Fame Dinner in Casa Grande on the evening of September 6th, just six days before the Democratic primary. Janet Napolitano and Jim Pederson are confirmed guests and a host of statewide and county candidates can be expected to attend. The dinner is preceeded by a no-host cocktail hour and the event will be held at a resturant called “The Property” in Casa Grande.

This will be one of the premier political events this year in Pinal County. Tickets are just $35 each (free to members of Pinal County Democrats Chairman’s Club). As there will be a number of SaddleBrooke residents attending, the possibilities for car-pooling will be quite good.

Call Joe Robison at 818-2194 for details and tickets. “The Property” is located at 1251 E. Gilla Bend Highway.

The latest poll from the Arizona Star suggests that Gabrielle Giffords will breeze ahead of Patty Weiss to become the nominee for the Eighth U.S. Congressional District. The poll shows that Gabrielle is fifteen to twenty points ahead. However, the Democrats are early favorites to win the Eighth District in November from the Republicans.

Meanwhile, the same polls suggest that Randy Graf will be the winner, by ten points or more, despite recent desperate efforts of the Republican National Party to promote the candidacy of Steve Huffman. Obviously the Republicans think Huffman could be harder to beat than Graf, a rabid neo-conservative with extreme ideas that do not play well with moderates and independents.
Click here to read the story in the Arizona Star

Our September meeting will be held Saturday, September 9th 2006. No speaker arrangements have yet been set. Save the date and watch here for details! Monthly meetings are held at the SaddleBrooke Activities Center at 64518 E Galveston Lane. Beginning at 3pm there is a half hour of social greeting with the meeting commencing at 3:30pm. Most meetings are followed by a pot luck supper where people are asked to bring either an appetizer or dessert to serve seven people. A site for the September pot luck has not yet been selected.

Yesterday, the SaddleBrooke Democrats turned out to vote. Congratulations, the overall Democratic turnout for the primary election was about 76%. This is an excellent result for a primary with only two contested races.

In contrast only 50% of Republicans showed up at the polls here in SaddleBrooke. Overall the turnout for precincts 8 & 15 was between 40% to 50%. Turnout in primary elections usually does not include large numbers of independents and generally lags the General Election by quite a bit.

Overall turnout in Pinal County was about 20%. The Democrats out polled the Republicans countywide, something we will need to repeat in November.

Yesterday’s primary is mostly tabulated. We present here, two links to websites where you can look up primary results.

Click Here to go to the Secretary of State site to review all statewide campaigns.

Click Here to to to the Pinal County elections website where all our local contests can be viewed.

The headline is, of course, that Gabrielle Giffords will lead the Democratic charge to take back the Eighth Congessional seat in about 45 days. She won rather easily over Patty Weiss and three or four candidates. The race was marred by Republican interference with “push polls” paid for by the Republican National Party.

Gabrielle was strongest in her home Tucson areas where she carried almost 60% of all Democratic votes. The race was quite expensive with some observers suggestion that well over $1 million was spent by Gabrielle. It is likely that much more than that will be spent over the course of the general election.

The other state-wide contested primary was between Slade Mead and Jason Williams for Arizona Superintendent of Schools. Williams beat out Slade Mead by a very comfortable margin. So he now looks forward to meeting Tom Horne, the incumbent, who has led our schools to the bottom of the barrel.

Here are some links to Arizona newspapers with stories regarding the primary results.

Arizona Star regarding Giffords and Graf

Arizona Republic regarding Williams and Mead