Archives for November 2005

As reported in today’s Seattle P-I, the Democrats are challenging the bogus voter registration challenge-cum-intimidation scheme the Republicans trod out just days before last Tuesday’s election.

Democratic lawyer David McDonald said Monday state law requires the challenger to supply the actual address at which the challenged voter resides — something Sotelo did not do.

“The law is pretty clear,” he said, adding that the challenges should be dismissed out of hand.

I’ve obtained a PDF of McDonald’s letter to Dean Logan, but the gist of his legal argument is a fairly simple one. RCW 29A.08.830 clearly states that “the person filing the challenge must furnish the address at which the challenged voter actually resides.” If that’s not clear enough, the Voter Registration Challenge Form, as defined by WAC 434-324-115 restates that requirement twice:

If the challenge is based on residence, RCW 29A.08.830 requires the challenger to provide the address at which the challenged voter actually resides.

Yet the Republicans made absolutely no effort to verify the challenged voters’ actual residences. Instead, they just creatively enhanced the Challenge Form, adding on a new check box:

Pretty sneaky, huh? Too lazy and irresponsible to do the work necessary to provide the voter’s actual address, as required by law, the Republicans simply concocted a new category for challenging a voter’s registration, and tacked it onto the end of the form. Go check out WAC 434-324-115… there is no sixth check box! Sotelo & Company made it up!

I checked with King County Records & Elections; the form the KC GOP used was not the standard form provided by the state or the county. Thus there can be absolutely no possible way to chalk this up to human error or an innocent misreading of the law. Knowing that they had not done due diligence, and had not met the requirements of the voter registration challenge provisions, the Republicans intentionally modified the challenge form to suit their needs.

Thus Lori Sotelo’s affidavits were not only perjurious… they bordered on fraud.

Why would the Republicans file nearly 2000 bogus voter registration challenges when they knew they would likely not hold up in court? I can think of only two reasons: a) this was part of a campaign of voter suppression and intimidation the GOP has been pursuing nationwide, and b) it was a desperate, last minute PR stunt… the death-cry of their yearlong campaign to discredit KCRE, and by association, Ron Sims and the Democrats.

If it was merely the latter, it explosively backfired. Due to the GOP’s unwillingness to do the work required by law, hundreds of voters were wrongly challenged, either through dumbfuck errors (like apartment buildings Sotelo claimed not to exist) or through a cynical misrepresentation of state law. Many of the challenged voters live in house boats or in commercial buildings… “nontraditional” addresses WAC 434-208-100 clearly contemplates:

No person registering to vote, who meets all the qualifications of a registered voter in the state of Washington, shall be disqualified because of a nontraditional physical address being used as a residence address. Nontraditional addresses may include shelters, parks or other identifiable locations which the voter deems to be his/her residence. Voters using such an address will be registered and precincted based on the location provided.

Just because an address appears to be nonresidential does not mean it is an invalid registration address. That is why the law requires the challenger to provide evidence of the voter’s actual address.

Ironically, McDonald concludes his letter by citing the precedent set by Judge Bridges in the GOP’s failed contest lawsuit.

As a result of the recent close Gubernatorial election, this State has recently undergone extensive litigation concerning the meaning of its election laws. One of the clearest judicial results in that exercise was the decision by Judge Bridges that voters could not be stripped of their votes (or registrations) based on just such assumptions. […]

Those principles were not enshrined by the Legislature and recognized by Judge Bridges simply to make it difficult to challenge elections or voter registrations. It shouldn’t be easy for a private party to challenge a voter’s registration and our state’s law plainly imposes specific and high standards. A challenge which fails to include essential, statutorily-required elements is patently insufficient to meet those standards.

In relentlessly attacking KCRE, the Republicans hope to add weight to the myth they’ve perpetuated, that Democrats somehow “stole” the 2004 gubernatorial election. But there’s a reason why they cannot find a single auditor to support their allegations that KCRE is rife with fraud, corruption and incompetence… why a Republican Secretary of State and a Republican County Prosecutor have dismissed their charges while Republican federal prosecutors refuse to investigate… and why a cherry-picked, elected judge in a Republican county dismissed their case with prejudice. It has no merit!

The Republicans hope that if they puff out a thick enough smokescreen, voters will eventually see fire. But I think voters are smarter than that, for rather than discrediting KCRE, stupid, cynical stunts like this one end up discrediting the accusers.

What the GOP has proven here is not that there are thousands of illegal registrations, or that KCRE refuses to do its job, but that GOP leaders are more than willing to disenfranchise innocent voters for the sake of a cheap, publicity stunt…. or worse. Every “reform” the Republicans champion is intended to suppress the vote, and whether you believe this is based on a cynical electoral strategy or a sincere philosophical difference, the result is the same. Should the Republicans have their way, thousands of legal, WA voters would be purged from the roles, while tens of thousands more would have their ballots discarded as unreadable by the vote counting machines.

Our state elections laws strike a delicate balance between preserving the integrity of the voter rolls, and protecting the franchise of eligible voters. Given the opportunity, the GOP would clearly tip this balance steeply in the wrong the direction.

UPDATE:
A week after the election, Sotelo today rescinded 12 more challenges.

I’ll be joining Lynn of Evergreen Politics and Andrew of Northwest Progressive Institute in a panel discussion on blogging at this evening’s meeting of the 43rd District Democrats. The meeting starts at 7:30pm, University Baptist Church, 4554 12th Ave. NE. The discussion will be moderated by N in Seattle; more details on his blog, Peace Tree Farm.

Afterwards, a bunch of us plan on heading over to the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally, which meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. We’ll be a little late at DL, but all the more thirsty.

All are welcome at both events, so please join me for a fascinating discussion on the growing influence of the progressive blogosphere, followed by some more post-election gloating and an icy-cold pint of Manny’s Pale Ale.

I was just looking at my stats and noticed that sometime earlier today, HA recorded it’s one millionth page view since I started tracking with Site Meter back in September, 2004.

I’m not sure if this is any kind of a meaningful milestone, but I just thought I’d take the opportunity to say to all my readers out there, who for some reason keep coming back… um… thanks.

Last week, in retaliation for Sen. Maria Cantwell’s proposed amendment to remove ANWR drilling from the Senate budget bill (it barely failed), Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens proposed lifting the 30-year old Magnuson Amendment that limits supertanker traffic in the Puget Sound. Sen. Cantwell responded with a clearly worded letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist:

Mr. Majority Leader, this is a state specific issue, and I have heard loud and clear from my constituents that they strongly oppose any efforts to overturn or erode this critical protection. Therefore, if any attempt is made to move forward on S.1977, I will use every procedural option granted to me as a United States Senator to stop this unfortunate and misguided legislation from becoming law.

“Every procedural option”… that means filibuster.

It’s not clear exactly how this will play out, through it’s hard to see Stevens pushing though such an unpopular amendment, especially at this time of oil industry profiteering. Still, Sen. Cantwell is urging you to sign a petition, demanding that Sen. Stevens drop his amendment.

While you’re at it, remind Sen. Stevens that the GOP won’t hold the Senate forever, and what goes around, comes around.

I’ve been struck down by that nasty cold that’s going around, and so last night the dog and I crawled into bed early and flipped on the TV, just in time to catch images of the White House being torn apart by a massive tornado.

There wasn’t much useful to learn from “Category 7: the End of the World”, other than the obvious fact that it was a really crappy movie. But since Hollywood is in the business of wish fulfillment, I did find two of the screenwriter’s plot devices rather interesting: a) in the event of a major catastrophe, what we need is not only a woman FEMA director, but a really hot one… and b) it was a happy ending, because although the White House was totally destroyed, sucking evil staffers high into the funnel cloud, the Capitol Building was left totally unscathed.

I appreciate the anti-Bush sentiment, but I’m guessing that Congress won’t fare so well during the political storm that strikes next November.

Of course, “2006 is a long way off” and “a lot can happen in a year” and “off year elections are not reliable harbingers of the future” and all those other precious pearls of political wisdom… but if things don’t get much better for the Bush administration between now and then, they can’t help but get a helluva lot worse.

Here in Washington state, the anti-Bush backlash already played a role in the 2005 election, with one of the most effective direct mail pieces in the high-profile King County executive race featuring the relatively undefined Republican challenger, David Irons, standing on a street corner sporting a crooked smile and a Bush-Cheney placard. Expect to see similar images in races around the nation next year.

No question, this was a terrible election for WA Republicans, up and down the ballot, losing not only the coveted KC executive race, but also crucial seats on several county councils. And of course, the biggest issue in the 2005 election was the GOP-endorsed Initiative 912, which failed by over seven points… an astonishing margin for an anti-tax initiative. Even the GOP cheerleaders on the right wing blogs were reduced to feebly touting Republican victories in non-partisan races.

A reliable harbinger for 2006? Maybe not. But the Democrats’ newfound confidence certainly bodes well.

Out East in the 5th Congressional District, Republican first-termer Rep. Cathy McMorris could face a tough challenge from Okanogan County rancher and former state agriculture director Peter Goldmark. Pundits have this labeled a safe Republican seat, but this is the district former Speaker Tom Foley held for many years, and Spokane, its population center, is only slightly tinged red. According to Progressive Punch, McMorris ranks as one of the most conservative members of the House… having voted with the discredited leadership nearly 97.5 percent of the time. McMorris isn’t just out of step with the nation, she’s out of step with her own constituency.

Under the right circumstances, with the right candidate, this is a winnable seat for Democrats… but even just making it competitive would be a huge strategic victory. If Republicans are forced to spend resources defending “safe” seats like McMorris’s WA-5, imagine the problems they’ll face in WA-8, where fellow first-termer Dave Reichert is already struggling to keep his grasp on a largely suburban district that has been steadily trending blue for years.

Yeah, I know, I know… the GOP holds a huge numerical advantage in the Senate, and Congressional redistricting has made it nearly impossible for huge swings in the House. Thus it will take a nearly perfect political storm for Democrats to seize control.

But Republicans are blind if they don’t see the storm clouds on the horizon.

[Cross-posted at Daily Kos]

Way back in July, days after the signature deadline, I predicted that “I-912 will fail, if the media does its job.”

I was disappointed, though not entirely surprised, to see the anti-roads initiative, I-912, turn in 420,000 signatures on Friday. Barring historically massive signature fraud the measure will surely qualify for the November ballot. But I will not join the gloom-and-doom coming from some opponents, for its passage is no sure thing, and there is an attainable strategy towards defeating I-912: the media must simply do its job.

I don’t mean that it is the media’s job to defeat I-912… I mean that their job is telling voters the truth about what the transportation package means to their local communities. It will take a lot of work and a lot of research, but it’s their responsibility as journalists. And if voters across the state understand exactly what their communities will lose if the transportation package is repealed, then I-912 stands a reasonable chance of being defeated.

Well… I-912 did fail, and much of the credit should go to my friends in the MSM, whose coverage was somewhat less thorough than I had hoped for, but considerably more than I had expected. While reporters generally eschewed the emotional angle I had urged, they also avoided relying on the usual political horse race schtick, and in many cases did an admirable job of laying out the facts behind the gas tax increase and what it paid for. Meanwhile, editorial boards throughout the state nearly unanimously opposed the initiative, and were not shy about repeating themselves during the months and weeks leading up to the election.

But no editorial board was more relentless than that of the Seattle P-I, who embraced a Hearst-like crusade against the initiative, publishing daily “no on I-912” editorials during the final two weeks of the campaign. While it can be difficult to measure the effect of editorial endorsements, there can be no question that the P-I had an impact in King County, where the initiative failed by a stunning 33 percent margin.

The P-I should be unabashedly proud of their efforts, but the crusade seemed to have sparked a little crisis of conscience for editorial page editor Mark Trahant, who asks today, “which is a higher journalism value, fairness or truth?”

I start with fairness as a given; it’s deeply embedded in my character. I want to play fair. I often seek dissent or give weight to opinions that challenge what we’ve written in an editorial. In general, the voice of dissent helps me understand my own arguments.

But is that always the right approach — especially when it comes to opinion?

My thinking evolved during this election. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board decided to crusade against I-912. We wrote daily “no on I-912” editorials beginning Oct. 23, outlining why we thought the measure was a terrible idea. We tried to keep our readers’ attention focused on this issue.

We did print letters from readers who disagreed with us and printed a couple of opposing views on the Op-Ed pages. But not many. The fact is we were not, strictly, fair. We had an opinion — a strong one at that — that was repeated daily, and countered by faint balance.

I think we did the right thing. It’s also worth remembering that when we started the daily “no,” we thought — at least most of us — that it was a done deal. We had no doubt that the supporters were getting their message out to the public. In fact, we expected voters to pass I-912 easily.

In fact, voters defeated I-912 easily, and part of the reason why is that the P-I did indeed do the right thing.

Trahant goes on to discuss global warming, and the way overwhelming scientific consensus is often overwhelmed in an MSM, that in the interest of fairness and balance, employs a kind of he-said/she-said methodology that tends to give equal weight to dissent, no matter how marginal.

The story becomes one of conflict. The scientists said this, while the critics said that. The conflict overwhelms the research, reducing it to a sentence or two, reported without context.

Perhaps fairness (or what passes for fairness) wins. But what about the truth?

Too often the truth is lost to a tried and true PR strategy that exploits the MSM’s lazy love affair with balance, to create the impression of debate where none exists. This is the strategy the tobacco industry followed for decades, to absurd extremes, producing fake science to refute the obvious dangers of smoking. And this is exactly the strategy that The Discovery Institute has brilliantly executed in their astoundingly successful efforts to use theocratic quackery like “intelligent design” to not only publicly challenge the overwhelming scientific consensus supporting evolution, but as a wedge to undermine the scientific method itself.

It is the MSM’s feigned and futile “objectivity” that is often it’s greatest weakness. It is a weakness that sometimes gives credence to outright lies, in a misguided effort to equally present all sides of an issue. But some sides are simply more credible than others.

Trahant concludes that “the highest journalism value must be truth,” a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly concur, but without the same degree of self-reflection… for while I make every effort to be truthful, I have never once claimed to be either fare or balanced.

That of course, is the advantage us bloggers have over traditional journalists. I wear my bias on my sleeve, present the facts as I see them, cite my sources, and then leave it to the reader to make up his or her mind. There is a context to everything I write on HA… that of an aggressively liberal blogger with a distinct political agenda. Those who whine in my comment threads about my lack of objectivity or my refusal to cover Democratic foibles with the same vigor that I cover those of Republicans… are pissing into the wind. It’s not my job to provide balanced news coverage. Indeed, the only balance you should ever expect from me is that with which I countervail my counterparts on the right.

As to Trahant and the rest of the “real” journalists out there, admittedly, they’ve got a much tougher job. And many of them deserve some kudos for performing it so well during their coverage of I-912.

One of the myths put forth by I-912 proponents was that the gas tax did not include enough money to finish proposed mega-projects… that state taxpayers would eventually be asked to foot the rest of the bill. Well, in the case of the Alaska Way Viaduct, that’s simply not true.

The new gas tax, validated by voters this week, commits $2 billion to the viaduct’s replacement. The federal government says it will contribute another $250 million. With that money, plus other state funding already committed, the state said it has enough money to build a new viaduct.

The cost of replacing the crumbling viaduct with a similar structure is estimated at $2.5 to $3 billion. The tunnel alternative preferred by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels would cost an additional $1 billion, none of which will come from the state. Yesterday, the Port of Seattle agreed to budget $200 million towards replacing the viaduct and the waterfront’s aging seawall with a tunnel, taking a sizable bite out of the billion dollar difference. But where will the rest of this money come from?

Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis is confident the city can come up with the extra money, and said it includes up to $300 million from city utilities for the relocation of utility lines, up to $200 million from the city’s own transportation fund, up to $250 million from the Army Corps of Engineers for replacing the seawall, and money from a regional tax package yet to be placed on the ballot.

With all those “up to” caveats, I’m guessing those numbers are optimistic. But an unrelated transportation news story suggests one overlooked source of funding.

Construction of a new South Lake Union streetcar line is expected to start in the spring, now that the vast majority of area property owners have agreed to pay $25.7 million

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Whatever.

Danny Westneat’s got it exactly right in talking about British Columbia’s continued success at building mass transit, versus our Sisyphean struggles:

In the past decade, British Columbians have voted directly on transit issues exactly zero times.

Meanwhile, we here in Puget Sound have voted on transportation issues 12 times. Twice on light rail, five times on monorail, twice on gas taxes and three times on Tim Eyman transportation initiatives.

Anyone else sick of all this voting?

I know I am. And judging from the decisive defeat of I-912 (yes… 7 points is decisive) coming from an electorate with a history of supporting anti-tax measures, it looks like a lot of other people are getting sick of all this voting too.

WA’s highest paid politician, Tim Eyman, promises to come back next year with yet another $30 car tabs initiative, which like I-776 before it, is mostly intended to undermine light rail. I suppose there might be a place for direct democracy, but constantly subjecting complex transportation projects to vote after vote — even while under construction — is a surefire recipe for gridlock, both political and otherwise.

So I’m with Danny:

How about we butt out now and see if government can make work what we’ve got?

Yes watchdog ’em, audit ’em, make ’em do it right.

But enough with the people power. It may make us the envy of the world, but when it comes to transportation, we’re only the laughingstock of Canada.

Hmm. After Dino Rossi’s lawyers had their asses kicked in a Wenatchie courtroom, I seem to remember the mouth-breathers in my comment threads mentioning something about political payback… a voter revolt that would sweep us evil, election-stealing Democrats from power.

So… how’s that revenge thing going for you, guys?

Ron Sims 14-point victory would suggest, not so well… but then, given the “hard core leftist base in Seattle,” I suppose that’s not really a fair measure, is it? So, since Initiative 912’s backers aggressively urged voters to send a message to “Queen Christine”, enthusiastically adopting Rossi as their mascot, I thought it’d be interesting to do a little (u)SP-like comparison.

The following table shows results from the 12 counties in which Rossi drew his strongest support, and compares the percentage of the vote Rossi received in 2004, with the percentage of the vote I-912 received in 2005.

County		Rossi		I-912
Adams		68%		61%
Benton		68%		58%
Grant		68%		61%
Franklin		67%		63%
Columbia		66%		59%
Lewis		65%		62%
Lincoln		65%		64%
Garfield		65%		59%
Douglas		65%		58%
Chelan		64%		56%
Yakima		64%		55%
Walla Walla		63%		48%

All but Lewis County are located in Eastern Washington, and in each county, I-912 drew less support than Rossi… sometimes substantially less. Walla Walla actually fell into the No camp, giving the initiative 15 points less support than it gave Rossi.

So what does this say about voter backlash in Eastern Washington? There wasn’t any.

Even as the returns started coming in early Tuesday night, and the numbers still looked close, I heard a Republican consultant on KUOW saying that I-912’s passage would be a huge blow to Gov. Gregoire, crippling her ability to lead the Legislature. So given that level of expectation, and given the clarity in which the “send a message” message was delivered statewide, the relative lack of support for I-912, even in the most Republican leaning counties, sends a message of it’s own: the 2004 election is finally over.

Christine Gregoire is governor, and her reelection prospects in 2008 will be based mostly on how well she governs. And the fact that she could lead both a majority of the Legislature, and a majority of the people, to support an inherently unpopular gas tax increase, is a pretty damn good start.

You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between

You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene

That what they’re singing over at (un)Sound Politics, where the unsound folk are tinkering with their reality distortion field in a desperate attempt to spin the GOP’s embarrassing performance in Tuesday’s election into something, um… less embarrassing.

Timothy Goddard claims he found a pony in the shitpile, pointing to the Republican wins on the Snohomish County Charter Review Commission:

Even so, the GOP-endorsed candidates did quite well, especially when compared to the Democrat-endorsed ones. Six Republican-endorsed candidates are taking commissioner spots, compared to only three Democrat-endorsed ones. … This gives Republicans 40% of the commission, to 20% Democrats and 40% people not endorsed by either party. Not too shabby.

Uh-huh.

Meanwhile, Matt Rosenberg sees good omens in the election of Jim Nobles, “an out-of-the closet Republican” to the now-defunct Seattle Popular Monorail Board, and the election of “independent and Dino Rossi supporter Jack Creighton” and “former City of Seattle Treasurer and fiscal conservative Lloyd Hara” to the Port of Seattle Commission.

Um, Matt… Tim… these are all nonpartisan offices. Hmm. I wonder why the races Republicans do best in are those in which the voters don’t get to see the candidates’ party affiliation?

Perhaps the answer lies in our good friend Stefan’s own cockeyed optimism. He attempts to put Ron Sims 14 point victory “in context”, producing a table of King County election results, and concluding that…

Only a handful of Democrats have ever done worse than Sims, and an even smaller handful of Republicans have ever done better than Irons.

So… um… I guess this was a moral victory for David Irons and the Republicans, huh? I’m sure that should provide them comfort during the next four years of the Sims administration. I for one, am comforted by the fact that Republicans like Stefan think it’s a victory when their candidate polls over 40 percent.

But if you really want to know why Republicans do so sucky in King County, you need to read further. According to Stefan:

The only Republican who has actually even won King County in recent years is Norman Maleng. And partisan label aside, Maleng is such a reliable water boy for the Democrat-dominated machine that the Ds didn’t even bother to oppose him the last time he ran.

Yes, the Republicans should have been able to do better this year. A constructive post mortem to propose ideas for improving the game should commence. But given the hard core leftist base in Seattle, the most realistic options for Republicans who care about county government —

a) join the machine ala Maleng (and why bother, unless all you aspire to is a job in county government)
b) resign oneself to permanent minority status
c) work to divide King County into a Seattle County and a suburban/rural county.

That’s right, the only Republican Stefan bothers dissing is the only one during the last 12 years to garner more than fifty percent of the countywide vote… Norm Maleng. And you wonder why the majority of KC voters think the GOP is out of touch with their values?

Of course there is another option one might add to Stefan’s “constructive post mortem” and that might be to run candidates who listen to voters and who respond to their needs and concerns. But nah… that would involve a introspection, and that’s a way too scary place for somebody like Stefan to go.

Better just accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative….

I’ll be on TV this evening taking your questions. Well… public access cable, anyway.

Tune in to Moral Politics with Eric Oemig, at 6:00 PM tonight, on ScanTV (cable channel 77 or 29 in most of King County, internet stream available), for a live call-in show. Eric and I will be discussing the growing influence of the blogosphere.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… I’m guessing that the day Progressive Majority set up shop in Washington state will stand out as one of the most significant recent developments in state and local politics.

PM focuses on the hard work of recruiting, training and supporting progressive candidates for “down ballot” races, building a farm team of local elected officials from which future political all-stars will rise. And their results in Tuesday’s election were truly impressive:

18 of 27 candidates won election (67%)

2 races are still too close to call

5 of 9 women won (56%)

5 of 7 people of color won (71%)

2 of 3 union members won (66%)

7 of 11 first time candidates won (64%)

Two of PM’s highest profile victories were that of Dave Somers and Steve Stuart, both of whom the BIAW spent big money to defeat. Stuart’s win keeps control of the Clark County Commission in the hands of Democrats, and was one of PM’s biggest priorities. And Somers huge upset win over incumbent Jeff Sax gives the Democrats control over the Snohomish County Council.

A big thanks to Dean Nielsen, Edie Giliss and everybody else at PM for a job well done. And a special congratulations to PM candidate Marko Liias, whose Mukilteo City Council victory makes him the first graduate of my class at Camp Wellstone to win his first race for office. (At least I think. I’m terrible with names, so let me know if I missed somebody.)

What do Judy Miller and Stefan Sharkansky have in common? They’ve both been booted from their respective papers.

(I’m pretty sure I’m the first to compare The New York Times and The Stranger in anything but post-consumer fiber content.)

You know it was a bad night for the Republicans when the best spin they could muster over on (un)Sound Politics was this feeble flip of the political dreidle from the site’s soundest contributor, Matt Rosenberg:

A bit of good news tonight… For the first time in quite a while, an out-of-the closet Republican has been elected in a Seattle-wide contest, albeit a non-partisan race.

Um… yeah… elected to a seat on a board that Seattlites also voted to dissolve. That’s some consolation prize Matt.

But of course, the blow was even worse than the righties are letting on, for they didn’t just lose a couple of high profile initiatives and a coveted county executive race… they lost their entire campaign strategy for 2006 and beyond. Initiative 912 was cleverly launched last May as the election contest controversy came to a head, and from day one it was always pitched as an opportunity to send a message to “Queen Christine” and the Democrats who they accuse of stealing last year’s excruciatingly close gubernatorial election.

Likewise, the focus of the Republicans’ campaign against Ron Sims was always the so-called “mess” in King County Records & Elections, with our good friend Stefan, the Pied Piper of GOP paranoids, focusing his relentless efforts on proving a conspiracy theory that seems to flow from the premise that Republicans would actually dominate state and county politics if not for the widespread fraud and corruption in KCRE.

Way back during the election contest trial, during a debate with Stefan on the John Carlson Show, I argued that the GOP’s lawsuit had long since ceased to be about who really won the 2004 election, that it was now focused mainly on defeating Sims in 2005. And this strategy was never clearer than in Stefan’s own election-day call to action:

The choice between David Irons and Ron Sims could not be more clear. A vote for Irons is a vote for integrity and accountability. A vote for Sims is a vote for corruption, fraudulent elections, ridiculous boondoggles and a culture of secrecy and retaliation. … If you want more of Dean Logan and his fraud, dishonesty, disregard for the law and refusal to take responsibility for his work, then by all means vote for Ron Sims. If you’re as sick and tired of reading about Dean Logan as I am sick and tired of writing about him and you want to restore clean elections, then vote for David Irons.

I’m not sure who followed whose lead, but Stefan, Carlson, Kirby Wilbur, Chris Vance and the rest of the GOP leadership seemed to share the same delusion… they confused their own anger and disappointment over Dino Rossi’s loss with that of rank and file voters. How else to explain the arrogant overreaching blunder of the GOP’s fraudulent voter challenge stunt just days before the election?

The framing was clear. An Irons victory would be payback for Gregoire’s disputed win last November, and I-912 was always about sending a bold message that would weaken her administration, paving the way towards big Republican wins in 2006 and beyond.

Well… voters did send a message last night, and it wasn’t exactly the message the R’s had intended: policy trumps politics. In reelecting Sims by a margin that anywhere else in our fractured political terrain would be considered a crushing landslide, King County voters resoundingly rejected the GOP’s year-long smear campaign. And in refusing I-912’s tax cut — not in a squeaker, but by a surprisingly comfortable spread — voters sent a clear message to both the governor and Democratic and Republican legislators alike, that they will not punish elected officials for governing responsibly, even if it means enduring a little financial pain.

It’s hard to blame Irons and the KC GOP for adopting the kind of “anybody but Sims” strategy they ran; what else could they do with such a deeply flawed, totally unqualified candidate running against an experienced, competent and likable incumbent? But John and Kirby should be kicking themselves for jumping the gun on a long term political strategy that has clearly backfired.

Back in May, Kirby told me that one of his main reasons for sponsoring I-912 was so that we could have a public debate over transportation issues… a debate that he felt the Legislature had short circuited. Well, thanks to I-912, we’ve had that debate, and Kirby and his cohorts have lost. The KVI crowd had attempted to wield an incipient gas tax revolt over the heads of elected officials, but their election-contest-forged Sword of Damocles has proven to be little more than a rubber dagger. On this issue at least, voters have given their stamp of approval to Olympia, and rather than weakening Gregoire, I-912 has only enhanced her stature as a leader who is willing and able to take controversial positions on tough issues… and come out on top.

I-912, born out of the ratings spike that accompanied the election contest trial, was intended to be a continuation of the GOP’s relentless propaganda campaign to undermine Gov. Gregoire’s legitimacy, and yet another step down the road towards Rossi’s eventual succession. If the initiative had passed, there is no doubt it would have been politically damaging, but its failure not only leaves Gregoire one of last night’s biggest winners, it leaves Rossi one of its biggest losers… not just by default, but by his total unwillingness to step out in front on the most contentious issue on the state ballot.

As one political wag put it, “when Rossi was asked to lead, he ran away,” whereas Gregoire personally championed the transportation package from the day she brokered the bill out of legislative deadlock, to the moment the last ballot was cast. Gregoire spent her political capital and was rewarded handsomely, whereas Rossi refused to even speak his mind.

Last night was a huge win for both Sims and Gregoire, the two former primary rivals having their political fortunes oddly intertwined in yet another election. So it was especially gratifying to watch the two, side-by-side before the cameras, jointly proclaiming victory.

The coming year promises more bruising campaigns, over land use restrictions, control of the Legislature, Sen. Maria Cantwell’s re-election and other races… and everything we saw last night suggests that Matt, Stefan and their unsound comrades will have at least as much trouble spinning next year’s election night as they did this year’s.