Folks weren’t just trying to vote early yesterday, some were trying to vote late.  (h/t BTB)

Jason Roop, editor of Style Weekly, has commented on Style’s withdrawing of their sponsorship of the Environmental Film Festival in light of its organizer’s past ties to the eco-terrorist group Earth Liberation Front:

I can only speak to the editorial side of Style Weekly in saying that our team is covering the festival, as we always would, whether or not the magazine is a sponsor of that event. I hope you’ll enjoy a story in today’s Arts & Culture section that features an exclusive Q&A with Ralph Nader. You also may have noticed that we’ve published a cover story profile by writer Brent Baldwin on John Wade.

It’s an interesting story that explores some of the controversial debates among those in the environmental movement, and the drastically different approaches to making change by the more mainstream as well as radical organizations. We share what inspired Mr. Wade to his cause, and how his perspectives have changed.

No, he doesn’t quite apologize for his and his friends’ actions — which include inflicting more than $200,000 in damage locally and intimidating residents. But he does discuss how he’s struggling with ways to further his cause since serving three years in federal prison. Brent Baldwin also writes about the Patriot Act and how it affected Mr. Wade’s situation, which included the government naming him as an “eco-terrorist.”

You should know that Style Weekly has served as a sponsor of these kinds of events before, including spearheading the first “Living Green” awards (did you go?) in October, corresponding with a special Green Issue of Home Style, our monthly home magazine. Unfortunately, Mr. Wade intentionally withheld significant, relevant information about himself (as he says) in securing support and sponsorship. That put the company in a poor position when it learned, last-minute, about Mr. Wade’s background. As you can imagine, this left the decision-makers wondering what else they hadn’t been told about the event, if anything. It’s too bad that Mr. Wade wasn’t up front from the beginning.

By the way, the company’s sponsorship was in the form of reduced-rate advertising. So its decision to suspend sponsorship included giving money back to Mr. Wade’s group, not taking it away. I know that Style’s publisher and Mr. Wade have spoken in the days since and have come to an understanding, and perhaps they can move forward with a more honest and open relationship on future events.

For more, read Wade’s War here and see Jason Guard’s thoughts here.

The Environmental Film Festival is this weekend at the Byrd.

Patrick Ruffini gives a breakdown of vote totals for the Republican candidates yesterday:

McCain 3,016,739
Romney 2,369,027
Huckabee 1,610,951

That breaks down to roughly 40% McCain, 32% Romney, 22% Huckabee. Many will say that this shows a majority of Conservative voters don’t like McCain. But that’d disregarding actual figures that show a majority of Huckabee’s supporters think more highly of McCain than they do of Romney.

Using Pew’s figures from earlier this week, if Huckabee’s votes split on the 67/31 favorable break down between McCain and Romney, the results would look more like this:

McCain 3,999,419 (55%)
Romney 3,245,567 (45%)

Looks like a majority, doesn’t it?

The thing is, as much as people want to push back against McCain and question his Conservative roots, Romney isn’t exactly emerging as the standard bearer. People aren’t entirely comfortable with Romney’s brand of Conservatism or how long he’s truly subscribed to it. Huckabee hits the right notes with social conservatives, but fiscally comes across as Jimmy Carter with a Rev. before his name.

As much as it may pain those trying to push back against John McCain, there is a Conservative argument that can be made for him, as Jeff Jacoby made in the Boston Globe over the weekend:

On the surpassing national-security issues of the day – confronting the threat from radical Islam and winning the war in Iraq – no one is more stalwart. Even McCain’s fiercest critics, such as conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, will say so. “The world’s bad guys,” Hewitt writes, “would never for a moment think he would blink in any showdown, or hesitate to strike back at any enemy with the audacity to try again to cripple the US through terror.”

McCain was never an agenda-driven movement conservative, but he “entered public life as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution,” as he puts it, and on the whole his record has been that of a robust and committed conservative. He is a spending hawk and an enemy of pork and earmarks. He has never voted to increase taxes, and wants the Bush tax cuts made permanent for the best of reasons: “They worked.” He is a staunch free-trader and a champion of school choice. He is unabashedly prolife and pro-Second Amendment. He opposes same-sex marriage. He wants entitlements reined in and personal retirement accounts expanded.

McCain’s conservatism has usually been more a matter of gut instinct than of a rigorous intellectual worldview, and he has certainly deviated from Republican orthodoxy on some serious issues. For all that, his ratings from conservative watchdog groups have always been high. “Even with all the blemishes,” notes National Review, a leading journal on the right (and a backer of Romney), “McCain has a more consistent conservative record than Giuliani or Romney. . . . This is an abiding strength of his candidacy.”

As a lifelong conservative, I wish McCain evinced a greater understanding that limited government is indispensable to individual liberty. Yet there is no candidate in either party who so thoroughly embodies the conservatism of American honor and tradition as McCain, nor any with greater moral authority to invoke it. For all his transgressions and backsliding, McCain radiates integrity and steadfastness, and if his heterodox stands have at times been infuriating, they also attest to his resolve. Time and again he has taken an unpopular stand and stuck with it, putting his career on the line when it would have been easier to go along with the crowd.

A perfect conservative he isn’t. But he is courageous and steady, a man of character and high standards, a genuine hero. If “the House that Reagan Built” is to be true to its best and highest ideals, it will unite behind John McCain.

When you look at the greatest issues facing this nation today (War on Terror, Economy, Education), McCain stands strong, stronger than the rest of the field. Conservatives can get behind that, but first those who aren’t convinced have to see through the “Anyone But McCain” fog.

UPDATE: Time dissects the numbers for both sides.

BAM!  You just shot some flavor into that dish!

TMZ is reporting that the medical examiner has ruled that Heath Ledger’s death was caused by “acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine.”

Democrats – Clinton wins the big states, Obama wins more states and delegates, still a virtual tie.

Republicans – Huckabee makes a better than expected showing, Romney’s in trouble, McCain’s close (but not quite).

More thorough thoughts later.

UPDATE: Analysis and maps here.