OK, I'll admit it. I got spoiled during those weeks building up to the Pennsylvania primary.

At the beginning, I was all like: "I'm covering an appearance by Hillary Clinton in Harrisburg? Gee whillikers! I hope I don't do something stupid!"

Toward the end, my attitude was more along the lines of: "Ted Kennedy is putting in an appearance a few blocks from my apartment? Yawn. I'll see if I can pencil him in."

It didn't take me long to lose that jaded attitude. Now I start every workday frantically checking my e-mail, eyes moist and lower lip trembling, thinking to myself, "Don't any national political figures want me to interview them?"

Now it looks like I've got my chance. On Wednesday, James Carville and Mary Matalin are going to speak at the Toyota Arena at the York Expo Center.

Posted in Democrats and Republicans

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Today, I’m going to discuss my problems with the Pennsylvania state government’s Zillion-Dollar Nothing-In-Particular Fund.

This state fund, true to its name, has approximately a zillion dollars, and the state uses it for nothing in particular. My problem with the fund is twofold:

1) I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist.

2) Despite that, candidates for state office keep basing their campaigns on it.

Posted in State government

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OK, I went to Spoutwood Farm's annual May Day Fairie Festival on Friday to find out how the fairy folk feel about the 2008 presidential race. Here's the video. By the way, that's not really me prancing around at the end. That's actually a sophisticated CGI effect. It's amazing what they can do with computers these days, isn't it?

Posted in Miscellaneous

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Since last week's primary, I've written a couple of stories about delegates to the Democratic and Republican parties' national conventions. Keep in mind, these delegates are the people who officially select the candidates running for president of the United States.

Each party has a delegate selection process that ranks about even with some of David Lynch's recent films in terms of comprehensibility. I'll see if I can explain them. If you find your eyes crossing as you're reading, maybe take a break and come back to it.

Posted in Election procedures

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Now that the Pennsylvania primary's over, I'm taking this blog in a completely new direction. Rather than writing about politics, I'll be writing about my personal life. Who is this guy named Tom? What is he thinking? How does he feel about this crazy Merry-Go-Round we call life?

In fact, I'm changing the name of the blog from "Articles of Confabulation" to ...

THE WORLD OF ME

I meant to start on my diet this week, but I had an upsetting day at work. A certain co-worker I'll just call Little Miss Snooty-Face decided she was going to cop an attitude. I got so upset that during lunch, I went out to my car and had a good cry. :(

So when I got home, I consoled myself with a quart of Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream and a DVD rental of "She's All That" -- the best movie of all time, IMHO. The ice cream was yummy, but now I feel fat. Bleh.

Anyway, here's my take on this season's "American Idol" ....

JOKE! That was all a joke! I think maybe I took that too far. Just writing it gave me a migraine. Yeesh. Although if that kind of thing interests you, may I refer you to ... oh ... roughly 500,000 other blogs?

No, I will continue to write about politics from a York County perspective. The Pennsylvania primary coming to an end won't change that. In fact, without the primary taking up so much of my time, I'd like to expand my focus. I haven't been writing about state politics lately, and I'd like to rectify that.

Also, let's not forget that we have a presidential election coming up. And I'm sure that, just as in 2004, our status as a swing state will ensure that Pennsylvania in general and York County in particular will be the site of some intense campaigning.

So keep reading.

Posted in Miscellaneous

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It's just about midnight on Tuesday, and I just filed my story for tomorrow.

If you're a reader of my blog, you're probably one of these people who follows politics, in which case:
1) Get a life.
2) You probably already know that Hillary Clinton won both York County and Pennsylvania as a whole.

Posted in Democrats

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We've got another in the increasingly crowded field of would-be Democratic write-in candidates for the 33rd state Senate district.

This one is Bryan Rehm, currently a member of the Dover Area School Board. You may remember him as being among the slate of candidates who took office after that whole "intelligent design" brouhaha.

Rehm said he didn't have any particular ambition to be a state senator. But he was frustrated when he checked the Voter's Guide, and saw that no Democrats were on the primary ballot.

The way he sees it, if area Democrats are going to complain about local Republicans' political dominance, they should at least be willing to step up to the plate in situations like that. So if he gets the requisite number of signatures -- 500 -- he's willing run in November, Rehm said.

“I would be happy to run if nobody else is going to mount a challenge to the Republicans," he said. "But I would also be happy to fill out my term on the school board.”

He started calling and e-mailing people he knows, telling them of his decision. He said he didn't get to the polls himself until about 5:30 p.m., at which time he found out that he's not, in fact, the only Democrat running.

See my previous entry on write-in candidates for the backstory.

Posted in Democrats

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