Archives for April 2010

Over at Publicola, Morning Fizz includes the fundraising totals in the third district race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash. You can also peruse them yourself at the FEC, which is far more user friendly than it used to be some years ago.

For convenience sake, I’m going to list the major candidates from each party, their cash on hand (and their debt) in thousands. Easier to get a clearer picture of what is truly going on that way. I’ll round up or down from $500.

Jaime Herrera (R) 56k (3k)
David Castillo (R) 73k (3k)

Denny Heck (D) 532k (253k)
Craig Pridemore (D) 51k (5k)

Obviously, even subtracting Heck’s debt, which I believe to be $250k in loans to himself (the FEC link only shows $100k of loans,) he still looks good on paper. If the other $150k is not a loan to his own campaign, he’s not qualified to be in Congress because nobody could have spent that much on a campaign yet. I suppose he could have given the money to his campaign, which would be impressive, if rather rash.

But here’s the thing. Nobody is showing much of anything yet in terms of PACs. Heck’s money is all from wealthy political insiders and consultants. If you start clicking around at the FEC link you can find well-known names like Paul and Beth Berendt and Booth Gardner. For those outside the state, Paul Berendt was a long-time state party chair, and Heck worked for Gardner when he was governor. The individual names are really beside the point, because what’s happened is that a lot of these folks are going to reach the legal limit on contributions, and as far as I know nobody has yet asked Heck if he intends to kick his loans back to himself at some point.

The only conclusion one can reach is that Heck is trying to run Pridemore off by flashing his wallet. Here’s a hint for the Heck campaign: not gonna happen.

Contrast that with Pridemore’s totals. Whereas Heck lists several pages of wealthy donors, Pridemore has about six. Not six pages, six wealthy donors.

With little PAC money yet reported, that means Pridemore is getting the grassroots support. Right now at his Act Blue page, Pridemore shows 644 supporters have donated $26,539, or an average of about $41. (You know what’s easy, btw? Clicking through to Act Blue! But you knew that.)

Once endorsements really start rolling, and the money starts flowing, Pridemore looks to be in fine shape. The Pridemore campaign has more than enough money to keep the lights on and staff paid, so with the candidate released from the Legislature at long last, look for Craig to show why he’s not only better on the issues, he’s going to be better at political campaigning than a guy who last ran (and lost) a race for public office in 1988.

As often happens, some of our state’s incestuous little clique of Democratic insiders have bet on the wrong guy. The faint at heart started trembling like scared children in December because some Tea People were on the tee-vee, and naturally they sought comfort in the arms of their favorite thing in the entire world, money.

As anyone who has ever worked on a campaign knows, money is vital but there’s more to it than that. You need a guy who can campaign, and I’m telling you, Craig can really campaign. It would be foolish to make an absolute prediction, as obviously Heck can give Pridemore a race, but I like Craig’s chances in the final analysis, mostly because people like Craig. He’s principled and authentic, and people respond to that.

The political landscape has already changed since December, and it will likely change again before November, so I figure one might as well support the guy who would do the best job, both in the campaign and in Congress. I’m sticking with Pridemore.

Goldman Sachs has been charged with fraud:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Goldman Sachs with defrauding investors by allegedly “misstating and omitting key facts” in the marketing of a financial product linked to the performance of subprime mortgages right as the housing crisis was beginning to unfold.

Essentially, Goldman made billions selling mortgage backed “collateralized debt obligations” (CDO’s), without informing investors that the hedge fund creating these shoddy securities was heavily shorting them in anticipation of their failure.

Which I suppose explains why Republicans so vehemently oppose Wall Street regulatory reform.

Sitting state Senator Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver, has secured the endorsement of the Sierra Club in the race to replace retiring Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash.

The SW Washington Sierra Club political chair, Holly Forrest, passed this information along in an email late yesterday afternoon. The group plans a rally for Pridemore this morning, Apr. 16, in Vancouver at 8:30 am on the Columbia River waterfront. The address is 115 Columbia Way, just east of Who Song and Larry’s, if you are in Vancouver. The group says it has over 25,000 members in Washington state.

Pridemore has a strong record on environmental issues, so it’s not a surprise. But it’s a major milestone for the campaign, as Pridemore himself has been locked down in the interminable special Legislative session until two days ago. I’d expect Pridemore will garner other important endorsements in the coming weeks, as the campaign heats up. Seeing as he has a 98% lifetime record with labor, I’m hopeful on that front as well.

The other major candidates in this race are former TVW head and Democrat Denny Heck, who last ran for office in 1988 and lost a race for state schools chief, and Republicans Jaime Herrera and David Castillo. Herrera is a state House member from Clark County who seems to have the backing of the GOP establishment/Slade Gorton crowd, and Castillo is a financial planner and former Bush administration official who seems to be garnering plenty of Tea Person support.

Don’t forget, national sports fans, Washington state has a top two primary now.

Gee… look at the company Dave Reichert keeps.

Teabaggers are rallying in cities across the nation today, while non-crazy folks are busily writing checks and rushing to the post office. Why? Well, it’s my birthday of course!

And since it’s my birthday, I’m going to use the opportunity to launch a long-delayed and much needed fund drive.

Indeed, it’s been two years since I last made a public plea for donations, not because I didn’t need the cash, but because I didn’t know how long I would continue blogging, and I didn’t want to take your money and run. But my finances are now edging from precarious to ruinous, so here’s the deal.

Two years ago I set a rather ambitious target of $6,000, and you all came through. It was both amazing and incredibly gratifying, but… well that’s not even enough to cover a couple months of expenses.

So this time I’m asking for $25,000.

Yeah, I know, that seems like an awful lot of money for a local political blogger to raise, but it’s not much to live on, and $25K plus a few thousand more in advertising revenue may just be enough to get me through the end of the year, or at the very least, the November election. And if I can’t raise that kinda money, well then, I suppose I’ll just have to move on.

The kinda blogging I do is a full time job, but frugal as I am, I have fixed expenses — mortgage, insurance, utilities, food, teenage daughter and all that — and I just can’t afford to continue doing this without something approaching a full time income. Hell, I’m 47 years old, and aside from the equity in my house and a few shares of Apple in my IRA, my retirement plans consist of setting myself out to sea on an ice floe.

I don’t mean this as a threat or a complaint, it’s just simple economic reality. So I’m asking you my readers, and all the progressive and Democratic organizations, activists, candidates and consultants who have benefited from my tireless efforts and my obnoxiously fearless and uniquely effective media presence, to either keep HA going… or… well… I suppose you could offer me a job.

If you believe, as I do, that I provide an invaluable service that simply can’t be replaced by any other media outlet or progressive organization, than please give as generously as you can. Those readers who can only afford twenty or thirty bucks, I understand. But those of you who routinely spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year on progressive candidates and causes — and there are many of you amongst my fans — I need that same sort of financial support if I’m going to continue in my present role.

Can we meet this $25,000 target? I don’t know. Certainly not without some big checks from institutional sponsors and wealthy donors. But if we can’t meet this goal, then I’ll just have to move on.

So please click on the Donate button below and show your support, or drop me an email or phone call if you want to discuss some more creative sponsorship options. I passionately love blogging, and am profoundly grateful for the encouragement and support I’ve received these past six years. But unfortunately love, passion and gratitude don’t pay the bills.

At a town hall meeting last week, after being asked about the possibility of going to jail for failing to buy health insurance, U.S. Tom Coburn (R-OK) warned the audience not to believe everything they hear, explaining “That makes for good TV news on FOX but that isn’t the intention.”

This of course got Fox host Bill O’Reilly’s undies in a knot, who castigated Coburn the other day, insisting that he “find one person on Fox News who told this audience that they would go to jail if they don’t buy health insurance.”

Well, Kate Pickert at Time Magazine’s Swampland blog took up the challenge, and who was the first person she found to spread this lie on Fox News? None other than our own Rep. Dave Reichert.

Ironically, Reichert himself recently went out of his way to warn supporters not to question the lies they hear on TV or read online:

“Don’t believe everything you hear. Find out the truth. And I’ll tell you why it’s so important to find out the truth. Because it has to do with keeping this country free. It has to do with keeping our country, our freedom. It has to do with us having that responsibility and gaining that knowledge. It will keep us free, because there are people who want to divide us. And we all know that a house divided will fall. And if we let ourselves become divided this country will fail, and for that and for the future of our children and our grandchildren we cannot allow it to happen.”

Which I guess is about the most useful advice we’ve heard from Reichert in while.

In an opinion piece published in the National Law Journal, Prof. Timothy Stoltzfus Jost of Washington and Lee University School of Law argues that the attorneys general lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is so frivolous, that the attorneys involved should be sanctioned, and made personally liable for paying the legal expenses of the federal government in defending itself.

This complaint not only represents shockingly shoddy lawyering but should be recognized by the courts for what it in fact is: A pleading whose key claims are without support in the law and the facts. The attorneys who brought this case — solely for political purposes — should have to bear personally the cost of defending this litigation that they are imposing on federal taxpayers.

Read the whole thing. Prof. Jost not only succinctly lays out the flaws in the attorneys’ constitutional arguments, but in their factual pleadings as well. The law simply doesn’t do what Rob McKenna and his cohorts claim it does. It’s kinda stunning.

But if the attorneys might be held liable for bearing the legal costs imposed on federal taxpayers, shouldn’t McKenna also be personally responsible for covering the legal costs he’s imposing on state taxpayers?

His office keeps trying to make the argument that the only cost to the state will be McKenna’s own time spent on the case… but of course it relentlessly makes this argument on the public dime. And now we learn that due to McKenna’s conflict of interest, the state will have to hire an outside attorney to represent Gov. Gregoire in her efforts on behalf of Washington citizens to oppose his lawsuit.

All this costs money. And if McKenna’s lawsuit is as legally frivolous as Prof. Jost says it is, I sure hope Gov. Gregoire has her attorney sue McKenna to recover the legal fees incurred.

So, even a narrow win in yesterday’s special election to replace Rep. Robert Wexler in FL-19 would have spelled electoral trouble for Democrats nationally, but a comfortable Democratic win is entirely meaningless…?

“A closer race would’ve added to Democratic paranoia about their chances this fall, but the fact that Deutch performed close to the average for a Democrat in the district does not lessen the fact that nationally, GOPers are still likely to enjoy big gains in the general election,” said Tim Sahd, editor of Washington-based House Race Hotline.

Funny how it works out that way, huh? Democratic victories in special elections — even pickups — are ignored by the pundits as foregone conclusions or outliers, whereas Republican victories are hailed as precursors of an electoral earthquake.

Seems to me that our media has something invested in creating a little drama this fall.

Bad news for Republicans hoping to ride a wave of economic discontent into office this November:

A flurry of reports out Wednesday suggested that many Americans are feeling better about the economic rebound.

Retail spending rose sharply and more than expected. Consumer inflation remains all but invisible. Businesses are boosting their stockpiles in anticipation of higher shopper demand.

Still, it’s not all gloom and doom for the Prefers GOP Party. While most economists expect a sustained recovery, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned that it would not have “enough strength to quickly reduce unemployment much.” That leaves plenty of opportunity for Republicans to exploit the well-justified anxiety of the job-insecure… which perhaps explains why they’re so eager to exacerbate this suffering by opposing an extension of unemployment benefits.

After six years of watching me bask in the fame and fortune of bloggery, my mother has decided that it’s time for her voice to be heard on the pressing issues of the day, sending the following Letter to the Editor, printed today in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Who benefits from charter schools?

My friend, a dedicated, enthusiastic, and highly regarded guidance counselor for 15 years in the Philadelphia School District, has decided to look for a new job. Her school, which she loves, is becoming a charter school. Why in the midst of revelations of mismanagement and fraud is the city establishing at least nine more charter schools and displacing up to 200 teachers, and why does my friend want no part of it?

Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools. Could these be the real reason that the government is pushing charter schools? Yes, charter schools have the ability to exclude troublesome students and to insist on parental participation. If traditional public schools could exclude students and mandate parent involvement, then they, too, might see improved standardized test scores.

As we funnel money away from traditional public schools to charter schools, we leave our most vulnerable students behind, and see quality teachers fleeing. I ask, who is really benefiting?

Sylvia Goldstein Salvat

Merion

I couldn’t agree more, although I’d add at least one more cynical reason as to why Republicans, at least, support charter schools and vouchers: they want to destroy public education so as to destroy the public teachers unions.

Which brings me to a curious observation. Cynical as I am, I couldn’t help but read my mother’s letter with a cynic’s eye, and wonder how I, as a snarky blogger, might belittle her letter, were I on the other side of the issue. And what immediately jumped out at was the phrase “Could these be the real reason…?”

“Hah!” the righty critic might exclaim. “Learn how to write proper English before pontificating about education!”

Only problem is, that’s not what my mother, a retired Philadelphia school teacher herself, wrote. The Inquirer edited her letter and inserted the error. Here’s the original text my mother emailed me the other day:

My friend, a dedicated, enthusiastic, and highly regarded Guidance Counselor for 15 years in the Philadelphia School District, has decided to look for a new job. Her school, which she loves, is becoming a charter school. Why in the midst of revelations of mismanagement and fraud is the city establishing at least nine more charter schools and displacing up to 200 teachers, and why does my friend want no part of it? Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools, they have no pension (what a savings for the city and state!), and no union representation. Could these be the real reasons that the government is pushing charter schools? Yes, charter schools have the ability to exclude troublesome students and to insist on parental participation. If traditional public schools could exclude students and mandate parent involvement then they too might see improved standardized test scores as some charter schools report.

As we funnel money away from traditional public schools to charter schools, we leave our most vulnerable students behind, and see quality teachers  fleeing. I ask, who is really benefitting?

Sure, the Inquirer did a reasonable job breaking my mother’s letter up into smaller paragraphs, but look at what they chose to excise in the process. My mother’s stated “reasons” the government is pushing charter schools…

Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools, they have no pension (what a savings for the city and state!), and no union representation.

In the Inquirer’s editor’s hands became one “reason”….

Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools.

A much less compelling argument, that fails to document the district’s anti-union bias. Then the editors merely dropped the “s” from the word “reasons” while lazily forgetting to transform “these” into “this.”

Huh. Perhaps the Inquirer’s editor is a graduate of one of those charter schools? Or perhaps this is just the kind of editorial sloppiness that comes from being so hasty to cover up the inherent anti-union bias of the charter school movement?

Happening tomorrow morning in the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee, chaired by Dennis Kucinich.

Join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 352 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

There’s a raccoon in my garage. Actually, four of them: a mother and three, hairless newborn babies.

Very cute, but raccoons nonetheless, and raccoons can be nasty, and thus a threat to both our dog and our cat, not to mention my daughter and myself.

It’s not much of a garage so to speak, just a rotting, ivy-covered shed with most of the roof missing, barely big enough to fit a Model T, and we don’t use it for much more than storing a ladder and a few yard tools. So the raccoons aren’t really in our way or anything, tucked into a corner of an aging loft I haven’t had the nerve to step foot on in years. But still, they’re there. For at least three days now.

I suggested calling animal control, but my daughter says no, as they’ll only kill them, and she’s not much into killing cute looking things.

What would you do?

Yet more teabaggers who haven’t gotten the message to tone down the crazy:

Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.

Tea party movement leaders say they’ve discussed the idea with several supportive lawmakers and hope to get legislation next year to recognize a new volunteer force. They say the unit would not resemble militia groups that have been raided for allegedly plotting attacks on law enforcement officers.

“Is it scary? It sure is,” said tea party leader Al Gerhart of Oklahoma City, who heads an umbrella group of tea party factions called the Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance. “But when do the states stop rolling over for the federal government?”

Imagine. Anti-federalist violence. In Oklahoma City of all places. Who’d a thunk?

I gotta admit, there’s a part of me that hopes they do form their secessionist militia, and do manage to provoke an armed confrontation with the U.S. military. (You know, the small part of me that values irony over human life.)

It’s disturbing to admit it, but on at least one subject, GOP state Sen. Don Benton and I think alike:

Washington state Sen. Don Benton says he doesn’t expect Republican Dino Rossi to enter the race for U.S. Senate this year, citing his personal friendship with the two-time gubernatorial candidate.

Benton, who has already entered the race against Sen. Patty Murray on the Republican side, told POLITICO Monday: “Dino’s a good friend of mine. I’ve talked to him many times. I don’t believe Dino would allow me to sacrifice my family time and my business if he was going to run for U.S. Senate. “

“If he had serious plans, I really believe he would have told me that,” Benton said. “I just don’t see it.”

Yeah, I know, the conventional wisdom is that Rossi wouldn’t be going through all this public preening if he weren’t at least seriously considering a run for the U.S. Senate, but like Benton, I  just don’t see it, and for many of the same reasons:

“He doesn’t have any money in the bank, he doesn’t have any money raised. He doesn’t have the foundation. The talent pool is pretty much committed for this election cycle. It’s too late for him to become a viable candidate in this race…”

Of course, with only $130,000 dollars in the bank, little statewide name ID, and almost zero support from his own party’s establishment, it’s pretty much “too late” for Benton to become a viable candidate as well, but that shouldn’t detract from his appraisal of Rossi’s own bleak senatorial prospects. Sen. Patty Murray would be a difficult target even in a red wave election, and while there’s no reason to suspect this won’t be a painful midterm for congressional Democrats, the generic polling just doesn’t show a tsunami on the horizon.

Yes, Rossi’s fundraising prowess and name ID could at least make this contest a race, hence the NRSC’s aggressive recruitment, but barring a double-dip recession or some other dramatic shift in the political climate, he’d still be little more than a sacrificial lamb. The NRSC is looking for a candidate who can draw Democratic money, energy and focus into Washington state and out of contests where Republicans have a better shot at making gains — the 50-state strategy, and all that — and Rossi would play that role well. But it’s not at all clear that Rossi is selfless enough to sacrifice his own political career for the greater good of his beloved Prefers GOP Party.

“I said, ‘Hey Dino, you know as long as you’re in limbo, it does make it a little more difficult for those of us out here doing this,’” Benton recalled. “He said, ‘I’m sorry for that, but I’m on nobody’s timetable but my own.’”

Not exactly the sentiment of a guy willing to take one for the team. And as for the “timetable” Rossi’s on, I’m still guessing it’s for an express bus to the 2012 gubernatorial campaign.

That would explain Rossi’s months-long political striptease, for while the clock’s quickly running out on a serious 2010 challenge, all this hemming and hawing only serves to keep Rossi’s name in the news and in front of voters in advance of one last shot at the governor’s mansion. And it would also account for Attorney General Rob McKenna’s inexplicable public lurch to the right, for how else to explain McKenna willfully ripping that carefully crafted mask of moderation from his face, if not to position himself for gubernatorial primary battle against Rossi?

Rossi ran for governor for nearly five years straight, and now he’s contemplating an impulse run for U.S. Senate? I don’t think so. He’s raised no money, he’s hired no consultants and he’s assembled no staff. In fact, his usual cast of staffers and advisors are already committed to other candidates and races. So a last minute run at Murray would just strike me as somewhat out of character.

And foolhardy. Murray is no pushover, and she not only enjoys enthusiastic support from our state’s Democratic majority, her well-earned reputation for both bringing home the bacon and defending our state’s economic interests has endeared her to business interests who more typically find themselves in the Republican camp. Hell… I even think Murray stands a good shot at winning the Seattle Times endorsement… even in a head to head with Rossi.

So yeah, I’m with Benton on this one. I just don’t see it.