From Loose Lips....

....this from the Sun Star today:

Big-box, big oops

Councilman and supervisor candidate Jim Sanders supports the Wal-Mart distribution center!

Or maybe not.

Or ... it's just too soon to say.

Merced's other newspaper ran a profile about Sanders last week that said he's an advocate of bringing big-box stores and the proposed distribution center to Merced. (Remember his campaign is about jobs, and your Cracker Jack decoder ring will tell you what that means.)

The city would have little to gain by turning a frowny face to the smiling retailer, Sanders told the paper.

He set the record straight in the latest edition by explaining that the center is something he could support but doesn't want his comments to cloud his judgment on the project because all is not known about it.

After all, that nagging little environment impact report -- which will either spell out Merced's ecological ruin or merely note that a few more residents might develop a cough -- hasn't yet come out.

Once it's released and hits the best-seller list, the project will go before the Merced City Council for a vote. It's a meeting that could challenge the Riverside Motorsports Park vote for the controversy record. Remember that "project"?

Anti-Wal-Mart activists seized on Sanders' endorsement, sending a mass e-mail about the story. "It doesn't matter what Merced residents say, or how badly we'll be impacted by Wal-Mart's high-polluting distribution center -- his door is closed, his mind is made up," it reads.

The e-mail goes on to note his opponent, Hub Walsh, has plans to improve air quality.

Though supervisors won't vote on the distribution center, he has stayed out of the fray, saying it's too early to support or oppose the project. It's at least tacit support of Walsh for supervisor.

But let's pull out our political whiteboard. Sanders sounds as if he's bought into the project, and he's trying to move from the City Council to the Board of Supervisors.

So ... you'd think the Stop Wal-Mart team would support his campaign and lobby for Walsh to fill his spot on the council.