Archives for November 2008

I’ve read a number of analyses attempting to explain Gov. Chris Gregoire’s decisive, 8-point victory over Dino Rossi in what has long been heralded as a nail-biter of a race, and I find it curious that everybody seems to miss the obvious:  voters were largely satisfied with the Governor’s job performance during her first four years in office.

Everybody was so focused on casting this race as a rematch of 2004’s virtual tie, that they seemed to ignore the dramatically different circumstances.  Four years ago this was a race for an open seat, pitting two contrasting personalities against each year.  The state decidedly leans Democratic, but Rossi came off as more personable, while an over-confident Gregoire campaign failed to challenge the Republican’s vague mask of moderation.  Meanwhile, Rossi’s “she’s too liberal,” “she’s gonna raise your taxes,” “she’s an Olympia insider” attacks resonated enough to make Gregoire appear a risky choice to many crucial swing voters.

But over the past four years Washington voters have come to know Gov. Gregoire… not as well as they should have, but well enough.  And as it so happens, it turned out she wasn’t too liberal, she didn’t ignore Eastern Washington, and apart from the gas and estate taxes—both approved overwhelmingly at the polls—Gregoire didn’t raise our taxes.

Fear of the unknown is a powerful force, but this time around Gregoire was known… and she just didn’t come off as all that scary, no matter how many times that asshole pitchman poured gasoline on a flaming stack of money.

This isn’t rocket science.  This was a referendum on the Governor’s job performance.  And on that measure, Gregoire won hands down, increasing her margins in 30 of 39 counties.

Of course, the strategy and execution of the two campaigns also came into play, as did various other external factors, and I’ll have more to say on that a little later.  But with even the post-election analysis of Gregoire’s own campaign manager failing to mention Gregoire’s job performance as a critical factor, I just wanted to give a little credit where credit was due.

For all our differences on policy and strategy, and there are more than a few, Chris Gregoire has proven herself to be an excellent governor… and in reelecting her, our state’s electorate has proven itself to be an excellent judge of both character and competence.

From Editor and Publisher yesterday:

The American Press Institute (API) will host an invitation-only, closed-door “summit conference” Nov. 13 in which 50 CEO-level executives will ponder ways to revive the newspaper business.

The one-day conference at API’s Reston, Va., headquarters will be “a facilitated discussion of concrete steps the industry can take to reverse its declines in revenue, profit and shareholder value.”

And here’s Robert MacMillan of Reuters writing about the closed door policy at the crisis summit in a post today:

Many sources whom we deal with in the media world — particularly reporters, editors and other members of the editorial staff — find it funny that the industry they’re in (finding and reporting information, truthsquadding the government, holding the powerful accountable, etc. etc.) relies on publishers and other executives who are among the most press-averse people in the business world. Some executives talk. But many others hide, and only come out once a quarter to share some more bad news.

Maybe reporters should try publishing false accounts of their owners’ educational backgrounds, that might shake things up a bit. We’ll call it the Heffter-Pickler Reporting Method.

Initiative 1029 is passing by a lopsided 73-27 percent margin, and how do the editors at the Seattle Times celebrate this exercise in direct democracy?

The Legislature and the governor should exercise their right to overturn this initiative immediately. That’s a tall order, because it would require two-thirds vote of both houses if lawmakers opt to do it within two years of passage.

Hear that?  The Times thinks three quarters of its readers are idiots, easily deceived by an “artfully worded ballot measure.”

I’ve long argued that the intiative process is a crappy way to write legislation, and I don’t doubt that I-1029 might have benefited from a more deliberative process.  But for a paper that routinely defends anti-tax, anti-government, anti-labor initiatives as inviolate expressions of “the will of the people,” this editorial reads as a masterful stroke of unselfconcious hypocrisy.

Had the execrable and unworkable I-985 passed on Tuesday, even by the slightest of margins, would the Times have demanded that the Legislature exercise its “right” to overturn the initiative?  How about the blatantly unconstitutional and anti-democratic I-960, that passed by a narrow 51-49 percent margin, yet requires a two-thirds majority for any tax or fee increase?  Would the Times cheer a legislative effort to exercise their “right” to overturn that initiative?

I don’t think so.

So be forewarned.  The next time the Times editors defend an initiative or the initiative process by cynically appealing to “the will of the people,” I’m going to shove today’s editorial so far up Fairview’s fanny they’ll have newsprint coming out of their mouths.

Um… it doesn’t look good.  Again, we don’t know where the ballots are coming from, or if they’re being counted in any particular temporal order, but Reichert won the last King County drop by a large margin, and it’s beginning to look like a trend.  It’s too early to concede, but unless things go substantially in Darcy’s favor in today’s count, it’ll be time to start crying in my beer.

As a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s throughout the primary, I was told that my candidate, and her supporters (myself included) were somehow destroying the party. That we were going to cost the Democrats the election and divide the party irreparably. That somehow forcing an extended primary through Pennsylvania, and Indiana, and North Carolina would hurt us in those states. Remember Kennedy in 1980 – as if the problem wasn’t Carter in 1980 – I was told. You’re not a real Democrat.

While I did make an electoral argument for Hillary, I never believed that Obama couldn’t win, or couldn’t win Jewish voters, or white women, or working folks, or whatever the most important demographic evar might have been at that particular moment. I think you have to vote issues in the primary, or you never get the chance. So, yeah, I supported the candidate who supported universal health care, had the better plans for the environment, and who I thought would be better for the middle class. I’m still glad I supported someone who was in favor of those things, although as I said during the primary, those are differences in degree and not differences in kind that we had with McCain.

I always promised to work like hell for whoever the nominee was, and I’m glad to say I delivered. I don’t know how many complete strangers I proudly told on the phone or at their door, “I’m a volunteer with the Obama campaign for change.” I’m also proud to say how well Hillary delivered: raising money for Obama, and many speeches (most notably her concession speech, the speech in Unity NH, and the convention speech) as well as local events all across the country.

The truth is that a tough primary is often good for the party engaged in it. It gets supporters riled up, and it forces candidates to articulate their positions. It means that the media can’t just ignore them. As Melissa says:

Despite the frenetic din of pleading, scolding, haranguing, begging, admonishing and outright mockery that was aimed at Clinton during the primary as she stubbornly refused to concede a primary that she hadn’t actually lost, and despite the grim hand-wringing that a long primary would irreparably damage presumed nominee Obama, none of the grave warnings of the take-your-boobs-and-go-homers came to fruition. In fact, by engaging late-primary states like Indiana which haven’t helped choose a nominee in decades, the extended primary actually helped wake up Obama voters sooner than usual. It forced them to pay attention to the minutiae of Democratic policies early in the election, and gave the Obama campaign the opportunity to test and perfect its ground operation. The result? Indiana is blue for the first time in 40 years.

I was never worried about a primary against Maria Cantwell 2 years ago. And I was kind of disappointed that there wasn’t much of one in the 8th. The truth is, they’re almost always good.

In order to overreach, you have to be reaching in the first place.

The AP’s Curt Woodward has written his post-election analysis of the governor’s race, in which he largely credits (blames?) Obama’s “Superman-style” coattails and the economic meltdown for Gov. Gregoire’s big, election night victory.  And let’s not forget that “high-stakes politically motivated lawsuit.”

In fact, the only non-external factors Woodward credits to the campaign itself were Gregoire’s performance in the final debate, a few “half-truths” about Rossi’s stance on the minimum wage, and a last minute text message to Pierce County voters. That said, Woodward points out, “Gregoire’s campaign definitely had its flaws…”

She allowed Rossi to define her early on, and took some time to formulate a “change” theme that tied her campaign to Obama’s.

Even in victory, there were perplexing missteps. Gregoire’s campaign, for instance, didn’t provide the governor – or even a senior campaign official – for an interview Tuesday night or Wednesday with The Associated Press, which has the widest statewide reach of any news organization.

Yup, the most glaring flaw in Gregoire’s campaign was its failure to show proper deference to the AP… or so says the AP.  I guess that explains the glowing post-election analysis.

Meet your new State Treasurer:

Mike Lindblom:

The 34 miles of additional light rail, to Lynnwood, north Federal Way, and the Overlake Transit Center, near Microsoft, aren’t expected to be finished until the early 2020s. The theme of serving future generations sounded at odds with the official campaign motto: “Mass Transit Now.”

Ugh.

Look… Like most folks, I’d prefer they build this stuff sooner rather than later, but them’s the breaks. On Tuesday, voters decided to put to an end the kind of hand-wringing and second-guessing that had slowed the region on the issue of mass transit infrastructure for decades. We’re making up for previous generations, and their inability to address this issue.

So if the slogan is “Mass Transit Now,” think of it as a truncated version of this:

“Let’s Decide To Invest In Mass Transit Now For The Benefit Of The Region In The Decades To Come.”

I like both, but the second one didn’t fit on a yard sign.

Meet your new Commissioner of Public Lands:

Speaking of prognostication, the Seattle P-I reports that the AP has declared Peter Goldmark the winner in the race for Commissioner of Public Lands, while Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson has conceded her race to challenger Randy Dorn.

David Brewster:

“There’s a good chance the Proposition 1 ballot measure to expand light rail will fail, stalling for years comprehensive transportation planning in metro Puget Sound.”

Jim Vesely:

“I think it’s pretty iffy whether or not, in this climate, people will accept that level of taxation.”

Ladies and gentlemen:

Sound Transit leaders today congratulated Seattle-area voters for giving future generations a regional train system.

Proposition 1, the $17.9 billion measure to expand light rail, commuter train and bus service, won easily, despite the national economic slump.

I no longer listen to the predictions of our local media talking heads. It’s clear now, more than ever, that these guys don’t know any more than I do about this stuff, and just because they write for newspapers or have been around for years doesn’t make their insight anymore prescient than mine.

They’re not bad people, and it’s not that they’re not smart… They’re just out of touch.

UPDATE:
Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly ads this in the comments:

In defense of David Brewster, he had pro-Prop. 1 sign on his lawn. I twice witnessed him argue the case for light rail at breakfasts with skeptical neighbors.
He was clearly in touch, just pessimistic: After 40 years he had reason to be.

Meet your governor:

While the uncertain results in WA-08 are making it difficult for me to celebrate Tuesday’s election, I’m taking more than a little joy in the outstanding performance of Peter Goldmark in the race for Commissioner of Public Lands.

Goldmark currently leads Republican incumbent Doug Sutherland by 28,592, or about 1.5% of the total ballots cast, and while nobody has officially called this race yet, a look at the county by county results suggests it’s pretty much in the bag.  That’s because a significantly greater proportion of the ballots remaining come from counties which Goldmark won, thus even if late absentees trend conservative, as many election observers expect, Goldmark should easily maintain or expand his margins.

For example, assuming all counties turnout at 85%, and the remaining ballots split along the same lines as those that have already been counted, Goldmark would finish with a margin of about 90,000 votes, or greater than 3 percent.  He likely won’t finish quite that way, but that’s an awful lot of ground for a late conservative trend to make up.

So congratulations Peter on a great campaign.  I’m proud to have played my own little part in your victory.

As the GOP faces day two of 40 years in the desert, the stories about what they should do are coming fast and furious, both nationally and locally.

The Columbian quotes Clark County Republican chair Ryan Hart thusly:

“I think that this is still a center-right country,” Hart said. “We have a message that reflects the majority of the electorate. … We just need to find candidates that can clearly articulate that message.”

To be clear, I’m not trying to mess with Hart, who has conducted himself as the Republican chair here with aplomb and decency. And what he’s saying is pretty common.

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