Jim Camden

Ask residents of Spokane or Kootenai county if they'd volunteer to help prevent child abuse and neglect, and chances are good they'll say yes. When the Our Kids: Our Business survey did just that last month, 64 percent of those polled in Spokane County and 59 percent in Kootenai County said they'd be willing to volunteer for such a cause.

Spokane Republicans will gather for their county convention at 9 a.m. Saturday with the presidential nomination already settled. That doesn't mean they'll have nothing to do at the Lewis and Clark High School Field House. They'll hear speeches from gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and others.

Unhappy with a court ruling that requires a change in Washington's primary, state Democrats said Monday they will hold conventions to nominate their candidates for partisan offices this year. The move, which is part of a long-running battle between the parties and state elections officials over the state's Top Two Primary, could result in added confusion for voters and means extra meetings for party officials.

Barack Obama picked up nearly two-thirds of the delegates from Spokane County legislative districts Saturday as Democrats held the second round of their presidential nominating process. Obama supporters received a total of 73 delegates at three meetings, the caucuses for the 3rd, 4th and 6th legislative districts.

Residents in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene say they are concerned about child abuse and neglect, but are they ready to put their money where their mouth is? Yes, a pair of surveys suggest. More than half – three out of five – say their communities should spend more to help reduce child abuse and neglect locally. Of those who support more spending, three out of five would be willing to pay higher taxes to do it.

Advocates for children don't need to work very hard to convince us that child abuse and neglect is a serious problem in our community. More than two-thirds of us think it is.

Democratic superdelegate Maria Cantwell said she's sticking with Hillary Rodham Clinton and waiting to see how the remaining states vote before discussing what – if anything – could make her switch. "I'm not going to make any decisions about anything until all the states have voted," Washington's junior senator, in Spokane Thursday for a series of appearances, said in an interview after a speech to the Downtown Rotary Club. "We had the process play out here, and I think it's important to let the rest of the states have their say."

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed new tax breaks for the state's aviation industry Thursday, but insisted they weren't subsidies like the ones being debated between Boeing and Airbus in the fight over the contract for the Air Force's new refueling tanker. The legislation she signed, one of 15 bills autographed during a ceremony at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, offers a lower rate on the state's business and occupation tax to companies that maintain and repair aircraft. It's the same rate that Boeing and its major in-state suppliers get, but it's not an unfair subsidy, Gregoire said.

If Spokane city officials are really putting up photo-red cameras to improve safety, they'll leave them up if the revenue they generate goes away, initiative writer Tim Eyman said Thursday. Just days after the Spokane City Council approved such a system for six intersections, the state's perennial initiative promoter challenged a luncheon crowd to test out the city's real motivation by signing and passing Initiative 985.

Nearly 500 presidential primary ballots that Spokane County elections workers rejected because of signature problems were opened and counted anyway, elections officials said Thursday. None of the races on the ballot would have changed because of the mix-up, caused by a programming mistake in the Election Department's automated sorting system, County Auditor Vicky Dalton said. It isn't expected to affect ballots in the March 11 election.

Some 2,000 Spokane County voters received ballots last week with the wrong return envelopes, but elections officials said it shouldn't cause a problem for the March 11 ballot measures. They can use the envelopes they received, which are left over from this month's presidential primary, or wait for replacement envelopes, which should arrive in the mail this week.

Mark Mays, a Spokane psychologist and attorney, is running as a Democrat for Congress in Eastern Washington's 5th District. Mays, 59, informally announced his candidacy Thursday in an e-mail and at a lunch with about a dozen potential supporters, including current and former Democratic Party officials and a previous candidate for the office.

An attorney from Spokane Valley is entering the race for an open legislative seat in the 4th Legislative District. Ray Deonier, 37, said Wednesday he would run in the Republican primary this August to replace Rep. Lynn Schindler, who announced recently she's retiring.

Sen. John McCain coasted to victory in Washington's complicated presidential primary Tuesday, picking up about half the Republican votes – and more than twice as many as his nearest rivals. McCain seems poised to take the bulk of the Washington's 19 delegates up for grabs in Tuesday's GOP contest, which allots delegates among the statewide and congressional districts. The results were in sharp contrast to the Feb. 9 precinct caucuses, where the Arizona senator finished on top of a close three-way race with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, of Texas.

Diana Wilhite, a Spokane Valley councilwoman and former mayor, will run for an open state House of Representatives seat this fall. Wilhite, 62, a partner with her husband in Safeguard Business Printing and Promotional Products, said Tuesday she'll run for the spot being vacated by state Rep. Lynn Schindler, who is retiring.

Today is the final day voters can cast ballots in Washington's presidential primary. In most of the state, that means they either have to mail a ballot so it's postmarked by this evening, or take it to a drop-off location by 8 p.m. The presidential primary is unlike any other election Washington voters face. There hasn't been one since 2000, so some voters might need a reminder about the rules:

Round two of Washington's uniquely complicated and confusing presidential nominating process ends Tuesday evening, when the deadline passes to vote in the state's primary. All Eastern Washington voters were mailed ballots more than two weeks ago. They have until 8 p.m. to get them postmarked or delivered to drop-off boxes, and ballot totals should start rolling in shortly afterward.

Most of Washington state's 17 superdelegates to the Democratic convention have yet to announce who they will back for president, but the ones who have are an almost opposite image of last Saturday's caucus results. Caucus participants supported Barack Obama by about 2-to-1 over Hillary Clinton. But five of the state's superdelegates are supporting Clinton while just three are supporting Obama.

Spokane residents who thought they were done with presidential politics after Saturday's caucuses – or at least due for a brief hiatus until a bit closer to next week's primary – will have to think again. Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is questioning the results of the GOP caucus in Washington state, which show him slightly behind chief rival John McCain. The Huckabee campaign dispatched a lawyer from its national headquarters to talk with state and national Republican officials about a decision to call the contest for McCain on Saturday night with more than 10 percent of the precincts untallied.

Spokane neighborhoods that had to wait the longest for their streets to be plowed after the past week's snowstorms generally were those with the lowest voter turnout in the last election. City officials insist it's just a coincidence.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul denied any connection to racist, homophobic and conspiratorial writings that appeared in newsletters carrying his name in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. In a brief interview Thursday evening before his Spokane campaign rally, Paul said he didn't know about the statements at the time, and he attributed them to "bad editing."