The Free Press runs a q&a with Ward Connerly today.

One of my favorite excerpts
This is somewhat of a personal question. You are obviously a sincere person and have a lot of integrity. A lot of the people that are following you in this are sincere and well-intentioned, too. But there are probably a lot of them that really cannot be regarded as friends of black folks. They have sort of taken the banner of civil rights and equal rights, but certainly are not people who would have been marching in the '60s for anybody else. And a few of them probably are straight-up racists. How you do feel about making alliances with people like that?

I appreciate that and respect the question. I'm not making alliances with them. We are not seeking their endorsement. It's a free country, however. If they want to support us, then, although some of the things they may have done and may still continue to do in their conduct -- even a broken clock can be wrong twice a day. We're not asking them to support us. We are saying, this is what we believe in. And we can't control those who happen to attach to our views. It might make us uncomfortable politically. But, you know, just because (Unabomber) Ted Kaczynski believed in environmental protection doesn't mean that every environmentalist is somebody like Ted Kaczynski. That's just part of the politics of it.

And on the other side, there are people who oppose what we are doing, who wrap themselves in the swaddling clothes of equality, that are not good people. They are mean-spirited. They pursue their course by any means necessary. These are not good people, some of them. So, each side has its burdens to bear with respect to those that align themselves with our respective viewpoints
Hey Ward... the saying is even a broken clock is RIGHT two times a day.

Another excerpt:
I guess the question we should have asked at the beginning of this is, is there any construct in which you where race matters? Does race exist? Is it real in your mind?

A friend of mine once said, "Ward, there is your opinion, there is mine, there is perception and there is reality." And I think the perception is that race is real. We sort of think that there are these five races and we can go around this table and we could put you in that one, we could put you in this one. I don't think it is real. I think we come in different textures, different colors, from different parts of the globe. But we are one, extended human family that we have arbitrarily divided into these basic food groups and that was the original sin almost in this country with regard to race.
My response- the Thomas dictum, "If people define situations as real they are real in their consequences" The Q&A is long, but well worth the read. Hear it from the horse's mouth!

Here's an article from the Daily that outlines the ballot clash. Here is a piece from Ann Arbor on the move to block the petition legally. And a piece in the Detroit News that I must have missed on BAMN and their tactics. For alternative perspectives on BAMN and DAAP, it's U of M political wing, check out this site.