US Census is Hiring, Here is some information

At the risk of being perceived as what News-Journal columnist Ralph Moyed used to describe as one of those Democrats who view government as one big employment agency, I wanted to share with readers an opportunity to serve your country and get paid which only comes along once every ten years.
The US Census is hiring and the website indicates they need hundreds of thousands of workers to do this monumental task that has an impact on the number of Congressional districts in states that have more than one and can impact future federal spending and other public policy decisions.


Here is some information about working at the census

http://2010.census.gov/2010censusjobs/

and a toll-free number to get more information:

1-866-861-2010 .

Here is the site index which lists some of the job opportunities:

http://www.census.gov/hrd/www/s_index.html

Some numbers to consider as we look at the 2010 US Senate race for Delaware

Neither Mike Castle nor Chris Coons has ever lost an election.
They have only been on the ballot in the same election year twice, 2000 and 2004.
Since Coons has only run countywide in New Castle County, in this post I am looking only at election results for each of them in New Castle County only.

While it is noticeable that Castle won New Castle County by a wider margin each time, I think Coons may have faced tougher opponents in that Castagno had held elective office in the City of New Castle and Ramone is very committed to the process of being elected ,later running unsuccesfully for state senate and in 2008 was elected as state representative in the 21st district.

In each of these races about 4,000 more votes were cast for Congress than for the county race in which Coons was running. If those votes were cast and remained proportional to the votes cast in Coon's race that would have extended his margin somewhat.

Additionally, I think the more local the office the greater the chance of people abandoning party labels in certain instances. Otherwise it would not be possible for Dori Connor to continue to be re-elected as a Republican in a heavily Democratic state senate district and Republicans Terry Spence and Bill Oberle could not have held seats in districts with Democratic registration edges in the state house of Representatives for multiple decades each.

____________________________________
2004
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
DONNELLY PAUL DEMOCRATIC 75,796
CASTLE MICHAEL N. REPUBLICAN 149,671
BARROS MAURICE J. IND OF DEL 1,345
MORRIS WILLIAM E. LIBERTARIN 1,350
Total votes cast countywide 228,162

COUNTY EXECUTIVE
COONS CHRISTOPHER A. DEMOCRATIC 131,529
CASTAGNO CHRISTOPHER REPUBLICAN 93,535
Total votes cast countywide 225,064

http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/2004g/ncc.pdf
__________________________________
2000
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
MILLER MICHEAL C. DEMOCRATIC 66,625
CASTLE MICHAEL N. REPUBLICAN 134,232
WEBSTER JAMES P. CONSTITUTN 1,585
THOMAS BRAD C. LIBERTARIN 1,736
Total votes cast countywide 204,178

PRESIDENT OF COUNTY COUNCIL
COONS CHRISTOPHER DEMOCRATIC 113,050
RAMONE MICHAEL REPUBLICAN 87,462
Total votes cast 200,512




http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/2000g/2000g_6300.pdf

A Book about Bloggers & the 2008 Presidential Election

I recently read "Bloggers on the Bus (How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press)" by Eric Boehlert and I think a lot of people who are interested in presidential campaigns and/or political blogs will find it a good read. It covers the impact of the blogs on the 2008 presidential election with the bulk of the emphasis on the primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.



Writers from blogs that get national attention like Huffington Post & Daily Kos are interviewed ,along with some blogs that get less media atttention . Boehlert also has comments from various campaigns about the impact of blogs and the tone that some of the blogs injected into the campaign,sometimes ramping up passion beyond the point of civil discourse --according to some of the commenters.



This book discussed the reality that politics is about issues, but also about relationships and how commentary that is too incendiary may disrupt relationships to the point that the level of discourse overshadows the issues that people claim they wish to discuss. I am not sure every reader will come away with that observation,but that is what I found.



My goal here is just to bring attention to a book I found to be a worthwhile read.

I am not a book reviewer ,so I have provided some links to people who are.





Here is a book review by the American Journalism Review:

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4762





Here is a link to an interview with Boehlert done by Mother Jones:

http://motherjones.com/media/2009/07/mojo-interview-media-guru-eric-boehlert



Here is a link to a interview with Boehlert done Salon.Com:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/05/19/boehlert/



It is available in the New Castle County Public Library system.