yesterday afternoon, the marion county democratic party held its caucus to select its nominee for the special election to replace the late julia carson. to nobody's surprise, andré carson, julia's nephew, won resoundingly. the andré haters quickly swarmed the blogs, also to nobody's surprise. in fact, the only surprise was that the blogosphere's most vocal andré hater is a democrat diarist from blue indiana, who was puzzlingly out on the rightie blogs lamenting the lack of unity in the party while simultaneously openly sowing dissention.

later in the evening, the libertarians selected their candidate, sean shepard. i don't know much about the guy and haven't turned up much about him other than that he was a plaintiff in one of the NSA wiretapping lawsuits, along with the state libertarian party, and that he hates hillary and wusses. one thing i know for sure is that he's not melyssa "miss ann" donaghy, who was vying for the nomination. her candidacy would've been hilarious, but the party selected someone a bit more google-friendly. still, she might still plan to run in the primary, so we might still get more entertainment out of her candidacy yet.

then tonight, the republicans held their caucus, selecting the boyish jon elrod both for the special and for slating—meaning that elrod will have the party's official support in the primary. (though how much financial support they give remains to be seen.) hoosier access's josh gillespie live-blogged the event, though gary's write-up is perhaps more interesting.

so on march 11, it'll be elrod against carson, with shepard on the side hoping to pick off a few spoiler votes. carson is definitely the favorite, but republicans are hoping he can become ballard jr and pull off an upset. the winner will serve the rest of julia's term in the house. then in may will be the primary, to select party nominees for next term. the republicans seem to be unifying around jon elrod, who will face only token opposition in the primary from the likes of jocelyn tandy-adande—not that any human ever has or ever will vote for her. andré carson won't be so lucky, as he'll have to fight off david orentlicher and perhaps a couple others for the 2008 nomination. it's going to be a tough year for andré carson and he'll have to do a lot to prove whether he's worthy of his grandmother's legacy.

update: bil browning was at the democratic caucus and noticed some irregularities.¶

Okay, I'm one of those Democrats. I'll vote for Andre, but I don't see him winning on March 11, and I do see the seat in danger now, where it didn't have to be.

I can't imagine how the party can have so much tunnel-vision. No one knows a think about the guy (cue Wilson, spouting statistics and missing the point). If they really think the last name will pull it out, I think their fooling themselves. ¶

they're, not their. Geez, I need coffee. ¶

According to the "Mays Poll", they show HardID among 400 likely voters:

Mitch Daniels: 89%
André Carson: 48%
David Orentlicher: 38%
Carolene Mays: 21%
Jon Elrod: 21%

Elrod's got a lot of catching up to do.

We also know that André Carson's negatives will be driven up by massive and unrelenting GOP anonymous Swiftboaters using every slime and slander of racial and religious bigotry against him... ¶