Archives for August 2011

– I did not mean to imply that Bachmann might have been anything other than awful for the country thus far.

– Time to Play on Rainier Ave.

– This pastry prevents Rick Perry from explaining why he thinks Social Security is unconstitutional.

– The Civil War Isn’t Tragic.

– Dave Reichert’s unemployment line.

OK, this has been bouncing around my brain for a while. In an open thread a week or so ago, I made a passing reference to the fact that unions are more grassroots than large corporations or one rich guy. The background is that 3 initiatives qualified for the ballot: one a Tim Eyman initiative largely funded by Kemper Freeman, one a let Costco sell booze initiative funded by Costco and one a home healthcare initiative funded by SEIU.

It paints a nice picture if you’re a reporter or a journalist. Tut tut, all sides do it. But I’m sorry to let the people using that sort of construction know, no they aren’t the same. The editorial makes a special case that one person funding an initiative is particularly bad. Fair enough, I guess. Still, corporations, especially large ones like Costco, are nearly as unaccountable. But one of these things is not like the other. Unions are accountable to their membership.

SEIU (and all unions) have to be accountable to their membership. That’s a more engaged group than disinterested shareholders or boards of directors who are often buddy buddy with the CEO. If SEIU’s initiative fails, they’ll rightly be held to account by members who paid dues and elected union officers. When Costco’s last liquor initiative failed, there was no fallout. They just put another one on the ballot.

And membership does hold its officers to account. Those of us in or with family or friends in unions know plenty of people who take active part in union activity. My aunt was a teacher in another state and she and some of the other teachers in her district ousted the old guard who were, “on the take.” This sort of thing happens regularly in unions, but hardly ever in the corporate world.

To get back to this initiative season, SEIU’s home health care initiative is not only something that benefits the union and its membership, but is also of benefit to anyone who needs to hire a home healthcare worker in Washington. We’ll know that our loved ones and ourselves are in good hands. Even if you think Costco’s initiative is beneficial, they only put it on the ballot to make money. So, no, when a union gets something on the ballot that benefits its members and the state, it’s not the same as when a corporation buys itself a law.

One of my favorite outcomes from Tuesday’s primary election was in the King County Council District 6 race.

Incumbent Jane Hague is in trouble.

Yesterday’s data dump shows Hague with 38.8% of the vote. Next is Democrat Richard E. Mitchell with 29.1% of the vote. Port Commissioner John Creighton is third with 24.6% of the vote, and Patsy Bonincontri took 7.2%.

(One reason I like this outcome is pure vanity. Political uberwonks Erica Barnett and Josh Feit predicted Hague and Creighton making it through. I predicted Hague and Mitchell. So there.)

We cannot generally read too much into a top-two primary result. But, holy shit, 38.8% for the incumbent? That cannot be considered positive. I see no way that Hague takes anything close to half the Creighton vote in the General. Many Creighton voters were making a statement—a protest against the incumbent.

The votes tallied yesterday were greatly skewed relative to the election night dump: Mitchell was within 2% of Hague.

Why the shift in the later ballots?

Mitchell’s campaign offers the explanation:

“Undecideds clearly are breaking for Richard because they’re tired of the personal and legal drama of the other opponents. That is clearly reflected in the numbers,” [Mitchell’s political consultant, Jason] Bennett said.

Maybe. Bennett offers another possibility:

[Hague] may have suffered from a backlash by Tim Eyman and other anti-tax conservatives over Hague’s decision to vote for an annual $20 car-tab fee to maintain Metro bus service.

This seems less plausible. First, as Goldy points out in this must read piece featuring Goldy defending Hague, King county rejected Eyman’s most recent “Thou shalt have $30 car tabs” initiative by a 60-40 margin.

Secondly, the anti-government nut jobs that would actually change their vote in response to Tim Eyman’s apoplectic screeds against Hague would most likely throw their vote behind the politically androgynous Creighton before Mitchell, who told The Stranger Election Control Board that

…he would approve a $20 car-tab fee to avert a devastating 17 percent cut in Metro bus service and believes in a minor sales tax bump to rescue the county’s underfunded criminal-justice system.

(As an aside, Eyman produced a:

wanted poster-style enemies list that pictures and labels four County Council members. The word “Liar!” appears below mug shots of Jane Hague and Kathy Lambert.

Does Tim “Biggest Lie of my Life” Eyman really want to go there?)

My hunch is that some folks who mailed their ballots at the last minute simply did a little on-line research. Mitchell looks great when investigated on-line. Hague…not so much. Like here.

Via CBS News:

So far, President Obama has taken 61 vacation days after 31 months in office. At this point in their presidencies, George W. Bush had spent 180 days at his ranch where his staff often joined him for meetings. And Ronald Reagan had taken 112 vacation days at his ranch.

Among recent presidents, Bill Clinton took the least time off — 28 days.

Yes…Elvis was the hardest working. Obama’s a close second. George W. Bush? To be kind, let’s call it The National Guard Plan.

Right-wing nutjobs point out with sophomoric glee that “Obama plays more golf than Bush!!!” Of course he does. I mean, after this “performance”, Bush pretty much had to recreate by other means. (He had to give up carrier landings for similar reasons.)

Other metrics could be manufactured out of arbitrary presidential pastimes: Bush spent much more time than Obama destroying habitat clearing brush, perch fishing, Segway “riding”, and mountain biking. On the other hand, we must admit that Obama has spent a lot more time engaged in presidential dribbling than did Bush.

But golf, mountain biking, hoops…whatever. Only one President was too distracted by vacationing to act on a daily briefing titled, “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”. That inaction started another big mess that Obama has spent years cleaning up. Apparently using some of his vacation days.

OK, almost certainly not. But here are some thoughts with a day’s reflection:

First off, I’m somewhat ambivalent about initiatives. There is too much money in them, and they have all sorts of problems, but I’m not ready to do away with them. Still, I’m glad it made the ballot even if it lost. Before McGinn’s election the cost overrun provision being enforced was a given. After his election, most people said it wasn’t enforceable. And during the campaign, both candidates for governor and most of the political establishment said Seattle wasn’t on the hook. So it helped shift the debate on the sticking it to Seattle aspect of the project (in my opinion the worst part, and the thing McGinn ran against throughout his campaign). I suspect we’ll start to hear the establishment push for enforcement of the cost overrun provision again, but at least we had a year and a half, and especially this year, where they had to oppose it.

Second, I didn’t mention the drunk Legislative staffers I got into an argument with (and I’m not going to name names here) in last night’s post. But try to isolate McGinn all you want, he has been a better mayor than Dow has been an executive or Gregoire has been a governor. I’ll take McGinn’s record over Gregoire’s or Dow’s any day of the week and twice on Sunday. While Gregoire and the Democrats in the Legislature are cutting education and social services to the bone and beyond, while King County has had to cut social services and had a hell of a time just getting continued bus service at a much higher cost for riders, McGinn has signed a budget that doesn’t cut social services and has put transit and education improvements on the ballot.

You can say that he was in a better position when he took office; you can say he doesn’t have to deal with Eastern and Southern Washington or Eastern and Southern King County; you can decide how much of that is McGinn and how much is the City Council. That’s all fine, but I’ll take McGinn’s record of human decency, at least potentially better transit, and better education over Gregoire’s Republican budgets and Dow’s 2 zone peak trip costs $3 each way (and one zone trips are expensive too) for the same service.

Third, I hope I’m wrong, but the I-Told-You-Sos are going to be some comfort. When people complain about the worse traffic downtown, or when they wonder where the on and off ramps went, at least I’ll be able to say, “you were warned.” If buildings have to close or the cost overruns are somehow back on Seattle, if the tunnel machine gets stuck, well that’ll be awful and I hope it doesn’t happen, but at least I’ll be able to say something.

Kevin Drum writes about this report on the political origins of the Tea Party movement. Not surprisingly, surveys of Tea Party folks discover that they have only mild interest in small government principles, but far more interest in imposing a religious agenda in Washington.

– Sidewalk dining is by far the best news to come out of yesterday.

– $60 isn’t going to get us as much as $80, but let’s pass this thing.

– What could go wrong? (h/t)

– Rick Perry’s gaff machine seems to be familiar to Texans. I have a friend, a recent transplant from Austin, who was about as pissed off about him getting in the race as I’ve ever seen anyone pissed off about anything. Also, on the subject of Rick Perry, what the hell? I mean seriously. But at least there’s a good rule of thumb.

– Plutocrat Pete.

– This thread is going to keep me eating well for a while to come.

If there is one thing that Americans can agree upon and rally behind is that Elvis Presley was the King.

So it’s just plain ol’ good, smart politics for Rep. Michele Bachmann to head down South today to help celebrate Elvis’ birthday:

Only one problem. It’s a small wrinkle, but one we shouldn’t overlook…today isn’t the anniversary of Elvis’ birth.

It’s the anniversary of Elvis’ death.

Holy shit…someone’s been taking stupid lessons from Sarah Palin!

Here’s the King County results page. First drop (I believe, the absentees they had on hand) at 8:15. I’m rooting against the tunnel, and I voted against the incumbents for Seattle City Council, but I wasn’t particularly moved by anyone. If there are any other races you’re following, talk them up in the comments.

I’m off to Havana first for the tunnel people. but I’ll probably stop by a few parties and will update as the night goes on. Here’s your list of places to par-tay.

8:00: Judging from the food out this is definitely the grassroots event. A lot of people and hardly anyone I know. T-15 minutes or thereabouts.

8:06: I’ve made it into a press area (you can get anywhere in a tie, but nobody asked for credentials). If someone notable stops by, I’ll try to get you a quote. This has been the most inside baseball update ever, sorry.

8:18: Early results say Seattle wants to be bullied by the rest of the state, hates Art Walk. With 19.59% of the vote in:

APPROVED 43410 59.66%

REJECTED 29348 40.34%

Mike O’Brien to the crowd after announcing the results “I’m going to have another beer.”

8:45: O’Brien came back and said more telegenic things that you’ll probably see on TV but I’d already closed my laptop.

Also, looks like Forch and Ferguson will face the incumbents. To the extent that anything matters for the general (it doesn’t) Godden was under 50% but both her and Clark have big leads. I’ve been talking to transit nerds, but will probably go find another party.

In the comments, it looks good for Wisconsin and Michael likes Mary Vernor’s lead in Spokane who has 70%.

9:22: No bike parking at the pro tunnel people. The least surprising thing ever. I’m trying to find an elected to ask why they hate art walk.

9:29: Dow says if the legislature had let King County extend the stadium tax, they could have paid to mitigate 619. Ifs and buts and all that. Will try to find more.

9:43: Reuven Carlyle will look into if there’s any way for the state to do anything to mitigate 619 (my email’s at the top of the post, Reuven).

10:08: I’m a Forch’s party but he isn’t here.

Michelle Bachmann will be awful for the country. The fact that she’s even in contention is worrying. Her policies will be bad for working people, bad for the environment, bad basic decency. She may be the worst person to run for president with any chance of winning in my lifetime. A lifetime that includes Pat Robertson’s George W. Bush’s Newt Gingrich’s run and many other horrible people. Please don’t vote for her. Believe me when I say that I hate the fact that I’ll be defending her for the rest of this post.

I somehow missed a lot of the Newsweek cover when it came out. So I didn’t comment on it. But it’s still pretty awful. Then during the last GOP debate I noted that she was asked a sexist question. And now this! Seriously, everybody, stop with the sexist bullshit.

Let’s start with the pictures. Everybody takes bad pictures and good pictures. And there’s nothing inherently sexist about choosing an unflattering picture. We’ve all seen men politicians with bad pictures taken of them. The main problem with Newsweek is that it was a studio shoot. Generally in those they pick better pictures of the subject. Newsweek chose that picture to look strange in a way that I can’t recall them doing to a man in a cover shoot.

In the picture of her eating a corn dog, well if you can’t spot what’s wrong with it, perhaps I won’t explain it here on a nice family blog. I’ll just say that I don’t recall similar pictures of men on the campaign trail.

Finally, the question York asked at the Republican debate:

In 2006, when you were running for Congress, you described a moment in your life when your husband said you should study for a degree in tax law. You said you hated the idea. And then you explained, “But the Lord said, ‘Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.’”

As president, would you be submissive to your husband?

Seriously, what does that even mean in context of the presidency? One time your husband said you should go to law school and you did, therefore will he decide the cabinet? What treaties to sign? There’s no evidence whatsoever in her time in the MN legislature or Congress that she’d submit her public policy decisions to her husband. And while I don’t think women should submit to their husbands in their personal lives, I don’t see how that’s relevant to her qualifications for office, nor do I see this sort of question being asked of a man.

All of this isn’t to say you can’t criticize her on a whole range of things. Nobody’s above criticism and she’s got a particularly awful track record. Just let’s try to keep sexism out of our criticism.

It’s an election night! This time it’s in Washington (but Wisconsin, too). So get that ballot postmarked by today or take it to a drop box. Then, please join us for another evening of election-watching under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but a few folks will show up before then for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday, 7:00pm at the Hub Restaurant. The Shelton Drinking Liberally meets next Monday 6:30pm at the Grove Street Brewhouse. And the Everett chapter of Drinking Liberally meets at the Buzz Inn in Snohomish next Monday at 7:00 pm. There are 234 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state and six more in Oregon.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Bernstein makes a couple of good points today. First:

Here’s what you need to know about the Republican candidate field: this is it. No one starts running for president in August, less than six months before the voters start getting involved in Iowa and New Hampshire, and has any chance at all. At least, it’s never happened since the modern process has been fully in place (say, by 1980).

He does suggest that Sarah Palin could be a quasi-exception, because she has been running for President—in her quirky, Wasillaly way. (I think she started her Presidential bid in September of 2008, after realizing that there would never be a President McCain.)

So if you are a Republican, don’t hold out for a savior in Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, The Donald or even John Bolton’s mustache.

The second point:

What you’re upset with isn’t the candidate — it’s the party. It’s inconceivable that anyone could get the Republican nomination while using anything but solid Tea Party rhetoric on pretty much every issue. They’re all going to claim that taxes should never, ever, ever be raised no matter what, that half of what the government does is evil or unconstitutional or whatever, that the scientific consensus on climate is some sort of crazed conspiracy, and so on down the line.

In other words, the Republican Party has vacated the center for the fringes. The party hasn’t really moved to the traditional right-wing, fiscal and social conservative fringes. Rather they seem to have moved to some fringe in another dimension: a fringe in which validation and proof comes from the emotional reaction an idea evokes; a fringe where facts that don’t pass the “feels good” test are dismissed; a fringe that is largely divorced from the everyday wants and needs of Americans.

Frankly, the only candidate that stands out from the fringe is Mitt Romney—a candidate who is seriously flawed by his numerous position reversals, and a candidate that comes of as totally disingenuous every time he spews a talking point. Even with these flaws, chances seem high that Mitt will succumb, first and foremost, to right-wing religious bigotry….

The 2012 presidential contest took an interesting twist this weekend. One lackluster candidate, a former governor of a mid-west state, dropped out after being unable to upgrade his image to “presidential class” and, more importantly, after not finishing first or second in the Iowa straw poll.

And another candidate, after months of great anticipation, jumped into the race with high praise and huge expectations.

You know what this reminds me of? The summer of 2007, and the Tale of Two Thompsons.

Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson was an early Republican candidate in the 2008 race. I guess he though his gubernatorial experience (elected four times), his experience a Bush cabinet member (Sec. of Health and Social Services), and his small town “charisma” would make him a natural in the eyes of Iowans.

After practically living in the state for months, poor Tommy placed sixth in the August Iowa straw poll. The next day, he dropped out of the race.

This is eerily similar to the Tim Pawlenty story. Pawlenty is 18 years younger, and has far less political experienced than Tommy Thompson. What they both lacked was presidential charisma. Nobody had any idea why either one of them was running for President.

The other Thompson that ran in the 2008 campaign was former Senator and actor Fred Thompson. Good ol’ Fred, teased for months and months. He eschewed the Iowa Straw poll, and didn’t officially declare until the first week of September, 2007. He was immediately placed among the front-runners. It seemed the Republicans had found their next Ronald Reagan….

Ol’ Fred was briefly the darling of the Republicans—at least, the ones paying attention to the primary. But it quickly became apparent that Fred just wasn’t up to the task. He came off as a tired old dog that just needed a front porch. He withdrew toward the end of January, 2008. (Parodies of his withdraw—here, here, and here—were among my favorites of the 2008 campaign.)

This is the problem with finding a “savior” that nobody knows anything about.

And that seems analogous to the lateish entrance of Texas Governor Rick Parry Perry. Everyone knows he prays and he is a fundamentalist. A few folks may remember his hint of a Texas secession, which sounds too extreme to be real. Republicans would likely attribute it to an attention-getting, teabagger upgrade to Ronald Reagan’s “…the government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.”

Ahhh, yes, the Republicans have found their new Ronald Reagan. The don’t really know him, but the love him anyway.

And here is where the analogy with Ol’ Fred ends. Because Gov. Perry isn’t a tired old dog. Rather, he is a fucking extremist! I am talking an order of magnitude more extremist than Rep. Michele Bachmann (a.k.a. Ol’ Crazy Eyes).

Ezra Klein has an excellent, and quite positive, review of Perry’s book, “Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington.” Klein highly recommends the book. In it, Perry lays out his extreme “State’s right” position that would remove the federal government from civil rights protections, labor laws, creation of a minimum wage, environmental regulation, gun regulation, Medicare, Medicaid, and education.

This is a level of extremism that is not acceptable to the majority of Republicans, and is likely threatening to the Republican establishment. Hell…it’s pretty much too extreme for FAUX News. Perry has about the same chance of winning the nomination as fellow Texan Rep. Ron Paul does.

If Obama is lucky, it will take many months until Republicans figure out who Perry really is.

To some extent, each major Republican candidates has “issues” that make him or her unacceptable to big chunks of the Republican base. In 2008, McCain was chosen because he was the least unacceptable candidate, and he performed better than any other candidate in most head-to-head polls against Clinton, Obama, and Edwards.

Acceptable choices for the Republicans seem even more limited this cycle.

– The story of the Metro Route 48 is pretty amazing.

– The city council lost its best excuse not to put the full $80 on the ballot. But they’re still not going to.

– What could go wrong with a tunnel (h/t Mike O’Brien on Facebook)?

– Good on Warren Buffet.

– We’ve seen Rick Perry before, he was called George W. Bush.

– So the amount of Border Patrol agents in Port Angeles has gone from fewer than 4 to 40 in the past five years? Huh? Here’s some background on the unpopularity of the Border Patrol out in the peninsula.

– Another victory in the drug war.

– Warren Buffett wants the government to raise his taxes. Isn’t he supposed to fix the economy by giving everyone jobs instead?

– Nouriel Roubini explains why he thinks that our current economy is proof that Karl Marx was right about the potential perils of capitalism.

– Rebels in Libya are closing in on Tripoli and a former army colonel says that the Gaddafi regime is collapsing. And now Syria is turning into the next Libya.

– Yakima attorney and Sensible Washington member Alex Newhouse writes about why we should legalize marijuana in the Yakima Herald.

– This made me laugh (via Reddit, of course)