On the campaign trail, we got home Friday afternoon to find a telephone message featuring Senator Dan Inouye calling on behalf of Jessica Wooley, the Democratic candidate in the 47th House district. Go, Jessica!

Have you noticed that Howard Dean is not getting his due in reporting on the current state of the presidential election? It was Dean who put the Democrats 50 state strategy into place, aiming to run competitive campaigns across the country. And that has been coupled with an extraordinarily effective and highly organized campaign on the ground. Here’s a good NY Times story on the campaign in Florida and how its strategy is playing out.

And while you’re reading about the campaign, don’t miss this great blog entry by Pam Spaulding (Pam’s House Blend) on the final days of the McCain campaign. She’s got a great image of the GOP’s ultra conservative wing as the Alien.

We’ve been saying the failure of conservatism was upon us — hey, I’ll even be charitable on this one — it’s mainly due to the the whack-a-doodle social conservatives that have been gestating in the host, like the creature in Alien, and now that wing has done a bloody, gory chest burst, killing its host — the GOP. The power-mad creature is squealing and slithering off into the night, feeling empowered, taking over the ship, intent on killing everyone on board. It is off to serve as a drone for the Queen Alien, Sarah Palin, who is laying her wingnut eggs for her 2012 run.

Meanwhile, Gannett has continued to report falling earnings, with nearly a 1/3 decline in earnings in the last quarter.

Gannett has reportedly lost 77 percent of its stock value this year and closed yesterday under $10 per share, as did the New York Times Co.

Check out what NY Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger had to say at a conference this week.

Throughout U.S. history, there has been “an inevitable flight to quality journalism” during particularly tough times. Regardless of where people sit on the ideological spectrum, they are thirsty for accurate information online.

If buyouts and layoffs don’t cut deep enough, what’s next? Wage freezes are in, according to Paidcontent.org. Oh, check the last bit.

– Wage freeze at AH Belo: After layoffs, buyout offers and hiring freezes, what’s left in a newspaper company’s arsenal to rein in costs amid a downturn? The answer from AH Belo (NYSE: AHC) (NYSE: BLC), the Dallas Morning News and The Providence Journal, is to impose a pay freeze until the company returns to profitability. The move follows a similar action taken in August by The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), and allows for exceptions approved by senior management.

Do I need to say that we really–really–don’t like learning that the fatal accident in Hauula this week was caused by a U.S. Marine truck swerving into oncoming traffic? All of us on the windward side necessarily spend a lot of time on this long two-lane stretch of Kamehameha Highway. It’s bad enough that the narrow road sees more than its share of one-car accidents. Careful driving can do something about that. But careful driving can’t protect you from being hit by others. That’s a grim reality of living out here.

This may be a little hard to appreciate, but click on this photo for a better view of the sky reflected in the shiny finish of the car in front of us as we left town Friday afternoon. It was very clear as we sat in traffic, perhaps not quite as clear in the photograph. Oh, well. It was worth a try.

Just for the record, here’s what it looked like earlier this week in Kaaawa. It was raining just a few minutes ago, so today’s sunrise probably won’t be as pretty. But, we’ve learned, you never can tell about the dawn.