You're breaking my heart, TB. We all live in states or municipalities, and even a country, where the electoral rules are set up to benefit one side or the other, usually the side in power. Remember how vigorously you defended the Bush Baby stealing the 2000 election? Technically, I guess the law was on your side, but it still sucked a big one and I didn't hear you complain. And of course, each party opposes the two term limit for Presidents when their guy is a lame duck.

Even if the rules are fair to begin with, somebody figures out how to exploit and subvert the existing system to gain advantage. Campaigns are run not to convince or persuade people, or to move great ideas, but strategically, to take advantage of demographic and geographic distributions so campaign funds can be spent effectively. That's what gerrymandering, reapportionment and all these related controversies are all about. Even polling hours can be manipulated for tactical advantage. For example, I live in a very racially diverse urban state dominated by rural small-town white constituencies in the Tallahassee legislature. How do you figure that happens? And guess what, both parties work together to keep it that way.

Maybe you've got a legitimate gripe in your state, or in this case you're referring to, but don't blame it on how the evil libs are sandbagging the noble cons, because conservatives are just as clever at gaming the system as liberals are. In fact, more so, because they are a political minority and they've got bucks. It just looks like in this case, things didn't work out the way you were hoping for your ethnic group.

So get over it. You're finding out now what it's like to be a minority. At least, in this case, you had a Bush-appointed Republican judge protecting your rights. And it sure sounds like he was a "strict constructionist", too.

Guess what, in Miami, they're considering literacy qualifications for voter registration--in Spanish.*

*Not really, but I just couldn't resist.