Familiar faces rise again

If yesterday taught us anything, it's that familiar faces always find a way to stay in the game. And no, I'm not talking about Hillary Clinton's expected win in West Virginia.

The local filing deadline for the August primary was yesterday, and who should we see but familiar faces who lost other races in November.

In the County Commission, District 3, former Lansing City Council chair Harold Leeman is running. You'll recall Leeman lost to newcomer Eric Hewitt in November.

And in District 9, which covers part of East Lansing, whose name should we find but Bev Baten, who was ousted from her East Lansing City Council seat by Nathan Triplett last fall.

Of course, the biggest question this August, on this level anyways, is whether Patrick Lindemann will hold his drain commissioner job against Gary Marx.

A heated campaign between the two has already begun. If you need proof, head to LSJ.com, the social networking functions of which Marx has been using to gin up interest in a campaign nobody much cares about usually.

And I suppose I'd be remiss if we didn't talk WVa...

Clinton beat Barack Obama with 67 percent of the vote, falling short of the 70 percent threshold I thought it would take to change the narrative somewhat. For her efforts, she gets a net of 12 delegates, per CNN.

Now, the race goes to Kentucky and Oregon. Clinton is expected to win Kentucky huge, while Obama is up by 10 to 15 in Oregon. If both margins hold, then we move to Puerto Rico (where she's expected to win), and then to Montana and South Dakota (where he is).

Now, here's my question. Can Obama, in the one week between now and KY/OR, completely erase that WVa win of Clinton's delegate-wise? The bar is set at 12.

So far, as of this moment, he's at 2.5: Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., Democrats Abroad Chair Schon Marques (who gets half a vote) and the two College Dems of America superdelegates, one of whom (Lauren Wolfe) doesn't count because she's from Michigan.