Ex. Rep. John Sweeney, who used to represent New York's 20th Congressional District (pre-Murphy, pre-Gillibrand) decided to get an early start on his 30-day sentence in Saratoga County Jail, following a conviction on his second DWI. Tonight will mark his first night in the slammer.

Click here to read more.

Ok, so we saw the Murphy camp vindicated by referring to the March 9 meeting with the Poughkeepsie Journal as an editorial board meeting, which is what the paper itself considers it. Score one for Murphy.

However, it refers to the March 3 AARP meeting at the Saratoga Springs Public Library as an "issues forum," while Tedisco has been calling it a debate. Score one for Tedisco here, it seems.

AARP's Erin Mitchell, the associate state director of community outreach, and Angela Neal, the associate state director for advocacy, said they are calling their event a debate. Judging from the description, it sure sounds like one: During the 90-minutes, candidates will take three minutes to make opening statements, be given two minutes to respond to questions from both panel and audience, and then given a final two minutes for closing statements.

Mitchell and Neal said it will be a controlled, issue-driven discussion, but a debate nonetheless.

So far the record stands at 1-1-1 (I consider the League of Women Voters/WROW debate a tie). Now to see how the candidates fare in a debate of substance and not this nonsense.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering why the LWV/WROW debate is being held in Latham, which is NOT in the 20th CD, this is from the press release the two groups issued:

"...it was agreed by all parties that the facility was the perfect venue since it is centrally located for all participants given the unique shape of the 20th Congressional District."

With luck I'll be out of here in a few hours. Andrew's manning the newsroom tomorrow and is then back again Monday, so it should be regularly scheduled programming from here on out. Have a great weekend, all!

Steve here again. Since Andrew's off I get to cover the news about Murphy and Tedisco actually agreeing on something (gasp!) : when to meet to argue over their disagreements (or, as it's dubbed in the political world, debate).

As noted in TU's Capitol Confidential blog yesterday (so conveniently distributed by Scott Murphy's people with their press release today), there was some debate about whether the March 9th meeting at the Poughkeepsie Journal was a debate or a standard editorial board meeting.

Well, let's put it to rest: John Penney, the editorial page editor at the publication, said the newspaper considers it a standard editorial board meeting. They like to have both candidates attend at the same time to eliminate the he-said-this, he-said-that tit-for-tat that could result otherwise.

Look for more online or in the paper tomorrow.

The weekend is almost...almost...in reach.