In case you haven’t noticed, the whole nation is going to go a little crazy about our redistricting case. There is quite a large debate if anything will change. Kartik posted the other day about the consequences to Alan Grayson’s seat, and of course, Corrine Brown’s seat will break up and hopefully make Ted Yoho’s seat more competitive, but more than likely things will not drastically be different around the state. In all reality, the districts may change slightly to look more like pre-2012 districts. But let us just take a moment to remember one thing: The Senate seats also have an outstanding lawsuit by the League of Women Voters. While nothing will happen before this November, there is that wild card for he 2016 elections. Based on this ruling, it seems like there is plenty of evidence that a lawsuit regarding the Senate may have some merit. It seems highly unlikely that the Republican party suddenly found a conscious and drew the Senate seats without all the manipulation that they put into the Congressional seats. And that could be a whole new circus. Will the promise of redistricting bring about more competitive races? This year brought us two competitive Senate races, but if the whole map is up for election in 2016, perhaps things will actually change for the better. In all reality, Ellyn Bogdanoff should have waited until the district was redrawn, because there is a chance she’ll have a better shot that more resembled her pre-2010 district, or they may draw new districts that could have drawn out of Sachs altogether. The anticipation is killer, but nothing will probably come about until after the election.  –  KB @BurnettKaty 

John Seigenthaler who was confidante of Robert F. Kennedy and crusading editor of the Tennessean passed away last week aged 86. The courage of Seigenthaler in advocating Civil Rights on the editorial pages of the Nashville based paper is almost unimaginable in this day and age. As an aide to RFK he was sent to monitor the Freedom Rides in 1961 and was beaten in the streets of Montgomery. Later he became the founding Editorial Page editor of the USA Today. After retiring from the newspaper business in 1991, he founded the First Amendment center. Always conscious of ethical standards of journalism, he was largely responsible for Wikipedia beginning a verification process for entries submitted to the online website. Seigenthaler was always a defender of journalistic integrity. At the Tennessean in the 1960s, despite being one of the most visible southern whites in favor of Civil Rights, he fired a writer he found out was an FBI informant.  Through the years as biographies and documentaries have been produced about RFK’s life, Seigenthaler’s memories and understanding of the internal motivations of Robert Kennedy have proven invaluable to understanding the man. He will be sorely missed.  – KK @kkfla737

The June campaign finance reports came out on Friday. A lot of interesting tidbits around the Legislative races: Rep. Carl Zimmerman is in real trouble, with his Republican challenger Chris Sprowles really bringing in the cash. Sprowles already has about twice of what Zimmerman has on hand. As we have mentioned a few times on this blog, even though it will be a difficult race, Democrats should defend incumbents – otherwise no one is going to be motivated to run the hard races in difficult districts. Jon Uman the Democratic candidate in HD-21 on the other hand, seems to be doing very well with almost $150,000 in the bank for his race against Rep. Keith Perry, although it appears the Alachua DEC has yet to support him financially, which is odd. Rep. Mark Danish should be beginning to worry about the growing war chest of former Republican Rep. Shawn Harrison, who is gaining on Danish in the money race every month. In the Senate, there is some good news in that Bogdanoff seems to be off to a slow start against Sachs, although to be sure the money will soon pour in. The RPOF has unlimited funds it has been claimed to spend in that district. –  KB @BurnettKaty 

Germany has won the World Cup. Through the years the way Germans show their pride has changed and evolved. For a long while after the second world war, Germans were subtle and almost shameful about showing any national pride. The stain of World War II has taken years to wear off.  Nationalism in many ways was actively discouraged by the Government. But yesterday it was great to see the prideful scenes in the German nation. At World Soccer Talk we had a correspondent in Berlin capture some of the great moments among the populace as Germany faced Argentina.  This generation of Germans has nothing to be shameful of. They have done just about as good a job as any western country in accepting immigrants and integrating minorities. This is reflected in their now World Champion national football team has in the last year featured players of Polish, Bosnian, Serbian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Nigerian, Spanish, Turkish and Ghanaian descent. Sure problems remain, but yesterday’s triumph was something for them to celebrate as it was a victory for a united and diverse Germany.  –   KK @kkfla737