Mac stays up late!

Must be the medication, but Mac had a running blogmentary going into the wee earlies this morning. As of right now, Riley (R) says AP is reporting both sets of numbers--the original ones from Baldwin County, which the Riley camp says are in error by about 7,000 votes in favor of Siegelman (D), along with the revised total which has supposedly been verified by the Baldwin County Sheriff's department and will be certified later on today at 11:00 a.m., which removes the erroneous votes from Siegelman's total. Before the final certification, Siegelman was winning by a bit over 3,000 votes--the revised total will give Riley a similar lead. Of course, all the local new organizations are positively frothing at the mouth hoping that this will be another Florida deal, but it's just not the same thing. The margin of victory for either side is much higher, it's purely a popular vote rather than for electors, the issue is not whether masses of stupid people couldn't figure out a ballot, but if there was really a glitch in the tabulation of results, and the fact that it's only a state contest.

The most interesting thing will be what will happen if Riley is the victor--the Alabama House and Senate are both firmly Democrat controlled, and the new lieutenant governor, Lucy Baxley, is a Democrat, replacing the current Republican, Steve "Pee Jug" Windom. When Siegleman was elected four years ago, he had served as the lieutenant governor during a time when the office held nearly equal power to that of the governor, and in some cases even more, being able to kill bills at will. After Windom was elected, Democrats stripped all the political power from the office. If Riley is certified, it will be interesting to see if the new lieutenant governor is given back some power, or if the House and Senate decide they like being able to pull the strings. My guess is that they will keep it all--no reason to give it up, all the reason in the world to keep it.
posted by Terry at 9:17:00 AM