I ran for mayor once, and I thought the mayor's race in a small town was nasty. This is vicious, beyond nasty.

They have managed to destroy commercial fishing here. Soon, you'll be lucky to see even one of us left on Madeira Beach - and we fish for people who can't go out on boats themselves.

We're still confident that the referendum will pass on the weighted votes.

Dennis and I and Crawford had a heck of a race. One minute, I thought Dennis was going to win. Then I thought Crawford was going to win. Then I thought maybe I could win it. It was fun.

I can't believe it. I actually thought I had won the race. I tried very hard. Based on previous races with Dan, there was no way I was going to give him much room, but he beat me anyway. I guess it was not meant to be.

Nobody likes to write about race. I thought I would do a [statistical] run of black players against white players, fully expecting that it would show nothing in particular or nothing beyond the outside range of chance, and I would file it away and never mention that I had looked at the issue at all.