It's time for Kansas City to winnow the field to two in the Mayoral primary tomorrow. We sure have no shortage of candidates - twelve people are vying for one of the two slots on the ballot in the general, that will be held in six weeks. I can only take three of them seriously, and of those three, any one would do a good job, but I'm backing Funkhouser because he is the sanest person in the race where TIF is concerned. He could be stronger on getting us light rail, and he could stake out a bit more territory on fixing the problems with the Municipal Courts. But on balance, Mark is my guy. Eighteen years as city auditor has given him an end-users perspective on the inner workings of city government - and what things actually cost - that the rest of the candidates just can't match, no matter how many terms they spent on the City Council or as County Executive.
Besides - how often do you get a chance to vote for a guy who answers to "Funk" and had his biggest fundraiser to date in a real live down-n-dirty blues bar? 
The other two candidates worthy of consideration are Jim Glover and Alvin Brooks. Since our incumbent Mayor, the Absolutely Fabulous Kay Barnes has expressed disgust with the negative campaigning that burst ont he scene about the same time as Missouri's white-trash, poor-man's Karl Rove got picked up as a campaign staffer by one of the more desperate contenders...I will just say nothing about the rest of the field. Some I don't know enough about to attack, but a couple of them...I'll just abstain.
Now that that is taken care of -
You need to go over to Gone Mild and read Dan's rant about the idiocy of closing 20% of the polling places less than a week before the most contested mayoral primary in the post-Pendergast era! 
My State Senator is doing a fine job of taking care of her constituents - if you go to her site you will see that she has the links up and the top of the page is dedicated to polling update information. For those too lazy to click the link, here's her PSA:
Dude Where's My Polling Place?
Thanks to Dan for the heads up on polling place changes for Tuesday's city elections. If you get confused -- you can always vote at the Election Board -- 1828 Walnut.
I have been pretty busy lately, and remiss in my duties - but cruise her site and see that she is by golly doing the job we elected her to do, and I look forward to selecting Jolie Justus on my ballot for years into the future, based on what I've seen so far. (This is where I take a flight-of-fancy 10 years down the road to a contest for Missouri's Class III Senate seat...I am a hopeless political junkie. Research to help those similarly afflicted is ongoing.)
Senator Justus. I just like how that sounds, you know?
