The politicians in Salem are funny. Yesterday the secretary of state, who's running for re-election, staged an event and released an audit report to show her dedication to job creation. Apparently, the state labor commissioner, Brad Avakian, who's also running for re-election, felt a little shown up by this. As well he should -- he's the labor czar, after all. And so he issued his own press release and had his own little photo op event. Tit for tat.

And although Avakian didn't have a fancy audit report to show off, he did point the media to another press release he'd issued, back at the end of April. That's two press releases to the secretary of state's mere one. And thus, unlike her, he also showed off a love of recycling.