I'm so glad President Jones cancelled session today

Here's the fun part about these legislative campaigns -- session starts up again tomorrow in Springfield and doesn't really stop until April 7th.

Tough schedule. I'm grateful President Jones and Speaker Madigan both cancelled session today so the political hacks like myself could sleep off this primary.

I don't have much insightful to say, but here's what I see.

Too bad about Claypool's campaign. It reminded me of the Vallas campaign and the Gore campaign on election night -- fleeting thoughts of victory only to be brought back down to earth after a few hours. Remember when Vallas was ahead from 8 to 9 pm four years ago? And when it looked like Gore won? Oh well. I can't recall any election where the victor was in the hospital.

Very glad that Debra Shore and Terry O'Brien both won for the Water Reclamation District. I can't tell who came in third. Is it Frank Avila, Jr. or Patricia Horton?

Two upsets both in 708-land in the House -- Calvin Giles beat by LaShawn K. Ford and Michelle Chavez beat by Lisa Hernandez. What do they have in common? Both of them represent the City of Berwyn.

More later on how the Cicero Voters Alliance, led by President Larry Dominick, surged for Lisa Hernandez. Lots of credit to the victory should go to former state representative Frank Aguilar. The slogan for Cicero is "the new Cicero" and I believe that Cicero is firmly on the upswing. It's a good news story for the 60,000 or so people of the Town -- most of them working-class. The Cicero Voters Alliance is probably the most influential independent (meaning they endorse candidates from both parties) political organization in the state.

And on the late results from the voting machines: I think we're going to have to somehow get used to the fact that election results will not largely be available on the night of the election. Federal law mandates these touch-screens (the Help America Vote Act), and with two systems per precinct, it will be difficult to merge the results from the optical scans and the touch screens in each precinct flawlessly.