What's nice is that Franklin County politics are friendly and civil enough that we can work in a loose manner like this in a co-operative way. I hear about these schmucks running for president that need a 30+ page debate agreement just to get together and talk in front of cameras for a minute. I know it's bigger stakes, but still.

Family friend and former electoral opponent State Senator Bob Jackman was in attendance, seeking election (42nd district) to his third term. Turns out that the Democrat opponent Barry Welsh is the preacher at the Presbyterian church not 5 miles away in Laurel.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention county commissioner Tom Wilson, who is popular with the Barger family and seeking re-election.

I was personally particularly pleased to see Rebecca Oglesby. I had needled her a bit publicly a couple of years ago when she was the outgoing clerk. She's running now for county treasurer. She may be a danged ol' Republican, but she's very charming. Plus, she's running against a retired IRS agent. In theory, I know that this would probably be a good technical qualification for the job, but you can't ask me to vote for a revenuer. You just can't.

As part of our civic instruction, the current clerk was showing off our fancy new optical scan ballots and machines. This fall will be our first crack with these new machines. They seemed okay, and they do certainly have a paper trail, as we're physically marking ballots.

Having had formal issues earlier in the year about my attempted presidential primary write-in vote, our long suffering clerk was not surprised that I had a write-in vote on my sample ballot. I wrote in Ayn Rand for "Best Writer." This was actually useful, in demonstrating how the scanner detects and separates ballots with write-in votes.

The Republican women brought in bunches of Laura Bush's Oatmeal-chocolate Chunk cookies. They were of course a homebaked delight.

The Democrat women brought in Teresa Heinz Kerry's Pumpkin Spice cookies. In theory, I'm all about chocolate, but I have to say these were pretty good. Also, Franklin County Democrat women get extra points with me for their restraint in not rising to my bait as I teased them about 'Teresa Heinz' butler's cookie recipe.'

There's no place like home.