-- Doogie's gay!

-- Ted Haggard is obscenely gay! You know how we liberals always make jokes about really, really homophobic morons being gay? THIS IS WHY.

-- Kirstie Alley's running around in a bikini! (OK, so we're not exactly sure how this is gay. But it does seem a little gay, don't it?)

-- And on a serious note ... from half of Tucson's 490th registered domestic partnership ... please, talk to everyone you know and encourage them to get to the polls to vote against Proposition 107. It's an awful bit of pure bigotry that we have a legitimate chance of defeating. Let's do it.

If you've lived in Tucson for quite a while, you may not appreciate how stunningly liberal this city is. It's fantastic.

This really hit me at the All Souls Procession last night, where some of the most impressive (and in retrospect, most depressing) displays had a lefty tinge. The ones that pointed out the number of dead in Iraq—both American troops and Iraqi civilians (whatever the number is; while people may have really stupid arguments over how high that toll is, we can all agree it's tragically high, can't we?)—for example, were sobering.

I've lived in towns where displays like that, as straightforward and factual as they are, would have been soundly booed, or worse. Thank goodness for Tucson, Arizona.

There is so much creative stuff happening downtown this weekend that I hope you will take a break from campaigning to check it out.

At the Fox Theatre all weekend is the Puro Mexicano Film Festival ,starting tonight with a film about Tucson's own legend, Lalo Guerrero, the father of Chicano music and the original hepcat.

If you rather watch a film outdoors, La Placita offers Macario about a humble wood cutter who deals with the devil only to confront all the consequences of his desires.

Saturday brings more events for all ages including film shorts and the movie Zoot Suit at La Placita. 

Sunday's film begins at 10:30 a.m. with a Mexican feminist film series. And at 4 p.m., the Pura Inspiracion film competition happens where 1010-minute inspirational films will be watched and judged. The winner goes on to further distribution. Some of the film topics are about Ben's Bells, free trade coffee, greyhounds, Iraq, hitchhikers and coffins, two strange orange creatures and more.

At the end of the films, the Day of the Dead parade begins. Get out there!

Most people love to hear music, but as a live music lover, the visual experience is just as important to me. Now, SnappRadio has created a feast for the eyes for the online Internet music experience.

Designed to work with the Internet eclectic rock radio station Radio Paradise (the best radio station ever), and last.fm, SnappRadio is a mashup of the two online music sites and the popular photo-sharing site, Flickr.

What's a mashup? Only the unholiest (and coolest) alliances of content from various Web sites by random users who know enough code to scramble stuff together to (usually) create something entirely new and cool.

In this case, SnappRadio creates a photo slideshow that pulls images from Flickr related to the song that is currently playing. The code looks at tags users put on photos and matches them with the song and artist. So you get a combination of concert fan photos, as well as random images that happen to have a similar theme to the song or artist.

They're still working out the kinks, but right now it's a great way to countdown to a weekend of live music.

According to a friend, CNN announced that Jim Pederson was ahead based on early votes. However, I found the info here.

I guess the Democratic Party is buying up the air time with Pederson ads based on this  news.

Rally the voters!

Clinton is here in Tucson and will be speaking before a massive crowd tonight at Reid Park. You can get a free ticket at  Pederson2006.com.

Last night, I was fortunate enough to attend a mixer for Gov. Janet Napolitano at Terra Cotta. (Full disclosure: Terra Cotta owners Michael and Maya Luria are friends of mine.) Gabrielle Giffords and Jim Pederson were also present, as were LD26 House candidate Lena Saradnik and LD26 Senate candidate Charlene Pesquiera.

It was a nice event, although Napolitano and Giffords made relatively brief appearances. It was good to see Saradnik and Pesquiera working the crowd; they're clearly going all-out in a tough district for Dems.

Napolitano, Giffords and Pederson all spoke briefly, with Napolitano leading the way and introducing the other two. (There is NO doubt who the Democratic leader is in this state, nosiree.) Napolitano was polished and folksy as ever, and Giffords was very charismatic. Pederson, on the other hand ... not so much.

Maybe this is an unfair criticism, because Napolitano and Giffords have extensive campaigning experience, whereas Pederson does not. But ... yikes, he came off as kind of robotic and maybe even a little creepy. The weirdest moment came when Pederson mentioned sending Giffords to Washington, D.C., and Pima County District Attorney Barbara LaWall shouted out from the audience something to the effect of: "We're going to be sending you, too, Jim!" (I wasn't taking notes, so I may be off slightly.)

As the crowd hooted and hollered, Pederson looked at LaWall and said, in a tone that reminded me of an exasperated husband, "I was getting there, Barbara" He then noted who LaWall was ("Pima county's excellent district attorney," he said. Um, OK.), and went on with his speech about how his race was close and he had a chance.

I am sure Pederson meant the whole "I was getting there, Barbara" in a loving, funny way. Seriously. Didn't come off like that.

I really, really hope Pederson wins. Jon Kyl's lost all credibility with me by pushing Iraq, helping run up the deficit and scapegoating the LGBT community for political purposes. I hope Pederson gets six years to work on his charm and charisma. But if he loses a close race—and he very well may—then his lackluster campaigning skills may shoulder much of the blame.

The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment to document the local voting experience on November 7. Participants can contribute to "an archive of photographs that captures the richness and complexity of voting in America."

At the same time, Videothevote.org, a national voter advocacy group, is sending volunteers to Arizona and six other states (Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Maryland) to check out complaints and videotape voting irregularities.

According to the Arizona Secretary of State's office, state law restricts non-voters from being within 75 feet of a polling area, although there are exceptions. It's not clear whether it is legal for voters themselves to take a picture as part of their voting experience, but given the prevelance of small digital devices, it's likely such pictures may wind up being taken anyway.

Democrat Gabrielle Giffords has a commanding 15 percentage point lead over Republican Randy Graf in the race to replace retiring Congressman Jim Kolbe, according to the latest Tucson Weekly/Wick Communication Poll.

The survey of 400 Congressional District 8 voters, which was conducted by local pollster Margaret Kenski, showed that half favor Giffords; 35 percent say they will vote for Graf; and 11 percent remain undecided.

Just 2 percent of voters said they were supporting Libertarian David Nolan, while 1.5 percent said they liked independent Jay Quick.

The poll, taken between Oct. 25 and 28, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percent.

The latest numbers don’t show a major shift from a Weekly poll taken in September, which showed that 52 percent supported Giffords, and 34 percent supported Graf.

But Kenski notes that 26 percent of Giffords supporters say they support her based on her positions on the issues, compared to just 15 percent in September, which Kenksi credits to Giffords’ television advertising.

“Whatever you think of what she does in those ads, she’s become identified with certain issues more than she was,” says Kenski, who notes that Graf has had far less money to advertise.

The Weekly poll is the latest in a series of publicly released surveys that have shown Graf unable to break the 40 percent barrier. His highest showing was 38 percent, in a poll released last week by Zimmerman and Associates, which showed him trailing Giffords by 10 percentage points.

A staunch conservative, Graf is struggling to maintain GOP support in the moderate Eighth District, which stretches from the Catalina Foothills to the U.S Mexico border. Just 65 percent of Republicans say they’ll vote for Graf; 20 percent say they’ll support Giffords, and 13 percent remain undecided.

On the other side of the aisle, 86 percent of Democrats say they’ll vote for Giffords; 6 percent say they’ll cross over to support Graf, and 8 percent are undecided.

Independent voters are supporting Giffords by a better than 2-to-1 margin, with 48 percent supporting Giffords and 22 percent supporting Graf. Nine percent support Nolan and 7 percent support Quick. Thirteen percent of independent voters are undecided.

Graf has yet to overcome his gender gap. Nearly 54 percent of female voters support Giffords, while 32 percent support Graf. Giffords also leads among male voters, with 46 percent saying they’ll vote for her, and 38 percent saying they’ll vote for Graf.

The poll surveyed 400 voters who cast ballots in the 2002 and 2004 general election, including 333 voters from Pima and Pinal counties and 67 voters from Cochise and Santa Cruz counties. The sample included 185 Republicans, 161 Democrats and 54 independent voters; 204 were women and 196 were men.

For more details, pick up the new edition of the Tucson Weekly!