Archives for August 2008

It would have felt good to see Darcy Burner come out of yesterday’s primary with a modest victory.  Good, but not especially comfortable considering the low turnout, partial results and unfathomable dynamics of our new top-two primary.  But at what will likely be less than a three-point deficit to Dave Reichert once all the votes are counted, I’m not feeling especially uncomfortable either.

On the obvious down side, Reichert ended up on top, and by a similar margin as his 2006 general election victory.  But on the up side, Reichert was held significantly below 50 percent… not a great place to be for a two-term incumbent.  Indeed, according to a memo distributed today by Burner pollster Celinda Lake, Reichert’s demonstrated lack of support should be “sobering news” for the incumbent:

[D]espite his turnout advantages, the incumbent has been held under 50 percent of the primary vote, and the combined Democratic vote is greater than the Republican vote. This is sobering news for Reichert. The top two system, which allows for voters to split tickets on the primary ballot, most closely resembles the blanket primary system that prevailed in Washington State prior to 2003. Our research indicates that in the 94 congressional races that took place under a blanket primary between 1982 and 2002, the incumbent failed to register 50 percent of the primary tally in 10 of those contests. In seven of those contests, the challenger went on to victory in November…

Prior results do not guarantee future performance and all that, but it’s hardly a bleak situation for Darcy, who finds herself in a significantly stronger position than she was in at this stage of the 2006 race.  Heading toward November Darcy can expect a resource advantage, a turnout advantage and presidential coattails to help carry her through to victory.  And even yesterday’s results show progress; I don’t know of a single  public or private poll that showed Darcy closer than six points to Reichert in recent months, and yet after only two weeks of advertising (at a cost, I’m guessing, of about $400,000) she’s managed to cut that gap in half.  By comparison, an August 21-22 2006 SurveyUSA poll gave Reichert a 54-41 percent lead, a 13-point margin Darcy eventually whittled down to three by election day.

So yeah, I’d rather be up three points than down, but given all the same caveats I issued in my discussion of the governor’s race, I’m no more or less worried than I was Tuesday morning.  For if there’s a conclusion to be drawn from the primary results, it’s that this race is once again going to come down to the wire.  And that’s something we’ve known all along.

Caveats abound in any analysis of yesterday’s primary election, with low voter turnout, partial results and a first ever top-two format making direct comparisons and general election projections all but impossible.  But trends are trends, and the one that immediately jumped out last night from the very first drop was the dramatic improvement Gov. Chris Gregoire registered in county after county, relative to the performance of her Grand Old Party Party opponent Dino Rossi.  And that can’t bode too well for Dino.

The top two format and the lack of any legitimate intraparty nomination battle essentially turned yesterday’s primary into a straw poll between Gregoire and Rossi, and so I have chosen to compare the two candidate’s relative performance to the last time the two faced off against each other head to head in the 2004 general election.  This is admittedly an imperfect comparison—the primary electorate is not the same universe of voters as that in the general—but far preferable to attempting to draw conclusions from a comparison to the 2004 primary, which might as well have been conducted in an alternate universe.

The 2004 general was of course excruciatingly close:  a legitimate win for Gov. Gregoire under Washington’s election statutes, but realistically, a statistical tie.  In Gregoire’s favor this time around are the inherent advantages of incumbency, a campaign team that recognizes Rossi as a legitimate threat, and a track record in office that establishes her as a competent, moderate and unscary executive.  In Rossi’s favor… lingering, bitter resentment over his almost-victory four years ago.

Opinion polls have long shown the governor with a modest but consistent lead, and after a couple months and a couple million dollars of attack ads, yesterday was an opportunity to see if voters were moving toward one candidate or the other.  And, well, it’s hard to argue that they’re moving toward Rossi.

Even with more than a half dozen spoilers in the race compared to the lone Libertarian in the 2004 general, Gregoire has thus far increased her percentage of the vote in 23 of 39 counties, compared to only three such counties for Rossi.  But a more meaningful analysis of Gregoire and Rossi’s relative, county by county performance, as illustrated in the chart below, comes from comparing the margin separating the two candidates… a margin that has moved in Gregoire’s favor in a whopping 30 of 39 counties.

Once King County’s votes come in, Gov. Gregoire will likely end up leading Rossi by a roughly 50% to 45% margin statewide, and while it is no doubt tricky to adjust for the impact of minor candidates, there is no reason to suspect that the remaining five-percent of the vote will strongly break one way or the other in the general.  Likewise, there is no compelling evidence that turnout in this primary advantaged one party or the other in any region of the state.  Indeed, yesterday’s election proved awfully damn consistent with opinion polls that continue to show Gregoire with a modest but steady lead.

If there is a conclusion to be made it is that this was an opportunity for angry voters to repudiate Gov. Gregoire… and they didn’t.

Still, this race is far from over; an awful lot of money will be spent between now and November attempting to sway voters from one side to the other, while the expected crush of general election voters makes any analysis of primary results speculative at best.  But if Rossi supporters were looking for good news in yesterday’s results, I don’t think they found any.

Primary night festivities for me began at Drinking Liberally in Seattle. But “festive” didn’t really describe my mood. Rather I was feeling about 80 years old and in pain owning to a back injury I sustained Monday morning.

At 9:00, I shuffled back to my car and began the slow process of climbing in without the use of specific back muscles. I almost went straight home. But heading back to Redmond, I swung by the Darcy Burner party in Bellevue.

Perhaps it was my heightened sense of senescence, but I ended up in lengthy conversation with an older woman. She had something to get off of her chest and was eager to share it. I didn’t catch her name, but I’ll call her Daisy.

Daisy’s issue was the Bush prescription drug plan that, she felt, had needlessly cost her money. But, more importantly, the plan had made it impossible for some of her less healthy friends to afford the medications they needed. She mentioned cost issues (resulting in maxing out on benefits) and problems that some needed medications were simply not covered by the plan.

Daisy felt strongly enough about the issue that she had talked to Dave Reichert. She reenacted her conversation with Reichert, in which he didn’t seem to “get it.” Rather than listening to the specifics, Reichert simply asserted that she and her friends must be better off under the plan. That’s what it was supposed to do.

When she finished with her story I asked, “So that’s how you became a Darcy Burner supporter?”

Daisy responded emphatically, “No…that’s how I became: ‘Anyone. But. Reichert.'”

Fair enough!

Thirty minutes later, I noticed that Daisy had struck up a conversation with someone else:

In the middle of a busy night filled with media, hugs, handshakes, and cheers, Darcy Burner took some time to listen to Daisy’s story. I’m guessing that’s how Daisy became a Darcy Burner supporter.

On my way out the door, I ran into Darcy and asked, “Can you share a few words with HorsesAss readers about tonight?” And she graciously obliged:

[Audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/darcy19aug2008.mp3]

So that, dear readers, will have to serve as our podcast—let’s call it our micro-podcast—for this week.

I stayed up late last night watching the election results come in, when clearly my time would have been better spent speculatively writing about the results, uninformed.  Ah well.

Obviously, the big winners last night were the Supreme Court and Appeals Court incumbents, who all won reelection yesterday by securing 50% plus one majorities (and for the most part, much higher) against their opponents… assuming they had one.  So much for that “throw the bums out” attitude.  Gov. Gregoire also appears to be a big winner, improving her performance in county after county… but you’ll just have to wait for me to digest the incomplete results and my morning pot of green tea before I comment any further.

In the Washington Post, Michael Dobbs writes about the recent outbreak of hostilities in Georgia. Dobbs has a good amount of experience in the region, and he explains how Georgia played a big role in provoking this crisis, possibly at the encouragement of the Bush Administration. Russia’s response was overly aggressive, but despite our promises to Georgian president Saakashvili, there’s little to nothing we can do militarily to stop what’s happening.

John McCain’s electoral hopes are pinned on his abililty to breathe life into the dying myth that Republicans are “tougher” on foreign policy, and he certainly sees this crisis as a way to do so. He decided to send the Larry and Curly to his Moe out to Tbilisi to do whatever it is that they do when they travel closer to the countries they’re terrified of. But beneath the surface, this conflict brings out some of the glaring weaknesses in the Bush-McCain foreign policy playbook. It may sound like toughness, but in the end, our allies get kneecapped and fewer people around the world trust us.

Publius from Obsidian Wings reiterates the central failure of McCain’s foreign policy approach:

David Kirkpatrick’s piece on McCain’s response to 9/11 and the “McCain Doctrine” should have been titled “McCain Repeatedly, Horribly Wrong on Virtually Everything About Iraq.” Kirkpatrick lays out several damning facts, but — frustratingly — makes the reader draw the most important conclusions.

Anyway, what’s frightening about McCain’s response to 9/11 is that it was basely entirely on false assumptions and the knee-jerk use of military force. But it’s more than simply that McCain was wrong about Iraq — lots of people were wrong about Iraq. What’s particularly troubling about McCain’s reaction is that his wrongness stemmed directly from the assumptions of his manichean worldview — assumptions he would bring with him to the White House.

In short, his is a world of good versus evil, where threatening and using force is always necessary, and where wildly diverse countries are lumped together as evil “autocracies.” No matter the country (Serbia, Iraq, Georgia), no matter the circumstances — the problem is always the same (evil), the solution always the same (threaten or use force).

The past decade has shown us how the dangers of this thinking – our belief that we must boil every issue and every conflict that arises in the world into a bi-polar good-vs-evil struggle and use force to combat that “evil” – has stretched our military to the breaking point and left us unable to address real threats. When you become locked in this mindset, and you and your allies are always the “good” in that equation, your view of the world becomes incredibly distorted. In the end, you begin to sound like a confused madman, chastising others for doing the exact same things that you’ve been doing yourself. But in your mind, it’s always justified because you are the “good” in the struggle against “evil.”

Over the past decade, the world has come to see this growing emptiness in our supposed moral authority, even if many Americans never question it. But one can’t cover their eyes with their hands and expect the entire world to become invisible. The Bush Administration has made America weak, and what we’ve been seeing in Georgia this month was Russia’s ability to exploit that weakness with ease.

But while endorsing another 4 years of this failed foreign policy mindset is bad enough, I’m not sure we’re thinking about how dangerous this is when the people in charge feel that the “evil” they’re fighting is lurking domestically as well. Speaking in front of the Urban League recently, John McCain said the following:

Answering a question about his approach to combatting crime, John McCain suggested that military strategies currently employed by US troops in Iraq could be applied to high crime neighborhoods here in the US. McCain called them tactics ‘somewhat like we use in the military…You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement.’ The way he described it, his approach sounded an awful lot like the surge.

Every large myth is supported by a series of smaller myths, and the myth of Republican foreign policy superiority is certainly no exception. The myth that the Surge was some magical tactic that single-handedly ended violence in Iraq is still around. For those who haven’t been keeping score, the drop in violence in Iraq started happening before the Surge, some of the most prominent reductions in violence happened in places where coalition troops left, and Baghdad is now a city of walls rather than a newly pacified urban area.

After everyone with the means to do so fled Baghdad for places like Syria and Jordan, the Iraqi capital city was turned into a series of ethnic prison enclaves in order to dampen the violence. I sure as hell hope this isn’t John McCain’s vision for solving inner city crime. But as Publius explained, for John McCain every problem is an “evil”, and every solution is to threaten or use force. Short of genocide, there’s no greater indication of an intent to use force than trying to turn the place where the “evil” resides into a giant prison, caging it inside.

America’s crime problem is certainly growing again. Mexico’s crime problem is a national crisis. And the amount of illegal immigration that occurs from Mexico is certainly fueled by the latter. While illegal immigrants, on the whole, commit less crime than legal immigrants or American citizens, the sensationalizing about their massive presence overshadows this and quickly drowns out the facts. And the presence of so many people in this country working and living outside the system will undoubtedly start to have serious societal repercussions if nothing is done.

There are two ways to attack these problems. One way involves understanding the roots of why these phenomena are happening, addressing those issues, and beginning to undermine the criminal gangs by going after how they make the money they need to survive. The other way involves seeing drug trafficking and illegal immigration as an amorphous evil that we must combat through brute force. For years we’ve tried the latter, and for years, we’ve watched these problems get worse and worse. In the end, many people have just thrown up their hands and said, “just build a wall,” but while that might work for a while in a city like Baghdad, it won’t work at all across a 2000 mile border. At some point, we need to get smarter, and that’s obviously not going to happen if we put John McCain in the White House.

When it comes to our attempts to keep the peace in Iraq, we’ve seen the use of private security contractors grow. But it’s not just in Iraq that companies like Blackwater win government contracts. Blackwater personnel were on the ground during Katrina, and they’re also conducting anti-terrorism training at a new facility along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In Southern California recently, one of the DEA agents carrying out a raid on a medical marijuana dispensary was seen wearing a Blackwater T-shirt. The picture was then removed from the L.A. Times website. No one knows why this agent was wearing it. Hell, he may have ordered the thing online. But the image reminded us that having a private security agency with little or no oversight like Blackwater enforcing the drug war, or enforcing our immigration laws, is a line no thicker than many of the other lines that the Republican Administration currently in power has crossed.

The growth of paramilitary police tactics throughout America is one of the scariest developments of this era. When someone like John McCain stands in front of us and says that he wants to “clamp down” on the violence in our cities and towns, too many of us still just assume that we won’t get caught in its grips. But tell that to someone like Berwyn Heights, Maryland mayor Cheye Calvo, who had a SWAT team raid his home, terrorize his wife and mother-in-law, and shoot his two dogs for no reason, all because someone randomly addressed a package of marijuana to his house as part of a drug trafficking scheme. Tell that to people like Cory Maye and Ryan Frederick, two young men with no criminal records who awoke to the sound of people breaking into their house at night, reacted by shooting at the intruders, only to realize they’d killed police officers and might have to spend the rest of their lives in jail.

Whether it’s halfway across the world, or in our own backyard, the idea that our power and authority does not come with any form of accountability or responsibility – simply because we are “good” fighting against “evil” – is rapidly eroding the trust in that power and authority. The Bush Administration’s hypocrisy between the Kosovo and the South Ossetia situations shares a common denominator with the hypocrisies over how America fights crime domestically. It starts with a belief that a desire for autonomy can be a dangerous thing if it’s viewed as running counter to that larger struggle.

But the battle for autonomy is the larger struggle. There’s no greater representation of democracy than having the ability to express your desires freely. George Bush and John McCain often say they understand this, and that they’re “spreading democracy,” but by their actions, it’s very clear that they don’t, and they aren’t. And the most dangerous thing we can do right now is to take another 4 years to learn how the failed approach of our foreign policy also fails when applied right here on our own streets.

So much to drink, so little time tonight, as I try to split my evening between two locations.  The Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM onward at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E., and I’ll be stopping by a little early to chat with the regulars and watch the initial returns.  Then I’ll be heading East to join Darcy Burner at The Mustard Seed, 5608 119th Ave SE, Bellevue, for her election night party… and you’re all invited to join us in cheering her on to November.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s thirteen Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

When I walked into my polling place this morning at around 11:30 AM, the worker attending my precinct was actually asleep, head on the table.  I was only the third person to vote in my precinct, and the 26th to cast a ballot across all five precincts.

“Busy day?” I asked the roomful of aged poll workers, who responded with a mix of forelorn bemusement and total confusion.  If there is a retirement home for fictional Maytag repairmen, I imagine it looks pretty much like this.

Turnout is reportedly low throughout the state, but particularly in heavily Democratic King County, one of the only counties yet to move to all vote by mail. I’d say this bodes poorly for Democrats if I could say this primary means anything at all.  Things will be different in November with Barack Obama at the top of the ticket.

Still, if you haven’t voted yet, don’t give the other guys the opportunity to spin the results into campaign momentum… get out there and cast your ballot.

UPDATE [Lee]: When I walked into my polling place a little after 8am this morning, the poll workers let out a small cheer just to see somebody, anybody coming in to vote. While there wasn’t a person sleeping at my precinct table, there was an orange and white cat sleeping on the chair. Not a single person came in to vote while I was there. I put my ballot in the machine, told everyone there to “stay awake,” and went across the street to catch my bus.

Today is Primary Election Day, so if you haven’t already voted, vote.

Yeah, I know, it’s the middle of August, and with our new top-two primary, there aren’t really many meaningful contests on the ballot. But there are a few, and as my mother relentlessly reminds me whenever she sees me wearing my usual shmatas, appearances count.  The Republicans are downplaying expectations in the governor’s and 8th CD races, but they’re also pushing an aggressive get out the vote effort, and you can be sure they’ll claim momentum tomorrow morning if they’re even close.  So help Rossi and Reichert meet expectations by turning out for Gregoire and Burner.

Remember, both Reichert and Rossi support that clueless old guy in the video above, and they’re 100% behind his economic policies.  There are differences between the two parties, and there’s a lot at stake in this election for both Washington state and the nation.

I don’t generally do formal endorsements, but here are a few other top races I have my eye on:

Commissioner of Public Lands / Attorney General
Again, not real contests, as we’ll be getting rematches in November, but again momentum counts, especially as Democrats Peter Goldmark and John Ladenburg make their final fundraising drive post-primary.  Goldmark looks like he’s in a pretty good position to win this thing, putting the Commissioner of Public Lands office in the hands of somebody who actually cares about public lands, and Ladenburg is a dynamic public speaker who could certainly give McKenna a run for his money… if he can manage to raise enough money to get his message before voters.  Vote for Goldmark and Ladenburg.

Initiative 26: “The PVR Incumbency Protection Act”
Initiative 26 claims it would make King County Council, executive and assessor positions nonpartisan, when in fact all it will do is remove partisan labels from the ballot, thus giving voters less information with which to make their choices.  For example, if it passes (and it probably will), Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer will still be a Republican… he just won’t have to say he’s one in his literature, on his advertising and on the ballot.  That’s great for PVR, as it makes it easier to win election in a district that is steadily trending Democratic, but I don’t see how it makes the Council operate any better.  I-26 is bullshit.  Vote no.

Supreme Court:  Mary Fairhurst
Let’s get this race over with by giving Justice Mary Fairhurst the 50% plus one she needs to retain her seat.  I’ve got nothing against her opponent Michael Bond—he’s been HA’s most loyal advertiser this year, and seemed like a nice enough guy when he stopped by DL a couple weeks ago—but he’s given us no reason to toss out Fairhurst, who has proven to be one of the most even handed and legally competent justices on the bench, despite the Seattle Times’ anti-government ravings.  And… well… she’s a family friend, one of the nicest and most down to earth Supreme Court justices you’ll ever meet.  Vote for Mary Fairhurst.

King County Superior Court Position 22:  Rebeccah Graham
Hell, I’m no lawyer, so when I’ve got no idea who to vote for in judicial races, I usually ask my lawyer friends (well, the ones I respect), and that means I usually consult with Becca.  (I haven’t asked, but I’m pretty sure she’d suggest herself in this race.)  But I’m biased, so listen to the Seattle P-I:  “Graham has a diverse background, calm demeanor, passion for the law and has six years of experience as a pro tem judge. All make her an excellent candidate.”  What they said; vote for Rebeccah Graham.

UPDATE:
Dan Savage writes:

you’re going to ignore the commissioner of public urination race?!?!

I assume he means the Superintendent of Public Instruction, since I already mentioned Commissioner of Public Lands, in which case, yeah, vote for Randy Dorn, even though it’s another one of those meaningless exhibition bouts.  For eight years I’ve watched the emphasis on WASL transform my daughter’s classroom into an elementary school equivalent of a Stanley Kaplan prep course.  Anybody but Bergeson.

I leave bright and early tomorrow morning (as soon as the polls open — I’m one of those hopelessly old-fashioned people that likes my polling place) for Denver — with stops en route to meet with activists and bloggers in Boise and Salt Lake. Goldy and Darryl fly out to join me early Saturday. Look for some exciting new wrinkles in HA coverage from us at the Denver convention!

So what would you like to see us report on?

This e-mail alert really was sent out, exactly like this:

From: Washington State Ferries [mailto:WSFAlert@wsdot.wa.gov]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 4:40 PM
To: WSDOT-WSF Alert Recipients
Subject: Ferry Alert: Edmonds / Kingston – Late Boats

Both vessels are running 15 to 20 minutes behind schedule. We apologize for any incontinence this may cause you.

This alert was sent on 8/8/2008 at 4:39PM to subscribers of the Edmonds / Kingston route.

A reader reports from the campaign trail:

Last night, I was listening to a bartender out in Quilcene who was completely in love with Rossi after his recent visit.  In a moment of unintentional irony, she noted that he made a joke about Gregoire’s budget-cluelessness:

“If you’re going to hand a woman the checkbook, you’d better make sure she knows how to balance it.”

Ouch.

Yeah, sure, it’s only a third-hand account, and I would prefer to verify a macaca moment like this against an audio or video transcript of the August 9 event at the Olympic Timber House, but since Dino Rossi doesn’t allow video cameras into his events—apparently out of fear he’ll be caught saying something stupid, mean spirited or sexist (or all three)—I guess I’ll just have to run with it as a rumor.

And a very believable rumor at that, as it seems entirely in character from a man who opposes the right of a woman to control her own body, who opposes medically accurate sex education, and who quite frankly has come off as angry and bitter throughout this campaign, his patented shit-eating-grin notwithstanding.

Of course, if Dino would like to confirm or deny this third-hand account, and clarify his position on whether women are or are not inherently deficient at balancing checkbooks, I’d be happy to print his response in its entirety.  Or… if somebody else in attendance at the event in Quilcene can confirm or deny the accuracy of the statement, I’d be happy to print that too.

Late last week, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that a recall effort against Port of Seattle Commissioner Pat Davis could proceed as planned. The unanimous ruling, which found that there was evidence of official malfeasance in Davis’s secret 2006 guarantee of a lucrative golden parachute to retiring Port CEO Mic Dinsmore, was pretty unequivocal:

“We can infer from the record that Comm. Davis understood her duties as Port Commissioner and the legal necessity of voting in public session before potentially obligating the Port in any monetary agreement, and, for purposes of recall, intentionally acted outside the scope of these duties by signing an agreement with Dinsmore.”

But the issue here isn’t just the contract for Dinsmore. For decades, the Port of Seattle, secure in its separate taxing authority for King County, has been the most corrupt and arrogant public agency in the state, which is saying something. The cronyism, back-scratching, sweetheart deals, and corporate welfare know almost no bounds. And during each of her 22 years on the Commission, Davis has championed that cronyism and staunchly resisted any efforts at accountability and reform. (It was also her initiative that brought the WTO ministerial to Seattle in 1999, a brainchild that alone should disqualify her from further public service.) For years, Pat Davis has exemplified everything wrong at the Port.

After last week’s court ruling, Davis immediately announced that she wouldn’t seek re-election when her term expires at the end of 2009. But she should still be recalled before then, for several reasons.

First, she can still do a lot of damage (and cost taxpayers a lot of money) if left in a position of power for another 16 months.

Second, Davis deserves to pay some price for her malfeasance — not simply to have a nice retirement party while her fellow commissioners name a wading pool after her. Or give her own secret golden parachute.

Third, even after a scathing performance audit by State Auditor Brian Sonntag — and an ongoing criminal investigation — the Port has been dismissive, defensive, and bitterly resistant to meaningful changes in its cronyist culture. In that context, get a load of this quote from fellow Port Commissioner Gael Tarleton — who ran on a reform platform last year, despite questions about her own corporate conflicts of interest — in arguing against the recall effort. Davis and Tarleton, it turns out, are working together to “implement” some of Sonntag’s demanded reforms. In other words, now that the fox has eaten every hen and destroyed the henhouse, she is standing, hammer and nails in paw, and undoubtably hungry again, ready to build the new henhouse. And, according to Tarleton:

“If we did not have her [Davis’s] knowledge about how things did not work in a transparent and open way in the past, we would not have been able to make many of the most important revisions to the delegation of authority,”

Words. Fail. Me.

Fourth, beyond making sure Davis can do no more damage, as Tarleton and the response to the performance amply demonstrate, Davis is scarcely the whole problem at the Port. And that audit barely scratched the surface: it only looked at the Third Runway project. It did not examine other airport projects, anything in the marine division (where SSA and other corporate contractors have bankrolled many a Port Commissioner campaign), or the Port’s lucrative waterfront real estate development projects. And the audit wasn’t looking for fraud (though it found plenty anyway).

What all this suggests is that there’s an ingrained, corrupt culture at the Port of Seattle that needs to be uprooted. The staff, commissioners, and CEO must all be held accountable. Recalling Pat Davis demonstrates that there’s a price to be paid for betraying the public trust — and maybe, just maybe, some of the other foxes at the Port will either change their own behavior, or get turned out themselves, if the precedent of recalling Davis moves forward.

The public has had enough of this nonsense. It’s time to fight back. Petitions to recall Pat Davis are available here.

There are rumors that Rob McKenna is a Podcasting Liberally aficionado. Go figure!

The rumors have come to light following a smear campaign against Democratic Secretary of State candidate Jason Osgood, who is running against Sam Reed. The tale is long and somewhat convoluted, but I have an unimpeachable source for the rumor: me. And the source of the smear campaign? Well…as the producer of Podcasting Liberally that rumor traces it back to…me. Or, stated more concisely, the smear originated from Rob McKenna’s misunderstanding of a podcast I produced, which McKenna is rumored (by me) to regularly enjoy.

Allow me to explain.

Last Friday, Washblog front-paged a diary by jeffuppy that traces the origins of the smear, so we begin our rumor/smear adventure last Wednesday at, of all places, a meeting of the 34th District Democrats:

Part of the night’s agenda included approval of proposals to donate money to Democratic candidates for statewide office.

…I stood and introduced a motion to contribute to Democratic Secretary of State candidate Jason Osgood. I expected little or no opposition….However, to my surprise, King County Council Member Dow Constantine stood to speak in opposition. Constantine was clearly upset with Osgood, and proceeded to trash him before the group. His anger was focused on public statements he claimed Osgood has recently been making to the effect that King County uses bar-codes on ballots which allow votes to be tracked back to voters. King County uses no such system….
[…]

…Jason Osgood has never said any of the things about King County ballots that he was accused of saying. In fact, Osgood has consistently and publicly said the exact opposite – that King County does not use bar-codes and that this is a good thing.

The donation motion did not pass, likely on account of the information rumor that Constantine had been so helpful in sharing spreading.

Afterward Jeffuppy asked Constantine about the rumor, and he produced an email to the King County Council from Sherril Huff, the King County Director of Elections:

…misinformation has been shared at local public meetings as well as editorial boards regarding how timing marks on ballots are used in King County. Unfortunately a candidate running for office publicly misstated that King County ballots can be traced back to the voter using a bar code on the ballot.

Not fully satisfied by this email that was all spiced-up in bureaucrateese, Jeffuppy asked Huff for a plain-language translation including when and where she had heard Osgood make these statements. But she had not actually heard the statements. Rather, Nick Handy, State Director of Elections (an office that under the Secretary of State’s office), had shared this information with her.

So Jeffuppy asked Handy the same “when and where” question. Remarkably, Handy didn’t have firsthand knowledge either.

He had simply been told about them, he said, by Attorney General Rob McKenna and by Eastside State Representative Fred Jarret. They had in turn been told about them by unnamed citizens.

That adds two more generations to the rumor.

Chad Shue writing at the Seattle Examiner summarizes the chain rumor thusly:

So there you have it. Based on unchecked statements by “unnamed citizens” allegedly passed on by Republican office holders to the chief deputy of the incumbent Republican candidate for the office that oversees state elections, the Director of Elections for King County has (hopefully unwittingly) aided in the effort to undermine the credibility of the Democratic candidate for that office.

Or, more succinctly: it was a “he said that she said that he said that they said that people said that Jason Osgood said…” chain rumor.

Last June 10th, just as his campaign was starting up, we had had Jason Osgood on the weekly Podcasting Liberally panel. If he was going to make a misstatement on the record, this early appearance would be the place. I’ve pulled out the relevant segment where Jason discusses King County and the bar code controversy (which is really about San Juan county):

[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/secretballot2.mp3]

Osgood does mention King and San Juan counties in the same breath. I can see how someone might mistakenly think that Jason was flagging King county as one of the problem counties…particularly, if that someone is a closeted Podcasting Liberally buff secretly listening to the podcast in the privacy of men’s room stall in one ear while maintaining vigilance with the other ear. (As an aside, the “men’s room” stuff isn’t officially part of the rumor…I just threw that in as a hypothetical.)

Such an interpretation of Osgood’s words would be mistaken, as is clear from the transcript:

You know, I have studied King County the most, and Washington to a lesser extent. And nationally, I’m not very interested in Florida, New Mexico. I know that there are problems, but we are looking at King County. We’re looking a San Juan county and the issues that we’re facing here.

We have a constitutional right to a secret ballot. That means no one can determine how we vote—should not be able to determine—not possible. And in San Juan county and other counties using the same system, they have a unique bar code that is linked to your voter ID which is tracked—your mail ballot is tracked—all the way through to tabulation.

Jason mentions King county in passing but only before he raises the secret ballot issue, after which he only mentions San Juan county.

As long as politicians blissfully pass along unverified, fifth-generation rumors that tangibly cost a candidate money and support, I’d like to get in on the game. So, based on a simple plausibility argument (i.e. with no violations of the laws of physics), I offer a new rumor that sheds shocking new light on the fifth generation rumor about Osgood. My rumor is that Rob McKenna is a huge fan of Podcasting Liberally. That explains everything, because he obviously listened to our podcast, and simply misunderstood what Osgood was saying. McKenna started the Osgood rumor chain by passing his misunderstanding on to Handy and Huff.

Yeah, sure…I’ve got no real proof that Rob McKenna really enjoys the podcast—perhaps that is a stretch. By the standards of our esteemed politicians, however, spreading a rumor that McKenna enjoys the podcast is pretty tame stuff. And let me say, it is a real honor to have Rob as a fan of the podcast…I appreciate the patronage, even if it occasionally catalyzes a false rumor.

Oh…and Rob McKenna is a Muslim.