Archives for October 2008

An item from Clark County I missed last week while on vacation strikes me as emblematic of the problems facing Republicans up and down the ticket. They’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel in a suburban swing district that traditionally should be full of likely Republican candidates.

It seems the candidate the GOP found to take out Rep. Jim Dunn, R-Vancouver, who was disciplined by Republican leadership for inappropriate comments to a female staffer and subsequently lost in the primary this year, has some issues of his own.

Last Wednesday The Columbian reported that Republican Joseph James, who is on the general election ballot along with Democrat Tim Probst in the 17th LD, is accused by a local couple of improperly listing a payment made to James’ dog boarding business as a contribution to his political campaign. From The Columbian on Oct. 22:

Thomas and Beth Baker boarded their dog at Joseph James’ dog boarding business in Stevenson several times last year, and usually paid by check.

But the last time they used the service, the Camas couple put the $200 fee on a credit card. When their statement came, they were surprised to learn that the payment had gone to an organization called Complete Campaigns, which offers Web-based services to help campaigns track supporters, votes, fund-raising and volunteers.

James, a Republican who is running for an open House seat in the 17th District, paid the San Diego company $311 in credit card processing fees between Dec. 24, 2007, and Jan. 15, 2008, according to state campaign finance records.

On Jan. 2, James’ campaign reported a $200 contribution from Thomas Baker.

Baker said he never intended for his dog care payment to end up in James’ campaign chest.

James did not return calls to his campaign office and mobile phone seeking comment.

I’ve heard of a lot of lowly actions by Republicans, but taking a customer’s money and trying to make it appear as a campaign contribution without the customers’ knowledge is a fascinating twist. How would anyone want this guy voting on a state budget?

This isn’t the first time James has drawn attention to himself for questionable campaign activity. In February Aneurin at Politics is a Blood Sport ran down James’ claims about having an “MBA” from a place called “Almeda” University.

Who’s Almeda University? Almeda, a website with a post office box located in Boise, Idaho, offers online distance learning and confers degrees based on “life experience”. And there’s the slight issue of accreditation, in other words, there is none from any recognizable accreditation organization.

And in August of this year Chris Mulick took a look at some of James’ spurious claims on transportation and apparent gross over-inflation of fundraising totals.

By claiming a $3,000 monthly in-kind contribution for use of personal space as a campaign and a $700 in-kind contribution for use of a personal vehicle the James campaign haul has been bolstered by $41,000.

Mulick also posted some highly entertaining videos James put up on the YouTube, if you wish to click through.

Contrast James as a candidate with Democrat Tim Probst, a former Republican who once worked for the governor of Illinois and is well versed in economic policy. Which party is actually a big tent and which party is attracting talent and leadership? Maybe we once could (sorta kinda) afford to have buffoons like Jim Dunn or Joseph James in office, but with hard times on the horizon we need all the smart people we can get doing the public’s business.

Being a quality candidate or public official, it turns out, requires more than money and pre-fabricated dogma. In the 17th LD you can chalk up another EPIC FAIL for the GOP Party on that score.

It was hard to read this article in the Sunday NYT, particularly this passage

…Democrats, who are within reach of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate, would also face high expectations, especially from the party’s more liberal quarters, that could be difficult to meet even with enhanced numbers in the Senate as well as the House. And they would be at risk of overreaching, a tendency that has deeply damaged both parties in similar situations in the past…

and not get nervous that a President “Purple America” Barack Obama might pull a Rep. Frank “One Washington” Chopp and freak out about “overreach.”

And this, dear believers, means the popular Democratic agenda that will likely have swept Obama and a super majority of Democrats into office—universal health care, ending the war in Iraq, repealing the Bush tax cuts, restoring civil liberties,  cap and trade, stem cell research, massive investment in infrastructure, and mandating accurate sex ed—will be sidelined for loads of bipartisan bills. 

And while I’m talking about Democratic underreach, may I suggest one piece of legislation for Rep. Chopp and our local Democrats (and if Chris Gregoire wins, she should get in on this too): Reform the state’s Public Disclosure Commission. And by reform, I mean: Clean house, appoint watch dogs, and rewrite the rules so they’re actually rules instead of murky pseudo rules. 

I actually suggested this prior to last session in the wake of Dino Rossi’s Forward Washington shenanigans, but it didn’t take. So, now that Rossi has laughed off ethics rules again by apparently coordinating fundraising with the  BIAW (illegal), not to mention that the BIAW’s fundraising scheme itself was illegal … and now that Rossi, GOP Attorney General Rob McKenna, and GOP Commissioner of Public Lands Doug Sutherland may have gotten illegal campaign loans (and we all know how the PDC is going to rule on that), can the Democrats please prioritize an overhaul of our state’s campaign finance laws next session so that Republicans can’t drive SUVs through them?

President Josiah Bartlet is just as fictional as the disingenuous arguments actor Martin Sheen is making in those No on I-1000 ads.  I’m just just sayin’…

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 376 electoral votes	Mean of 162 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 373 to 165 electoral votes (on average). Obama almost certainly would have won an election held yesterday.

With the addition of fifteen new polls from thirteen states today, Obama earns a couple more electoral votes….

A Monte Carlo analysis consisting of 100,000 simulated elections shows Obama winning them all. Obama receives (on average) 376 to McCain’s 162 electoral votes—a gain of three. Obama would still have a near-100.0% probability of winning an election held today.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

I’ve already mentioned that there’s one Republican who I’ll be enthusiastically voting for next week – Lieutenant Governor candidate Marcia McCraw. But even if you don’t care much about drug policy (for which McCraw is the far superior candidate), there’s another reason to vote against incumbent Democrat Brad Owen. He’s the BIAW’s candidate in this race as well. It would be a damn shame if we worked so hard to keep BIAW influence out of the Governor’s office only to see Christine Gregoire find a position in a potential Obama Administration and have the BIAW-backed Lieutenant Governor take over. Please tell your friends to vote for Marcia McCraw so that we don’t end up in that situation.

I’m at an auditorium in Bellevue Community College. We’re already behind schedule and people are still trickling into the room. There’s a slideshow with Governor Gregoire: There’s her and Obama; there she is with an unidentified family in farm country. There’s a banner “Fighting for Working Families.” Gregoire with children.

I’m at a rally for Governor Gregoire and Darcy Burner. I was hoping to liveblog it but there’s no signal here, so I‘ll just write it up: It’s a rally for Chris and Darcy with our senators and the governors of Kansas and Arizona. All women.

As a feminist, I’m proud that we’ve got such great women in the state, but I’m worried that if Gregoire loses we could have no women in elected executive positions (I know the races for Superintendent of Public Instruction and Lt. Gov have women running, but one is also in a tight race, and the other is an underdog). Of course a candidate’s gender isn’t reason enough to vote for them (and I’m leaning toward the men in those other races).

I’m going to try to capture what’s going on here, but my notes are what I can type and that’s slower than the speakers talk. Any quotes are from my notes, and as good as possible, but not guaranteed to be 100% accurate, I apologize for that.

Judy Clibborn started us off, and after welcoming us to her district let us know that this is the “Chris Gregoire tour for working families. 26 stops over 11 days. She is a tireless worker for us all.” Then after some mention of how close the race is, and how important it is to volunteer, she introduced Matthew Arnold, Darcy Burner’s volunteer coordinator.

As someone who’s volunteered for Darcy’s campaign, he was a familiar face. He’s been great when I’ve been volunteering. The points he made were that “over the last couple of weeks there has been a non-ending stream of press” and that an “alphabet soup of acronyms of people who are going to spend money” on the race. But that it’s ultimately not “people in Washington DC can decide how people in Washington state vote.” That the volunteers, and the voters, will ultimately make the difference.

“This has been a long election cycle. There have been people volunteering for over a year.” Then he made a metaphor about piggy banks: “You put in your knocks, calls, all the effort and the heart and sweat of putting the people in office you believe in. And on election night you cash your piggy bank.” Because of all the work that has been done and will continue to be done, “I know that we’ve got a big piggy bank and in the next 9 days we’re cashing it in!”

Cantwell got up and made the case for Gregoire: that she’s been creating jobs; that what she’s focused her attention, she has got results: jobs and keeping the economy going in the face of the national problems. She kept Hanford cleanup on track and has created clean up jobs and is meeting the Tri-Party Agreement. That Gregoire has invested money into biotech and allowed for stem cell research. And that we’re investing in green collar jobs, she pointed to Al Gore saying that Gregoire is, “showing the rest of the nation we can get off our dependence of foreign oil and reduce CO2 emissions.”

Patty Murray was next, she wants “a big enough majority that Maria Cantwell can write the next energy policy.” That sounds like a good enough reason to me to work for 60 in the Senate.

Then some praise for Obama, “are you ready for a President who’ll respect you instead of people on Wall Street? A president who’ll respect the Constitution? Who’ll work to bring our troops home? Who understands your values and make sure the middle class is back to work and strong again?”

When Obama and Biden are in the White House, they’ll support us. And, “we need a Governor who will work with them to make sure our state is strong.” They’ll be able to work together to implement children’s health, work on choice issues, and make the proper investments in infrastructure. We’ll need a governor who’ll work with them.

She mentioned the “don’t let Seattle steal the election” and talked about how important it is to elect people who “respect the whole state” instead of trying to divide us like Rossi.

Then it was on to an introduction of Darcy Burner. “Here in the 8th district we have a tremendous chance to elect a great woman.” She said that while Reichert acts like a moderate when it’s close to election time, “you deserve a Congresswoman who has the value of the voters.” This year, you can “elect a great team to fight for you.”

Darcy spoke, and I realized that it was the first time I’ve seen her live this election cycle. “We are poised on the edge of a tremendous opportunity. All of us have watched as the country go in the wrong direction.” Our economy is going south. “We’ve watched our neighbors and friends sent to war. The Constitution disrespected by the people sworn to uphold it. In 9 days we have an opportunity to change all of that. But I need your help.”

She told a story about leaving for the campaign trail today, and her son said, “‘don’t forget to save the polar bears,’ and I want to be able to look him in the eye, and tell him honestly that we have done everything we could and we are in fact going to save the polar bears.

“But it isn’t enough to have the leaders at the federal level. Washington is doing better than anywhere else. That isn’t a coincidence. We have an unbelievable, fantastic governor.” She has been creating jobs, and bringing people together to solve problems. “We need to do everything we can do to keep her in Olympia for the next 4 years. Give your warmest welcome to Gregoire.”

Gregoire: “Thank you all for coming out. This is our tour for working families. That’s what this election is all about.”

I was most impressed about the way she went after “those negative fear mongering ads.” She talked about the sex predator ads and how they’re “shameless.” She told a story about how she was doing an event and a 3rd grader came up to her and, “asked if it’s safe to go outside.” She concluded, telling the people making those ads, “see what you’ve done.” And that even though they’re spending $7½ million from out of state, “we ought to tell them that Washington State is not for sale.”

She talked about her accomplishments. When she was elected 4 years ago, we had the highest unemployment. But Washington has created 250,000 new jobs when other states have lost jobs. How the Pew institute has ranked Washington as one of the top three best managed states in America. And how we’ve done better than most states avoiding the worst of the economic downturn: We’re “one of the few states with a surplus” she reminded us.

Then some swipes at Rossi. “We stand proudly for the families that are living on the minimum wage.” How Rossi would try to get rid of the estate tax on less than half of the top 1 percent of Washingtonians. How at yacht club (of all places!), he said he would lower unemployment benefits. “He does not share our values. We are working men and women in this state, and we need a governor who shares our values.”

She also talked about what she’s done in education and health care. Rossi wants to deregulate health care “how well did it work on Wall Street?” She talked about our “14 year low in the crime rate. Washington State Patrol has been named the best law enforcement in America.” Yet Rossi is going after her on crime?

We’re going to be a leader on Global Warming. We’re going to create a green economy. Washington is leading the way. “Puget Sound is going to be swimable fishable, and digable.”

“We may not have 7½ million dollars, but we have you. That’s what this election is about. No governor knows more than me that every vote counts.”

She concluded that she’s been serious and tough, and that she has been a fighter who, “fought breast cancer, fought the federal government when they wouldn’t support health care for children, when they wouldn’t clean up Hanford, I have fought big tobacco, and Enron. I’m going to fight for you and your children and for health care and quality education.” This got the crowd riled up.

She then said how much she’s liked working with Janet Napolitano and Kathleen Sebelius.

Napolitano spoke first of the visiting governors, and after some jabs at McCain (my favorite “I am from Arizona, so I want to clear up some things: Most of us own 1 house.”) she got to why she’s here:

“I’ve been all over the country, and this economic downturn is real and it’s in every state.” Governor Gregoire has put this state on as firm a footing as you can have in the national meltdown, and she’ll continue to do this. But we also have to think long term and to educate the next generations: “education creates the jobs, that’s an economic program.”

She told us to take advantage of this “rare opportunity to re-elect someone like Gregoire, elect Darcy to House of Representatives, and elect Barrack Obama.”

Kathleen Sebelius made a point that we will get change from electing Obama, and having people like Gregoire ready to enact the change at the state level. “The only way Obama can truly be a good president is if he has a ground team.”

All in all, a good event. A full audience, and great energy from our candidates. One of the goals was to get people to help canvas and make phone calls (the last deposits in that piggy bank, to use Matthew’s metaphor). So I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that you can still volunteer with Darcy Burner or Governor Gregoire.

I’m still catching up after four days in Orange County, CA., after a failed effort to get Mickey Mouse to comment on whether or not he is registered to vote, but I have to laugh as I hurriedly digest the latest in the WA-08 race between Darcy Burner and Republican incumbent Dave Reichert.

Sounds like the Seattle Times is up to its old dirty tricks, just like last cycle. Did they call her “Mrs. Bruner” yet? Has Sheriff Dave refused to answer any questions from the publisher’s son?

Kos has the latest poll in the race. (Literally–it’s a Daily Kos poll by Research 2000.)

Funny thing–the dirty tricks are blowing up in the RNC’s face, especially as women recognize a low down RNC/Seattle Times smear job. And over what for crying out loud? Some stinking degree terminology, which Darcy is telling the truth about anyhow. Yeah, that Ivy League stuff shore ’nuff is perplexin’.

Read all about the tied race here. If what matters at the end are the trend lines, then things are looking up.

No Danny, you are neither a righty nor a lefty (though I kinda agree with your emailers that you sometimes come off  as a bit of a “whiner”).  No, what you are, Danny, is conventional, in that peculiar establishment media sense that so internalizes the traditional journalistic paradigm of objectivity and impartiality, that you seek to impose your own values on the rest of the world.

You accuse others of “open cynicism and closed minds,” all the while unskeptically embracing your own open cynicism toward party politics.  And that makes you at best an observer, and at worst (and despite your best intentions), occasionally a tool, because it is through partisan politics that public policy is enacted and executed in the real world.

And that’s what pisses off your readers on both sides of the ideological divide, because despite your genuine centrism and your devout nonpartisanship, as a newspaper columnist with a relatively large audience, your opinions can make a difference, whether they be informed by the conventional wisdom spoonfed to you by district officials during the school closure controversy, or the relentless equivalency with which you approach the often unequivalent failings of politicians in both parties.  Yet your oft repeated disdain for the workings of our two-party system leaves your commentary mostly devoid of constructive criticism but for the easy attack on partisanship in general… an attack that can’t help but irritate us partisans.

You fret about “polarized, triballike camps” as if man hasn’t always been tribal by nature, while implying that the “nichification of news” of which bloggers like me have been a part, is a cause of, rather than a response to, the realpolitik that rules our world. No, you’re not a partisan, but don’t be deluded that your refusal to actively engage in these partisan battles isn’t occasionally useful to one side or the other.

So criticize all you want.  That’s your job, as it is mine.  The difference is, I also view my job as trying to make a difference, and if that means getting my hands dirty in the real world of partisan politics, well that’s fine by me.

One thing I’ve noticed this year as I’ve been enjoying my purchase of NFL Sunday Ticket every weekend is that coverage of the NFL has gone in the past few years from being somewhat aware that fantasy football exists to being overwhelmingly about how what’s happening in the game is affecting everyone’s fantasy football match-ups.

As a fantasy football geek, I love it. I’m in two leagues, the younger of which is in its seventh season. But is this radically changing the appeal of the game to some people? To me, baseball was always the sport for stats geeks. Football was the sport where you drank your face off and berated people who were wearing a different colored jersey. Is this changing that? Is football now the domain of stats geeks? Are non-fantasy football geeks turned off by it all?

I’d imagine that going to the games themselves hasn’t changed much. There’s no ticker telling you who’s scoring touchdowns in the other games, no red button on your remote that you can press for instant live stats, and I’m pretty sure people still berate people for wearing a different colored jersey (or in the case of Raiders fans, looking like some combination of Darth Vader and Mad Max). Then, of course, back when I was a Seahawks season ticket holder, I’d often be at my seat during timeouts hoping my phone could connect to the internet to get stats. Sigh…

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 373 electoral votes	Mean of 165 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 372 to 166 electoral votes (on average). Today we have eight new polls in seven states weighing in on the contest. Obama gains very slightly.

After 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins them all. Obama receives (on average) 373 to McCain’s 165 electoral votes—a gain of one electoral vote. If the election had been held today, Obama would have won with near certainty.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

Last week’s contest was won by wes.in.wa, just barely within the first hour (at 7:57). It was Titusville, Florida. Here’s this week’s contest, good luck!

Is five years in a prisoner of war camp really a qualification for president?  Hmm…

As much as we’re all appalled and disgusted by what McCain campaign worker Ashley Todd did this week in Pittsburgh, she’s not a criminal. She’s a person who likely has some mental health problems. We really need to get over this notion that everyone who offends us or does something that we find morally reprehensible needs to go to jail. No one was victimized here. No one had any money or property stolen from them. At worst, write her a fine to cover the administrative costs of having the police pursue the case and suggest a good mental health facility for her to check herself into. We’ve got too many goddamn people in jail already in this country.

UPDATE: Richard Pope in the comments provides some excellent perspective:

Isn’t $50,000 bail a little bit excessive for a misdemeanor? If Ashley Todd had really been attacked in the manner that she falsely claimed, I wonder whether the hypothetical attacker would have received anywhere near that amount of bail.

For example, a man “charged with robbery, burglary, giving false identification to law enforcement, loitering and prowling at night, simple assault, making terroristic threats, theft, receiving stolen property and false imprisonment” in Pittsburgh (Allegheny County, Pennsylvania) was only held on $10,000 bail.

Sen. John McCain gets a theme song:

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