Archives for April 2008

From an editorial in today’s Seattle Times:

From the day Seattle owners sold the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma businessmen, we should have known.

Yes, they should have. As should have the editors at the Seattle P-I:

We’ve often faulted political leaders for passivity and lack of creativity about the Sonics. Well, it appears that if the out-of-town owners were going to keep the team here, it would have been only because they got a too-lucrative-to-refuse deal. More than creativity, that’s about cash — oodles of taxpayer cash.

That’s pretty much all the gloating I’m going to do today, except to say “Hey Tom and Erin… read my post, then read the two editorials, and tell me… who’s influencing whom?”

Seriously, it’s 60 degrees at about 1:00am, according to the Seattle Times.

I blame this guy.

Headline at the Times’ website:

Scientists baffled by swarm of quakes off Oregon coast

Duh! It’s Godzilla.

Steve Haver (aka diarist ‘Red No More‘ at Daily Kos) discusses how Pennsylvania police attempted to confiscate his home after police responded to a burglar alarm and found 5 pot plants.

From today’s Seattle Times:

If money is any indication, this year’s race for governor is going to make the 2004 contest look like a low-key affair.

You have no idea.

The article focuses on money, which both Gov. Chris Gregoire and real estate salesman cum motivational speaker Dino Rossi are raising at a record clip — over $7.5 million combined thus far, with some observers predicting a $20 million-plus race.

“This is one of those things that never ceases to amaze me, the amount of money in politics,” [former state Dem Party chair Paul] Berendt said. “Certainly the rematch is a factor here. But it’s not the dominant factor. There’s just more money in politics.”

But money is only part of the reason the 2008 campaign will be a helluva lot different than the last time around. The big difference, in my opinion, will be the lessons learned from 2004, a race in which an overconfident Gregoire allowed Rossi to get away with running as an amiable tabla rasa, on to which voters could project a fanciful image of the Rossi they’d like him to be.

First rule of political campaigning: if your opponent refuses to define himself… define him for him define your opponent. And you can be damn sure that a substantial chunk of Gregoire’s (and her surrogates’) war chest will be spent doing exactly that. Rossi is simply too conservative for WA state, on both social and economic issues, and this time around he’s not going to get away with refusing to talk about issues that don’t poll well for his campaign. There are also character issues regarding Rossi — his dubious business ethics and his documented reputation as a downright mean spirited campaigner — and in 2008, voters are going to be informed of that too.

Since Rossi’s near miss in 2004, David Irons, George Nethercutt and Mike!™ McGavick have all tried to duplicate the Rossi model — a low-key, likable, issue-less run toward the middle — and all with disastrous results. That strategy simply won’t play here anymore… at least not if your Democratic opponent is awake. And I don’t believe even Rossi is willing or able to duplicate the Rossi Strategy in 2008.

Sure, Rossi’s going to attempt to avoid those many issues where he’s clearly out of step with WA voters, but we’ve seen a different Rossi — a meaner, angrier Rossi — on the campaign trail thus far. No doubt he truly believes he was cheated out of the governor’s mansion four years ago (cognitive dissonance is a powerful drug) and thus he’s understandably pissed off. And it shows. He likes to joke that at the start of the last campaign most folks thought that “Dino Rossi” was a brand of wine. Add an “h” after the “w” and you’ve pretty much described Rossi’s 2008 campaign thus far.

The point is, it’s going to be a much nastier campaign from both sides, which in this particular race, I think is a good thing, because it will leave voters much better educated about who the candidates are, and what they stand for, than in 2004. And as little influence as Rossi uber-patron BIAW wants you to believe bloggers like me have, in their heart of hearts they know that a lot has changed since 2004 in the way the media covers political campaigns, and that the emergence of the blogs as media watchdogs has a lot to do with it. Perhaps I give them a little shit, but there isn’t a single political reporter I have met who is not a dedicated professional, and while they may chafe at our criticism (and the tone in which we offer it), as long as it is substantive, well-supported and relevant, it generally doesn’t go unheeded for long. Much of what I do as a blogger is the media equivalent of complaining to the refs, a time honored sports tradition that yields real, if hard to quantify results.

So hold onto your hats. This won’t be the same Rossi. This won’t be the same Gregoire. And this won’t be the same passive media environment in which the 2004 campaign played out into a virtual tie.

The world’s most widely read blogger:

(There are some sixty other media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

To everyone who donated during my fund raiser, thank you. I really appreciate it. I was meaning to post this a week or so ago, but I’ve been so busy.

To everyone who bought me a beer, or pizza, or Indian food, or very nicely bugged people for dough on my behalf- thank you. It means so much.

If you you were meaning to donate but never got around to it, click here. To the folks who donated, again, thank you.

Sometime this weekend I’ll upgrade HA with an all new look and a handful of the new features I’ve been working on.  Just thought you should know.

Other than that, talk amongst yourselves.

Oh man, this lawsuit attempting to force the Sonics to honor their Key Arena lease is gonna be a lot of fun, as city attorneys use the discovery process to reveal the dishonest dealings we all assumed were going on behind the scenes, but our sports-page-hawking editorial boards refused to acknowledge. And it looks like I’m going to get the opportunity for some delicious gloating.

For example, today the Seattle PI reports on recently uncovered emails between Clay Bennett, his fellow Sonics owners, and NBA Commissioner David Stern, that establish once and for all what an unrepentant bald-faced liar Bennett has always been. “I so cherish our relationship,” Bennett breathily wrote Stern on August 17, 2007, after co-owner Aubrey McClendon frankly told Oklahoma City’s The Journal Record that “we didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle.” In what can only be described as a digital blowjob, Bennett described Stern as “just one of my favorite people on earth,” attempting to reassure him:

“I would never breach your trust. As absolutely remarkable as it may seem, Aubrey and I have NEVER discussed moving the Sonics to Oklahoma City, nor have I discussed it with ANY other member of our ownership group. I have been passionately committed to our process in Seattle, and have worked my ass off.”

Uh-huh. Yet only four months earlier, during an April 17 email exchange, Sonics co-owner Tom Ward bluntly asked Bennett if there was “any way to move here for next season or are we doomed to have another lame-duck season in Seattle?”

Bennett’s reply: “I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can. Thanks for hanging with me boys, the game is getting started!”

Ward: “That’s the spirit!! I am willing to help any way I can to watch ball here (in Oklahoma City) next year.”

McClendon: “Me too, thanks Clay!”

Those e-mails came during the one-year grace period supposedly earmarked for good-faith efforts to keep the team in Seattle.

Isn’t legal discovery fun? In fact, just two weeks after purchasing the team, Bennett’s co-owners made their intentions absolutely clear :

Corresponding after one partner had dropped out of the group, apparently after deciding a move to Oklahoma wasn’t certain, Ward told McClendon on Aug. 2, 2006, that Bennett was angered by the defection.

“I don’t think that you and I really want to own a team there either, but we are better partners,” Ward wrote.

Shocking, huh? Well, I assume it is to the grownups on the editorial boards at our two dailies, who repeatedly vouched for Bennett’s character and intentions throughout the entire sham arena process. On February 15, 2007, the PI naively insisted that “Clay Bennett deserves credit for sincerity in his efforts to work out a deal that keeps the team in the Seattle area,” while on May 2, 2007 the wise old folks at the Seattle Times went so far as to chide cynics like me for suggesting otherwise:

There have been whispers and shouts that SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett is only buying time until he can move the teams to his home state of Oklahoma. This is an unfair claim. Bennett has done nothing to suggest that moving the teams is a foregone conclusion.

“Nothing to suggest that Bennett is being insincere?” I responded at the time…

Um… how about seeking $400 million in taxpayer subsidies on a $500 million hoops palace, just weeks after 74-percent of voters rejected $200 million in subsidies on a $220 million Key Arena renovation? If that’s sincere, it’s sincerely stupid.

And it’s not like I’m puffing up my analysis with the benefit of hindsight. Our local media reliably reported Bennett’s pronouncements at face value, refusing to read between the lines while excoriating those of us who did. But I never believed Bennett ever intended to keep the team in Seattle, and the basis for my cynicism seemed obvious:

Even the most casual observer of Washington politics could have told Bennett that his $530 million hoop dream would be D.O.A., so I can’t help but view it as a disingenuous con game intended to fill Key Arena with gullible fans until the lease expires in 2010.

And…

I’ve never believed that Bennett ever seriously wanted to keep the Sonics in the Seattle area, but rather has always intended to move the team back home to Oklahoma City, where he will be welcomed as a conquering hero. In that admittedly cynical scenario the arena proposal must be just believable enough to keep gullible fans (and editors) in their seats until the Key Arena lease runs out in 2010, but outrageous enough to make the deal politically DOA.

And what if I was wrong, and state lawmakers actually caved to Bennett’s unreasonable demands and gave him his taxpayer funded hoops palace? Well, I always believed Bennett and his partners had that angle covered too:

See, if as expected, taxpayers (and the lawmakers representing them) rejected his extravagant proposal, he could claim he made his “good faith effort,” and then pick up and move the team to Oklahoma City, where he’ll be greeted as a local hero. But if we foolishly caved to his demands, well, he still might end up with an Oklahoma City team… just not the Sonics.

The Renton deal would dramatically increase the value of the team, allowing Bennett and his partners to sell out, taking a couple hundred million dollars in profit… money which could defray the cost of buying a smaller market team, like the Hornets, and moving it to Oklahoma City instead. In that scenario, Washington taxpayers would indirectly subsidize professional basketball in Oklahoma. Sweet.

Yeah, I know, it sounds a little too devious. But the fabulously wealthy generally don’t get that way by being artless and uncalculating.

Which brings us back to those emails, where Ward wrote to McClendon about just such an eventuality:

“I assume that I will be ready to sell there and work on a team here if they build a new arena, but we shall see.”

Bennett and his partners never intended to keep the Sonics in Seattle, and never negotiated in good faith; that not only should be obvious by now, it should have been obvious the day they purchased the team. As McClendon bragged to that Oklahoma City paper:

“We started to look around, and at that time the Sonics were going through some ownership challenges in Seattle,” McClendon told the newspaper. “So Clay, very artfully and skillfully, put himself in the middle of those discussions and to the great amazement and surprise to everyone in Seattle, some rednecks from Oklahoma, which we’ve been called, made off with the team.”

They certainly did. And in the process they played our local media for fools.

Over on Slog, Josh Feit reports that the Waterfront Trolley is dead.

[Deputy Mayor Tim] Cies told me tonight that the waterfront trolley idea “no longer fit into the city’s transportation plan.”

He also cited the fact that plans to revamp the viaduct had thrown the waterfront trolley plans into limbo. Also: too expensive.

“It’s not in our plans, and we’re moving ahead,” Ceis says, saying the new priorities were servicing the transportation grid around the viaduct and around light rail through Capitol Hill.

I dunno, just seems kinda silly that we  spent all this money laying down tracks for the SLUT, with City Hall talking ambitious plans to build a half dozen other trolley lines throughout the city, but we’re just not interested in using the tracks we already have.

I get email:

Subject: RACIST ACTIVITY ON UW CAMPUS 4/15/08

Greetings to All,

I am emailing you all to alert you of an event that will take place on the UW-Seattle campus next Tuesday, April 15, 2008 from 10am-2pm. The event is called “Find an Illegal Immigrant Tag” and will be held on the HUB lawn. The UW College Republicans will be tabling from 10:00am to 2:00pm and the game itself will be held at 12:20. According to a message from the CR president, the event is intended to send a a “clear statement that we need to get serious and crack down on illegal immigration and secure our borders.”

I am inviting you all to attend this event and TAKE A STAND AGAINST anti-immigrant messaging on campus [and everywhere]. We all agree that the immigration system is broken and is in need of reform. However, fair and just immigration reform does not entail the scapegoating of immigrants and/or hateful actions–both of which thwart efforts to create open discussions on real solutions to immigration. Instead of engaging in divisive politics/ conversations, we should be uniting to promote justice, acceptance, and opportunity.

Oh, College Republicans! When will they ever learn?

As you know, I’ve been immersed in code recently, developing a new version of HA for your reading and poo-flinging pleasure. I’ve started to upload some of the new plugins and templates for testing, and while I had hoped that none of it would go live before I flipped the switch, it seems that some of my plug-ins have a mind of their own. For example, it looks like the new visual rich text comment editor is now live. So have fun with it, and let me know if there are any problems.

Larry Grant, who ran a strong Democratic campaign in 2006 in Idaho’s blood red 1st Congressional District, has withdrawn from the 2008 contest, and endorsed fellow Dem, Walt Minnick:

“My campaign has never been about my personal ambition. I have spent the last three years on the campaign trail doing my very best to build the Idaho Democratic Party from the ground up. I’m proud of what I and my campaign team have achieved.

“There isn’t ten cents worth of difference between my view of the world and Walt Minnick’s. That’s why we need to be working together to beat Bill Sali, not spending valuable time and resources in a contentious primary.”

Word is that Grant’s decision was all about the money. Minnick had raised an impressive $410,000 by the end of 2007 compared to Grant’s paltry $65,000, and the disparity is expected to dramatically worsen when first quarter results are reported next week. But you gotta admire Grant’s willingness to put the interests of the Party and the nation ahead of personal ambition. (Hmm… I wonder when that’s going to happen in the Dems’ presidential race?)

I’m sitting in the Ruth Fisher room at Union Station, which houses Sound Transit. If I’ve learned anything from observing local government, it’s that nothing attracts cranks and looneybirds like these two words:

“Public Comment”

I won’t name names, but Sound Transit has it’s own nuts.