Scattered rain showers will stay with us through the night, although they will be widely scattered. There may be quite a bit of mist or drizzle as well:

As you can see by the morning, more rain will start to build to our west…good news it will be rain not snow:

Through the day Wednesday and into Thursday occasional showers will come down as well:

Along with the rain a little warmer temperatures, then they will fall again this weekend:

When Indiana Democrats dream these days, they dream of a Democratic tide in November that includes a gain of two seats in Congress.  The 3rd District held by Republican Mark Souder and the 4th District held by Republican Steve Buyer are the ones they have in mind.

Well, Republicans must be having nightmares along the same theme.  The Republican Congressional campaign people distributed a “survey” in the 4th asking questions you might charitably call slanted. 

Here’s an example:  Do you support the Democrats’ “slow bleed” strategy to “choke-off” funding for our troops in Iraq, leading to their withdrawal and a perception of American defeat?

The possible answers are yes, no, and undecided.  Those who agree can send a donation.

One of our engineers said he sees a lot of sweaty people coming and going from Roberts Stadium, this afternoon. Those people are engineers from other TV stations. All a unspooling huge reels of TV cable from a satellite truck corral into the arena here in Evansville. They’re taking the cable — hundreds of feet each — to the camera positions in front of the stage where Barack Obama will speak tonight.

Right now, it’s still several hours from the Obama appearance. His signs are already placed around the stadium. Small ones are up high among tghe “Subway” and “Days Inn” signs. Big signs — proclaiming “Change you can believe in” are closer to the stage.

John Mellencamp’s “Your Life is Now” is bouncing around the arena through the sound system. Mellencamp is also expected to perform here tonight.

The untimely death of John Okeson hit the Statehouse hard today and he leaves friends all over the state.

I’ll miss John Okeson mostly because he was a good guy, the kind of guy who, when overseeing the legislative agenda for Governor Mitch Daniels, would give a reporter a straight answer when he had a direct question about a sensitive topic.

When John ran for re-election as Clerk of the Supreme Court he took part in a Shelbyville news conference one day along with other members of the Republican team at the time.  Photographer Jim Hester and I traveled to Shelbyville to catch up with Sue Anne Gilroy, who was also on the ticket.  John knew that, but, when he saw the camera rolling during his remarks, couldn’t help commenting to the crowd the Clerk’s race doesn’t always warrant television coverage.

That was Jim’s cue to turn off the TV light.  No one laughed more than John and he loved repeating the story even years later.  

He was a guy understood politics, people, and the media.  A guy who deserved to take part in future campaigns.