Susan Hutchison refused to concede the King County executive race last night, despite trailing Dow Constantine by a better than 14-point margin, because apparently the only poll that really counts was the one conducted by KING-5/SurveyUSA… on October 12.
Told in an earlier interview that Dow Constantine had already declared victory, she looked startled and asked, “Is that right?” … She said she was confident waiting is the best course. “Things have changed historically in the last five days. It is just too early to tell.”
Uh-huh. Perhaps where Suzie went to school they were too busy studying Intelligent Design to learn any math, so let me run the numbers for her.
King County Elections issued 1,079,842 ballots for yesterday’s election, and ultimately projects about 600,000 ballots returned for a 56% turnout. Yesterday a total of 254,261 ballots were tallied, giving Constantine a 34,879 vote edge.
Subtract the ballots counted from the turnout expected, and that leaves about 350,000 ballots remaining. Divide Constantine’s current cushion by the ballots outstanding, and you find that Hutchison would need to win about 55% of the remaining vote to slip into the lead. Even that Oct. 12 KING-5 poll that seemed to convince her she was going to win, only had Hutchison up five points.
Think about that. Hutchison is down 14 points after the first 250K ballots, but is hoping to be up 10 points in the remaining 350K… a miraculous 24-point swing. But in her own words, “It is just too early to tell.”
If this is the type of rational, mathematical skill Hutchison would have brought to the budgeting process — you know, hoping for miracles — then it looks like 57% of voters made the right choice.
Cutt axes and increase spending, and balanced budgets don’t matter!
What do you expect from a Republican?
Next she will claim that it is everyone’s fault except her own that she lost the election, due to her entitlement complex.
sadly in blahvue the kemper freeman anti-light rail slate of republican nonpartisans appear headed to a sweep of the bellevue city council with very light turnout. i’m sure their first action will be to implement public campaign financing for future blahvue elections.
and seattle times misspelled atheist (athiest) in the print edition today. also.
#2: They were replaying her “non-concession” speech and interviews this morning on the radio, which I caught while commuting to work. She “commended” Constantine on the ballots he had received to that point – and seemed to choke on the words as she obviously wanted to seem “gracious” without actually congragulating him for anything. In the interview, she blamed the vote count on the negative campaigning by Constantine, but then jumped the shark by running on about how it misrepresented her, and it was all lies.
It’s true that Constantine did run a negative campaign at the end, but I couldn’t find anything false about what he said. She didn’t respond because it was true – she just didn’t want to be called on it.
Personally, I don’t think any candidates views on abortion are relevant in a debate for King County executive. But she should have been up front and admitted her views (which she has done repeatedly at private speaking engagements), and then challenged Constantine to prove how that’s relevant to the position. Instead, she tried to cover it up. It didn’t work, and now she’s mad at Constantine for bringing up the issue (and others).
I’m thinking we aren’t going to get a gracious concession speech out of her on this election.
It seems to me that Hutchinson has gotten so used to projecting an “image”, backed up by the P.R. machine of a major local media outlet, that she is rather frustrated when the veil is lifted. As a newscaster, she can smile as the booming voice behind her introduces her as part of “Seattle’s Number One Local News Team”, because no one bothers to challenge such P.R. puffery and to question how it’s measured. But once she campaigns for the head of a major metropolitan area with a population count and budget which is greater that of several states and quite a few smaller countries, she finds herself being held accountable for her statements and her actions. Her rather petulant reaction to that tells us a lot about her lack of qualifications for that position.
Belleveue is free to turn down the light rail. Fine with me. I don’t care. Let them sit on I-405 gridlock…I don’t live there.
Lets take that money and push light rail to Tacoma and to Northgate all the way up to Everett. If Bellevue doesn’t want it, fine.
Suzie should just quit. It’s embarrassing and damaging to seem to ‘desperate’. She’s smart enough and can get elected somewhere eventually. She just didn’t win this particular race. Know when to fold ’em.
If Bellevue doesn’t want it, fine.
bellevue’s getting it. and shitloads of people from seattle commute to bellevue daily for work. regional solutions.
Who reports updated election totals? Both the PI and the Seattle Times seem to have last nights results now.
She also showed her true colors during the debate; she dismissed the vote for light rail crossing I-90, because she said the voters weren’t voting for that. They were just “Voting because they support the idea of light rail to the Eastside.”
Which, of course, is plain unmitigated horse pucky. What it shows is that she spins facts to match her own ideologies, even if she has to insult the voters.
What do you expect from someone from the “Discovery” Institute? (Oh, I forgot. That information isn’t “relevant”).
My heart goes out to Suzie Q. First, the poor dear gets fired from her job reading the teleprompter, and now the voters reject her. What’s the poor girl going to do now? I just wish I could console her with a big leftist embrace.
#7- http://www.kingcounty.gov/elec.....edule.aspx
I’m still waiting for a good fast train between Everett and Bellevue. That one seems to be a long way away, I’ll probably be retired before that option is available.
Of course, getting to work is only part of the battle. I often have to go places in the middle of the day for work. In Tokyo, that’s not a problem – salesmen can make their rounds all around the city using public transportation, usually a combination of rail and monorail. But here, we are still a long way off of having a transit system capable of supporting such endeavors.
A friend of our’s daughter is interviewing for a postion in Bellevue. She doesn’t have a car, so I’ve offered to let her car pool. But I’ve got to warn her it won’t be easy – I leave Everett before 6:00 a.m., make sure I’m at the office by 7:00 a.m., and I frequently have to stay late (sometimes to 10:00 or 10:30 p.m.). She will either have to wait for me or make other transportation arraingements on those days.
Bellevue city council results are a definite false note in this election. All the hand-picked Kemper Freeman types won, no one I voted for.
@7
You’re not going to get more than one results release per day now that ballots are mailed. Before, all you had to do was total up the results from the voting machines at the precincts. Now, ballots must be delivered by mail, opened up, signature verified, then fed into a counting machine.
Suzie also said last night that voters were “confused”. Well, from the outset of this campaign, she ducked debates, wavered on issues, and denied her previous associations. Of course voters were confused, she spent the whole time making them that way.
Susan who?
Seattle Times endorsement of Hutchison = kiss of death
Just goes to show how much the Times is removed from the reality in King county.
Hey, why doesn’t the Times just endorse the Discovery Institute (of Ignorance)?
Susan Hutchinson is an idiot. I remember all her gaffes and poor anchoring skills on TV. I don’t want to deal with yet another politician like that. I just hope Constantine can clean up King County’s bloated government. Fat chance, huh?
Shit.
Hutchinson never really reminded me of Sarah Palin until last night’s failure to wrap her mind around the facts, and insistence on blaming all the lying liars for her defeat.
@14 Oh, good. Insult the voters…sounds like a great thing to do if you ever intend to run for office again.
@11 “I’m still waiting for a good fast train between Everett and Bellevue.”
Might happen if a little reason prevails and it’s done down the middle of 405.
Good time for Susan Hutchison to head to Bend, Oregon for a small vacation….
You all are missing the real implications of this. This was a huge rejection of lying sack of shit Kathi Lambert, who just fucking flat out made up the flood for ferry lie–Dow’s people never even considered getting her vote on it, they didn’t need it and they didn’t think they could ever get it. And she was the one pushing the whole sexual harassment BS for the last month. So fuck you Kathi Lambert, you lost big and you’ve been exposed for the whore that you are. Next time you run we’re going to rip you to goddamn shreds. You piece of shit.