Raising the checkered flag

Thanks to everybody who followed the election yesterday here via Early Returns. We're proud to say we were the first ones to boldly call the Rich Fitzgerald and library tax victories.

Not really. The returns came in so heavily and so in favor of Fitzgerald, Corey O'Connor, the tax and other winners (the Fitz win was called less than an hour after the polls closed) that the only think difficult about it was keeping up with the pace.

Jim O'Toole's main bar notes some lingering animosity from D. Raja in his concession speech:

"During the course of this campaign, we have seen the tough and aggressive side of the man who will lead the county for the next four years," he said. "Tonight, lets all hope that Rich Fitzgerald will devote the same energy and enterprise toward solving the county's problems that was on display during this tough campaign."

In a talk with Raja over the weekend, he had no regrets about the money he spent in the race, or the time he had to spend away from his family or his tech firm. The only thing he regretted was his two young girls -- ages 7 and 10 -- having to weather the negative attacks against him. (Though clearly, Fitzgerald was irked by the attacks from the Raja camp too.)

We'll have much more through the day . . .