It does not make Bobby Saxon happy when people assume that the GOP primary was Rep. Paul Broun’s real test.

Saxon, who’s been using my pessimistic blog posts to motivate volunteers, sent out a press release calling out the Wall Street Journal for making assumptions about the 10th District race.

“It looks like some political pundits need help remembering that Georgia’s election season doesn’t end in July.

“In a July 17 article of the Wall Street Journal called ‘Dr. Broun Goes Back to Washington,’ columnist John Fund writes, ‘Dr. Broun will be going back to Washington next year, having won 71% in last night's primary.’ There is no mention of Bobby Saxon or his November challenge against Congressman Broun.

House Speaker Glenn Richardson, like predecessor Tom Murphy, has a reputation for sending lawmakers who cross him to a legislative version of a Soviet gulag.

With two local representatives among a dozen or so mounting a palace coup, what does the Athens area have to lose?

Not much, really.

Barry Fleming implies that Paul Broun is in favor of child molestation. Broun responds by calling Fleming something even worse – a Democrat.

Broun issued a response today to Fleming’s TV ad portraying Broun as soft on child molesters. In it, Broun points out that Fleming has worked for two Democratic congressmen, and says his primary challenge is playing into the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (who’s replaced Hillary Clinton as Republicans’ ur-bitch) by diverting funds from other tight races.

Everybody and their mother wrote a story about the Democratic superdelegates over the past few weeks, and since journalists, especially editors, unfortunately have a pack mentality, I wrote one, too.

My forum commenters seem far less mentally unhinged than usual on this one. The general sense, more or less rationally laid out, is that the superdelegates ought to vote for whoever wins the popular vote (that means you, Michael Thurmond).

For once, a Democrat has something nice to say about President Bush.

Congressional candidate Bobby Saxon came out today in favor of Bush’s plan to head off a recession by giving low- and middle-income taxpayers a $300 to $600 rebate, up to $1,200 for couples, and $300 for each child. It recently passed the Democrat-controlled Congress, so expect the checks to hit mailboxes late this spring.

I’m officially firing the starting gun on the 10th District election.

A rather unremarkable story last week about Paul Broun visiting a Spanish class at a Columbia County

Broun is quoted making some noncommittal remarks about how great the program is (I’m a little shocked he didn’t try to find out how many of the children are illegal) and took a swipe at No Child Left Behind.

Democrat opponent Bobby Saxon pounced, shooting out a press release taking Broun to task for voting against the S-CHIP (PeachCare) expansion and not providing “an effective alternative” to NCLB.