Archives for October 2010

Let’s say there’s a story that’s creating a  bit of buzz within local political circles, that no local journalist is willing to report. You know, like the somewhat sensitive if well-founded concerns that there might be something wrong with Rep. Dave Reichert’s brain. So how do you move this local political story into the local traditional press?

Step 1.) Local blogger pounds story (in this case, over on the higher profile Slog.)

Step 2.) National blogger picks up story, adding credibility and exposure.

Step 3.) D.C.-based publication picks up on story, giving it that spiffy journalismish look and feel.

Step 4.) Local newspaper, scooped in their own backyard by a Beltway rag, finally follows up, delivering story to their large, local audience.

That’s what I call the “Virtuous News Cycle,” variations of which I’m constantly playing to various degrees of success on issues I find important, but nobody else does. And while you may think it manipulative, or insist that this particular line of inquiry was inappropriate or irresponsible, regardless of the larger media’s ultimate response, think about this:

Reichert’s post-brain-trauma mental capacity, or lack thereof, is either news, or it’s not news. Which means, it was either worthy of a Seattle Times article weeks ago, when I first hit the story, or it is not worthy of reporting even now, after their hand has finally been forced. I didn’t make this news; I just made other journalists pay attention to it.

And that’s what effective blogging is all about.

I have a post up on Slog regarding the stupid, industry-backed liquor initiatives on the ballot this year — “Are Washington Voters About to Give Away the Store?” — and while the folks in the comment thread are mostly polite and everything, my God are they completely wrong.

Looks like I’m going to have to spend some time on Slog, using Slog, to oppose the wrongness that has been perpetuated on Slog.

I just spent a long weekend back on the east coast – taking Zach to see his great-grandmother for her 90th birthday party. We flew back last night from Philadelphia and while we waited to pre-board I saw a familiar face walking towards the gate. I leaned over to Dana and asked “Is that Mayor McGinn?”

After boarding, as Dana was getting Zach into his car seat on the plane, I kept an eye towards first class to see if it was really him – as I assumed that he’d be seated up there. I didn’t see him boarding with the first class passengers, but about ten minutes later he walked past us and took his seat in one of the last rows in coach. And it was definitely him.

When the plane landed at Sea-Tac, we let everyone de-plane before us as we had several bags, a sleeping 18-month old and a car seat to juggle. From his back-of-the-plane seat he was one of the very last people to walk up to the exit, and I asked him if anyone else recognized him. He said only one person at the gate in Philly. Not even the couple wearing Seahawks jerseys in the back row of the plane seemed to know that the mayor of the city we were flying to was sitting a few feet from them.

Tuesday brings us together for another evening of politics under the influence. Please join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by earlier for dinner.

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word – It’s a Small-Minded World
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 249 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQW9eGEo-z4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Let’s just be clear: if Christine Gregoire had run ads like this back in 2004, everybody would have talked about how incredibly close that election was — 30,000 votes out of 3 million cast… who’d a thunk? — but she would’ve won on the first the count.

The election season normally translates to days of plenty for the news industry, with campaigns vying for prime ad space by flinging buckets of cash at print, broadcast and internet media companies. But apparently, not so much these days for the Seattle Times, which recently sent this rather desperate promotion to local political media buyers:

A full page, full color ad for only $5,000? At that price, they could pretty much print nothing but full page, full color ads, and still not cover their costs.

And don’t think the Times is making up the lost revenues online, where advertising opportunities now “start at less than $2.75 CPM.” That’s not much more per page view than I’m earning this month from Google Ads.

I guess premium content demands premium ad rates. And vice versa.

The Seattle Times reports that former Portland Trailblazers player Chris Dudley has a shot at being the first Republican in 23 years to win the Oregon governor’s mansion.

Huh. Maybe part of the reason why Dudley is doing so well, is that newspapers like the Times, even in a 1,200 word article, can’t find the room to report that Dudley, who rails against budget deficits, for years listed his permanent address as Washington, so as to avoid the Oregon income tax, while at the same time illegally registering his car in Oregon, so as to avoid paying Washington’s then substantial car tabs?

But I guess that’s not as interesting as the fact that a Republican might win the governor’s mansion, so never mind.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxJyPsmEask&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Christine O’Donnell tells Delaware voters that “I’m you.” Or at least, she’s the 5% of men and 11% of women who have never masturbated.

The inimitable Atrios, blogging from my birthplace of Philadelphia, posts this tidbit of wisdom on the future of highway construction:

Actually heard a bit of sense from a ‘woman on the street’ interview about possibly tolling 422, a highway in the Western burbs of the urban hellhole which at one end connects up with the Schuylkill Expressway, the only urban highway entering the city from that direction. And, as she said, even if they widen 422 (a possible use of toll money), it won’t matter all that much because the Schuylkill is basically 2 lanes in each direction and there isn’t a practical way to widen it even if billions were available.

There’s significant travel along that road which is intra-suburban, and not about connecting up to drive into the city, but my main point is that there will not be any highway improvements into Philadelphia basically ever again.

This reminds me of the debate over the new 520 floating bridge, where advocates for adding more lanes to relieve congestion on the bridge, basically ignore that I-5 can barely handle the 520 traffic it already receives. If there’s no way to widen I-5 through Seattle, there’s really no reason to widen the highways feeding it.

In Seattle, like Philadelphia, we’ll basically never expand highway capacity into the downtown, ever again. So how will we accommodate the transportation needs of all those people expected to move here?

I think we all know the answer.

There are two kinds of Republicans these days. The kind who publicly call for right-wing, Christianist, craziness like this:

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says that even though “no one” came to his defense in 2004 after he said that gay people and unwed mothers should be banned from teaching…

And the kind who quietly support it.

… “everyone” quietly told him that he shouldn’t back down from his position.

Which kind is Dino Rossi? Pretty clearly the latter. But it doesn’t make it any less crazy.

In yesterday’s editorial endorsement of Patty Murray, the Everett Herald does its best to say nice things about Dino Rossi, but just can’t get past the doctrinaire Republican campaign he’s been running:

Rossi’s uncompromising approaches on taxes, immigration and health-care reform strike us as too rigid to be effective.

What the Herald describes as “rigid” others have ascribed to a veer to the right, presumably in response to Clint Didier and the overhyped Tea Party fad, but that’s a meme I just don’t buy. For one, it’s hard to veer to a position you already hold, and Rossi has always been a far-right-wing candidate on many major issues. But more significantly, a veer to the right just doesn’t make sense as an electoral strategy in a state that, let’s face it, is solidly Democratic, even if by somewhat modest margins.

Some GOPers may not have noticed, but Washington state voters haven’t gone for the Republican candidate in a U.S. Senate race since 1994, in a presidential contest since 1984, and in a gubernatorial race since 1980. The margins aren’t always huge, but the outcome is clear: Washington is a solidly Democratic state.

And the logical conclusion from these results? In order to win in Washington, statewide Republican candidates need to win a significant portion of Democratic voters. And therein lies Rossi’s major weakness: Democratic voters just don’t like him.

Of course, Rossi almost won in 2004, running an all-things-to-all-people tabula rossi campaign against an overconfident Chris Gregoire who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pull the trigger on the barrage of last-minute attack ads that would have propelled her to a (relatively) comfortable victory. But the same swing Democrats who almost carried him into the governors mansion in 2004, knew Rossi better by 2008, and Gov. Gregoire went on to win reelection by a more typical Democratic margin.

And in 2010, Democrats know Rossi even better, a prejudice that would take a substantial GOP turnout advantage, and/or a near sweep of true independents, to overcome. And while Rossi’s certainly right that he stands a better chance of election in a non-presidential year, when Democratic turnout is inevitably lighter, he’d be foolish to think he could win this race without any Democratic support at all.

And it’s hard to see many Democratic voters — self-identified or not — casting their ballots for such a “rigid” Republican.

According to Politico, I’ve been promoted. About time.

Last week’s contest was won by Brian. It was the Tate Modern in London, where former British Prime Minister Tony Blair canceled a book tour event because of the threat of protests.

Here’s this week’s contest – a purely random location. Good luck!

A new KING-5/SurveyUSA poll shows Democratic Suzan DelBene now trailing Republican incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert 52-45%, and while a seven-point gap a month for the election wouldn’t usually be something the challenger would tout, this latest survey shows a dramatic tightening of the race at time when Republicans were expecting their Big Red Wave to be approaching its peak.

In an election for US House of Representatives in Washington State’s 8th Congressional District today, 09/30/10, incumbent Republican Dave Reichert defeats Democratic challenger Suzan DelBene 52% to 45%, according to this latest exclusive KING-TV poll conducted by SurveyUSA.

Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll 4 weeks ago, DelBene is up 4 points; Reichert is down 2. Among moderates, Reichert had led by 4, now trails by 17, a 21-point swing to the Democrat. Among women, DelBene had trailed by 8 points, now leads by 3, an 11-point swing to the Democrat. Men and voters age 35 to 49 account for almost all of Reichert’s advantage.

52-45%, huh? Not much different from some of the polls we’ve seen in the allegedly close Patty Murray/Dino Rossi race.

Assuming SurveyUSA’s numbers can be trusted this cycle (and I’m not necessarily making that assumption), this shows a ton of movement in DelBene’s direction over the past month… the kinda momentum that should it continue, could make this race a tossup by election day. For example, Darcy Burner trailed Reichert by the exact same 54-41% margin at the end of August 2006 as DelBene trailed Reichert at the same point during this cycle, yet surged to within a silver hair of victory.

And a look at the cross-tabs suggests that there’s still plenty of opportunity for DelBene to pick up support simply by educating traditional Democratic voters about where Reichert stands on hot button issues. For example, Reichert’s still drawing 13% of liberals, 17% of Democrats, and an incongruous 30% of pro-choice voters. These are all constituencies in which DelBene stands to improve.

Interestingly WA-08 is not the only race that appears to be tightening in recent weeks, for as the New York Times reports, shifting polls suggest that Republicans are having a tough time locking down a House majority in the manner Democrats did in 2006.

By now, Republicans had hoped to put away a first layer of Democrats and set their sights on a second tier of incumbents. But the fight for control of Congress is more fluid than it seemed at Labor Day, with Democrats mounting strong resistance in some parts of the country as they try to hold off a potential Republican wave in November.

The chances of a Republican takeover in the House remain far greater than in the Senate, according to a race-by-race analysis by The New York Times. But enough contests remain in flux that both parties head into the final four weeks of the campaign with the ability to change the dynamic before Election Day.

Huh. So if Reichert’s near total lack of campaigning really is a manifestation of a cynical electoral strategy rather than, say, his traumatic brain injury, he might want to reconsider how safe his seat really is in a political climate that is at least as anti-incumbent as it is anti-Democratic.

Not so good for Christine O’Donnell:

Exodus 22:18
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Discuss.