A lazy reporter's trick is to fly into a town, take a cab and quote the cabby as the sage of local politics. So, to be clear, I don't think this represents anything more than an interesting comment and is not posted here as a declaration of the feelings of Spokanites at large.

But, as I was taking a cab in from the airport we passed some signs for mayoral candidate Al French. I said something deep like, "Oh, you've got a mayor's race." And the driver said, "I don't know anything about them. The one decent mayor we had died of cancer or something."

French is one of two council members running against Mayor Dennis Hession, who got the job after Jim West was recalled from office. West later died of cancer. Jim Camden is covering the race for The Spokesman-Review, and it seems Hession is the frontrunner.

Mayor Dennis Hession has raised more than twice as much campaign money as his two main challengers combined and has spent more than council members Mary Verner and Al French put together.

And while I'm in the business of reporting brief snippets of conversation as news, outside Starbucks here is a woman behind a card table collecting signatures for Ref. 67, which would repeal the state's new insurance law. As I walked by, a man was bent over looking at the petition and the printed material and said, "Just tell me which side the lawyers are on and which side the insurance companies are on." I couldn't tell which side he was on, but as complicated as that issue is, the debate may not be hard for people to understand.