Hey, Philly.

You do know that when you walk into the voting booth on November 4th you’re not just going to see one big sheet of paper with the names “Barack Obama” and “John McCain” and buttons next to each of them, right?

Nope.  There’s something called a “down ballot” that includes all of the local races that, as hard as it might be to imagine, are actually more important than the one between that Obama guy and McCain guy.

For example: the 182nd District State Representative race.  Quick, without looking, tell me who the current 182nd District State Representative is.  Heck, tell me where the 182nd District is.

Don’t know? Don’t worry.  It’s likely that 60 or 70 percent of the people who actually live in that district don’t know where it is or who their state rep is.

The Center City Weekly Press interviewed the challenger for this seat, a guy named Wally Zimolong who bears a striking resemblance to the actor Jeff Daniels.  Actually, more like Dave Coulier.  Zimolong, a Republican, is challenging 24-year incumbent Babette Josephs, who actually has a pretty decent website, especially for telling me what neighborhoods are in the district.

Like the Josephs-Zimolong race, most of the races in the city won’t be competitive since the polls are tilting towards generic Democrat but there could be some turnover in the traditionally Republican northeast section of the city.  In the coming days, I’ll include some info about places where state legislators - in this state a group with almost as much job security as undertakers - may be heading to an earlier than expected career change… as handsomely paid lobbyists (sigh).