A collection of gossip, scuttlebutt, and odds and ends from our reporters' notebooks.

TEE-HEE-HEE: On this page several weeks ago, we reported the concerns Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and her staff had with the domain name they had originally planned on using for Secretary of State Express (SOSexpress.com can also be read as SoSexPress.com, bow-chicka-wow-wow). And of course we got our yucks out then, and that was the end of it. La fin. We’d moved on, going about our daily business without looking at every URL for weird or silly puns. But now, we have Highland Township supervisor candidate Rick Hamill, who has the domain name — wait for it — electrickhamill.com (We’ll give you a minute to let that one sink in) … Electric Hamill! Now we’re all amped up. Let’s see to what silly lengths we can take this little riff that in no way is intended to be a reflection of how the race is actually progressing, so hold off on the nasty e-mails and comments telling us how we got it wrong: Now, we know that campaigns can be, ahem, charged, especially when looking to replace a — throat-clear — current supervisor, in this case Triscia Pilchowski, but there’s no reason why everyone involved can’t conduct (giggle) a substantive campaign; no reason it can’t be a positively-charged (tee-hee-hee) effort for all the candidates involved; no reason to slam each other until it hertz. Watt do you think about that, y’all? Because while admittedly its sometimes fun — OK, OK, always fun — to cover, we generally find gutter politics re-volt-ing. “It was accidental,” Hamill said of the domain name that sparked our imagination.

THAD TO THE BONE: U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Waterford, White Lake, Highland, Milford, Commerce, Wolverine Lake, Walled, Wixom) isn’t known for sugar-coating much of anything, and his wit appears to have been extended to his detractors. Thad the Man, who plays a pretty mean guitar (decked out with the Stars and Stripes, of course), won’t be appearing on the Aug. 7 primary election ballot as a Republican as a result of — how to put this mildly? — a snafu involving a lack of valid registered voter signatures submitted to the Michigan Secretary of State. But now, after he last week announced that he would be running as a write-in candidate for the new 11th Congressional District seat, he back-tracked on that effort and said over the weekend that he won’t be. In classic Thaddeus fashion, he ended it with this McCotterism: “To those who unhappy at this news, I’m sorry; to those happy at this news, you’re welcome.”

TEAMING UP: Good news! Bipartisanship isn’t dead! How do we know? Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, a Republican, and former Michigan Gov. James Blanchard, a Democrat, are joining forces to ensure that five incumbent Oakland County Circuit Court judges — Wendy Potts, Michael Warren, Phyllis McMillen, Leo Bowman and Denise Langford-Morris — who are facing challenges from attorneys Deborah Carley and William Rollstin this election cycle each get another six years on the Circuit Court bench. The organizer of a Thursday, June 14 fund-raiser confirmed Patterson and Blanchard’s involvement and said they would be co-chairing a committee for all five incumbent judges; Patterson’s peeps said they are co-chairing the fund-raiser. Either way, a couple heavy-hitters are in the incumbents’ — who are both Republicans and Democrats, although the positions are non-partisan — corner. Some have said that not once in nearly 180 years has a challenger to an incumbent Circuit Court judge prevailed. This could be a fun one to watch.

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