At the Harvey Milk Annual Christmas party, Mark Leno confirmed the obvious-he is running for State Senate against Carole Migden.

Migden is in her first term in the State Senate. Midgen serves the 3rd District of the California Senate, which includes the eastern half of San Francisco, all of Marin County and portions of Sonoma. It is seen as one of the more liberal senate districts in the state. Her current term is up in 2008. She has served in the California Assembly (where she was succeeded by Leno), the Board of Supervisors and on the Board of Equalization. She also served as president of the Harvey Milk Club in the 1980’s.

Leno is termed out of the Assembly at the end of 2008. He has also served on the Board of Supervisors. Leno has been active in the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club. His legislation has ranged on topic such as access to quality health care, legalizing same-sex marriage, and renewable energy. Leno has already endorsed Tom Ammiano as his choice for successor in the Assembly. Leno is noted as a genial politician who is courteous to even those that he does not agree with.

John Edwards announced that he is running for President. Prior to entering politics, he was a successful trial lawyer. He then served in the U.S. Senate for North Carolina for one term. He ran as the vice president candidate on the Democratic ticket in 2004. Kerry ran as a president candidate in 2004 and then joined forces with John Edwards as the Democrats’ vice president candidate. After losing the presidential campaign to Bush/Cheney, Edwards formed the One America Committee and was appointed director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. Edwards is also now a consultant to an investment bank in New York.

Dennis Kucinich also announced that he is running for President. A former mayor of Cleveland, former member of the Ohio Senate and U.S. Congressional member, Kucinich’s campaign called the withdrawal of American troops of Iraq with a replacement of U.N. peacekeepers. He also advocated in his 2004 presidential bid for legalizing same-sex marriage and abolishing the death penalty. But he didn’t win any of the 2004 primaries.