Good Stuff

This morning's edition of Early Returns is all that, and a bag of chips.

A lot of it has to do with a fresh look at the campaign cash. Lamb and Shields sit head and shoulders above the pack for controller, and council districts 3, 7, and 9 all are teed up for deconstruction.

Note this excerpt:

Members of the 14th Ward Independent Democratic Club are pointedly noting to Early Returns that they opted not to endorse Mr. Ravenstahl for mayor, even though he is unopposed in their party's primary. The feisty group in the city's biggest ward is backing Mr. Lamb for controller and Rev. Burgess for council.

Lamb and Burgess would be the two ACDC endorsed candidates for their two races, in a combined field of 13. It will be hard to paint the 14th ward as revolutionary cranks.

In other news, Patrick Dowd sent out press releases to call attention to the $2.12 he recently paid in back taxes, plus $0.02 in penalties.

On the Dowd campaign website, he emphasizes his intentions to use "incident data" more effectively to improve public safety. We wonder if he might describe ways this might impact the most violence-plagued neighborhoods in our city, and more of his ideas for trying to help these failing neighborhoods save themselves.