Goldy

A minor adjustment to the layout of today’s Seattle Times front page shows exactly why Initiative 1077’s proposed high earners income tax is going to do a helluva lot better at the polls than the conventionally wise expect, for while the Times chooses to put the tax in bold, above-the-fold type, most voters are at least as concerned with the potential for mass teacher layoffs as they are with protecting the wealthy from higher taxes.

Yes, I-1077 would raise taxes on the top 3 percent of households, but the rest of use would see a tax cut: $160/year for the average King County homeowner. And while yeah, the wealthy are an important part or our economy, I-1077 would actually improve the business climate in our state by exempting 80 percent of businesses from the B&O tax, while reducing B&O taxes on another 10 percent.

But just as importantly, I-1077 would raise an additional $1 billion a year, dedicated to education and health care, two sectors that have endured enormous budget cuts over the past two years.

Nobody likes to raise taxes, but this measure isn’t being run in a vacuum, and given the choice between further underfunding K-12 education and adding a little progressivity into our tax system, I’m guessing an awful lot of voters are going to choose the latter.

With a fat donor list left over from his two unsuccessful campaigns for governor, there’s no doubt Dino Rossi could raise a relatively large chunk of money relatively quickly should he choose to jump into the race against Democratic incumbent Sen. Patty Murray. But given Murray’s own fundraising prowess, and her $8.8 $9.8 million head start, it’s hard to see Rossi jumping into the fray without assurances of a substantial financial commitment from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Yet given the electoral landscape and the status of their own fundraising efforts, it’s equally hard to see the NRSC being able to live up to the kinda commitment Rossi would require.

Indeed, the NRSC’s current cash-on-hand, about $15 million, actually trails its performance at the same point in both the 2006 and 2008 cycles, when it was sitting on $16.6 million and $17.3 million respectively. In case you forgot, those elections didn’t turn out too well for Republican incumbents and hopefuls, yet if you believe the NRSC’s tough talk, it’ll be spending its resources in even more competitive races than it did in either of those two cycles.

By comparison, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee continues to out-raise its Republican counterpart, and now enjoys $17.3 million cash-on-hand, a $2.3 million advantage.

Back in 2004, Murray ultimately raised over $13 million in her lopsided battle against the politically diminutive George Netthercutt, and with fundraising typically backloaded toward the final months of the campaign, there’s no reason to expect she won’t raise considerably more than that should she face a competitive challenger.

Can Rossi come close to funding parity in only five or six months? No. Can the NRSC afford to make up much of the difference? Not without drawing precious dollars away from more promising contests.

Rossi must know that. Thus as flattering as the NRSC’s attention surely has been, he must also know that he’s being asked to make a sacrifice for the good of the party, not the other way around. And I just don’t believe that’s a sacrifice — his gubernatorial ambitions — that he’s ready to make.

Conventional wisdom says that an income tax measure would not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of passing Washington voters at the polls. Well, it looks like conventional wisdom is about to be put to the test.

Later this morning a coalition of community leaders led by Bill Gates Sr. will announce their intention to move forward with I-1077, an initiative that would impose a high earners income tax on households earning over $400,000, while reducing the state property tax by 20 percent, and eliminating the B&O tax on many small businesses. Given the history of prior income tax initiatives you can be pretty damn sure that the decision to pursue this one wasn’t taken lightly, and that I-1077’s backers wouldn’t be making this announcement if they weren’t prepared to make a substantial commitment toward its passage.

In other words, I-1077 will qualify for this November’s ballot, and voters will have the opportunity to vote it up or down. And I intend to cover this historic campaign every step of the way.

Following up on my previous post, another comment from The Hill’s Aaron Blake caught my eye:

After former GOP governors passed on campaigns in Wisconsin and New York recently, Rossi is the last big prize on the GOP map.

That’s the GOP’s last big prize? A two-time gubernatorial loser, who just a year and half ago lost a 53-47 race to a governor whose approval rating currently stands at 35 percent? Could the GOP bench be any shallower?

And what does all this courtship of Rossi have to say about the other Republicans already in the race? Assuming Rossi doesn’t run (and that’s long been my assumption), how difficult will it be for party leadership to feign enthusiasm for, say, Don Benton or Clint Didier?

And speaking of party leadership, I can’t help but wonder about Washington State Republican Party Chair Luke Esser’s role in all this. Multiple sources confirm that Esser has encouraged Rossi to run against Sen. Patty Murray, and the fundraising numbers make it clear that he’s withheld state party support from the other candidates. Yet even as Rossi’s dithering makes a Republican victory less likely with each passing day, Esser refuses to swing party support behind a candidate who actually wants the nomination.

Why? Well, Esser is a Rob McKenna protege, and the last thing he and his boss want is a gubernatorial primary battle against Rossi in 2012… a bump in the road that would surely be avoided should Rossi run for senate, win or lose.

Forget Rossi v. Murray. Rossi v. McKenna is what these machinations are really about.

The Hill reports that NRSC chair Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is “getting antsy” over Dino Rossi and his supposed indecisiveness about a potential run at Democratic incumbent Sen. Patty Murray.

“I’ve been urging him to make a decision sooner rather than later because there’s a practical problem with not having enough time to do what you need to do before the election.”

Rossi keeps saying he has until the June 11th filing deadline to make up his mind, but with the election barely six months away, every day he delays diminishes his party’s prospects further. So what could possibly be going through Rossi’s head right now?

1. He’s decided to run.
   In which case he’s an idiot for not making it official, organizing a campaign, and starting to raise the millions of dollars necessary to make this race competitive.
2. He’s decided not run.
   In which case he’s an asshole for leaving his party hanging like this. I mean, talking about not being a team player.
3. He’s truly undecided.
   In which case he’s… well… he’s incredibly indecisive. Is this the kinda guy our state really wants to send to the other Washington… the kinda guy who can’t make up his mind whether he even wants to be there?

I’m already on the record suggesting it’s option number two — that he’s simply taking advantage of the attention and publicity in advance of another shot at the governor’s mansion. And Rossi’s comments to The Hill do nothing to change my mind:

“We have four children between nine and 19, so it’s not a casual decision,” he said. “I do have to say that I’ve been to Washington D.C. six times, and I’m not eager to head back into that snake pit.”

Cynical as I am, I don’t find either of those statements disingenuous. In fact, it’s exactly what I observed more than a month ago, when speculation about a possible Rossi senate run first started dominating headlines:

While Rossi would no doubt like to be elected Senator, insiders say he’s not so keen on the idea of running. Nor is serving in the other Washington all that appealing. … [T]he U.S. Senate is a full-time gig that requires tons of travel and the uprooting of one’s family…

Rossi wants to be governor. He believes he won the governor’s mansion in 2004, that it was stolen from him, and that, well, he’s owed it. So not only would the nitty-gritty of serving in the senate be unappealing, but an ass-whooping at the hands of Murray — a third straight statewide defeat — would pretty much end any dreams Rossi has of a triumphant return to Olympia.

So I can’t help but view Rossi’s very public dithering in that context.

Writing elsewhere on The Hill, Aaron Blake wonders if Rossi’s apparent indecisiveness signals the he does not have the “fire in the belly” necessary to run a viable campaign, but I think Rossi still has plenty of  fire… just not for this particular job.

Does this make you uneasy?

Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed something truly unusual in Gannett’s New Jersey newspapers. A new byline started appearing this month on articles about the New Jersey Devils hockey team, with a note under each piece stating that the author, Eric Marin, is employed by the Devils, not Gannett.

Newspapers struggling to plug the gaps in their newsrooms have been turning to outside organizations to supply articles, raising questions about their ability to vouch for the material they print. At the same time, professional sports teams, trying to make up for declining news coverage, have been hiring journalists for their Web sites.

Yeah sure, it’s only sports. But sports coverage and political coverage have so much in common, both in the character of the coverage and its gradual decline, so… well… it’s only a matter of time. Mark my words: candidates will start covering their own campaigns, and it will end up influencing coverage in the broader, legacy press.

And when that time comes, these professional editors — many of whom routinely dis the kinda activist journalism produced by openly biased bloggers like me — how will they justify this new business model?

“As long as it served our readers and we told them where that content was coming from, the readers were fine with it,” said Hollis Towns, executive editor of The Asbury Park Press, the largest of the state’s six Gannett papers. “I think journalists get hung up on certain lines of what’s ethical more than the readers.”

Welcome to my brave new world.

65 loyal readers have generously contributed $3,440 to the HA Fund Drive so far, plus one cynical donation of $0.33 from our friend Stefan at (un)Sound Politics. (I guess sucking off the public teat has only made Stefan even more ungenerous.) Not counting Stefan, that’s an impressive average of almost $53 per contribution, which brings us nearly a quarter of the way toward our $25,000 target when combined with SEIU 775’s $2,500 sponsorship pledge.

Noticeably light on the donor list so far are elected officials and other public figures, so I want to take a moment to reassure folks that I am not operating as a PAC or any other sort of regulated organization, and thus have no disclosure requirements whatsoever. Income from this fund drive will be reported as such to the IRS, but the names of my benefactors will remain confidential.

Is this legal? Absolutely. I’m nothing more than a crowd-funded, independent journalist. It’s a crappy business model, but a business of sorts nonetheless.

Is this ethical? You betcha. I’ve never, ever covered a story as part of a quid pro quo, and never will. Nor have I run away from an issue or an angle out of fear of the consequences, financial or otherwise. Everybody knows my bias, so if you’re one of those politicians or public employees whose candidacy or issues I’m biased towards, and you’d like me to continue in my role helping to shape the public debate, then please show your support by giving generously today.

Anybody else notice that the Seattle Times op/ed page has seemed to moderate a little bit in the wake of the reader backlash generated by their execrable and condescending defense of Rob McKenna’s grandstanding anti-HCR lawsuit?

Now I’m not suggesting that the Times editors consciously adjusted their bias in response to angry emails and canceled subscriptions, but then I’ve never believed that the bulk of media bias is conscious. But the page has seemed a bit more reasonable in recent weeks.

Or maybe, eternal optimist that I am, I’m just seeing what I want to see?

Apparently, the dozen or so declared candidates in the Republican contest to get one’s ass kicked by Sen. Patty Murray this November are just as much in the dark about Dino Rossi’s intentions as everybody else. Though a quick read between the lines sure does suggest that a Rossi v. Murray matchup is not likely to happen…

Among the people Republican Don Benton consulted before announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in early February was Dino Rossi.

Rossi, a friend of Benton’s and arguably Washington’s most prominent Republican, gave no hint that he might have designs on running himself.

Chris Widener, a Preston motivational speaker and author, said he would drop his bid for the Senate if Rossi were to run. […] Widener and his wife, Lisa, have been friends with Rossi since they joined the same baby-sitting co-op as new parents in 1992. The two men have remained close, and Widener said he speaks to Rossi regularly.

Yet, Widener said, he’s just as much in suspense as anyone about Rossi’s intentions.

These are folks who know Rossi, who are friendly with him, and who are already in the race. So you’d think if Rossi really intended to run, he’d have the courtesy to give them a heads up.

And then there’s Clint Didier, who hopes to ride a mediocre pro-football career and teabagger anger through the August primary. His campaign offers a different kinda hint as to what the Republican rainmakers expect from Rossi:

“I am a true conservative Republican,” said Didier, who has recruited Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman Jr. as his finance chair.

Freeman and his wife gave $8,600 to Rossi for his two gubernatorial campaigns, and now he’s the finance chair for a candidate destined to be an also-also-ran? Doesn’t really sound like Freeman expects Rossi to run, and as a nutty as he might be, he’s pretty much a consummate GOP insider.

So, yeah, once again, I just don’t see it.

On this anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, it is important to note that, as always, the real threat of domestic terrorism comes from the left. Because unlike the peaceful, tea-sipping patriots above, we’re the ones constantly riling up our base with fantasies of armed marches on Washington.

So watch out America, we’re coming to take away your guns and turn your children gay, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us!

UPDATE:
My how quickly the teabaggers attempt to cover their tracks. The video quickly removed by the owner once he realized it was being used to show their true colors. Hopefully the folks at TPM downloaded a copy and will get it back online.

What Joel said….

Proverbs 11:25
The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.

Discuss.

Just two days into HA’s $25,000 Fund Drive, 47 loyal readers have already contributed a total of $2,225. Combine that with SEIU 775’s $2,500 sponsorship pledge, and we’re nearly one fifth of the way toward our target. Thank you all for your generosity.

As expected, the comment threads on these fund raising posts are filled with angry trolls telling me to quit my begging and just go get a job. Of course, they’d like nothing more than to see HA shut down; you don’t think they put so much time and effort into disrupting my comment threads because they welcome a vigorous, informed debate? But in fact, a blog like HA, if done right, is a full time job… just not one that provides much of an income.

I spend hours a day, most holidays and weekends included, researching and writing posts, and while my prose may often sound conversational or even improvisational, I’m actually a very careful, deliberate and excruciatingly slow writer. But the time it takes to write a post is nothing compared to the time I’ve invested in the several dozen videos I’ve created over the past few years.

Take for example the Susan Hutchison video above, which effectively eviscerates her attempt to explain away her $500 donation to Mike Huckabee as an impulse of somebody new to the world of political giving. Just figuring out how to fit the content to the 1:26 musical clip I’d picked out was a chore in itself; the entire video production took the better part of a night before it finally felt right. And this was my second video swipe at this particular Hutchison obfuscation.

The point is, keeping HA relevant, informative, effective, engaging and entertaining takes a helluva lot of work, and it’s just not something I can maintain anywhere near it’s current form on top of a 9 to 5 job. So if you enjoy HA, and want me to continue doing the job I do helping to keep our journalists and politicians honest, then I need more than your kind words. I need your financial support. So please give today.

No, really… this is an editorial from the Seattle Times:

LISTENING to Republican senators mouth scripted lines opposing financial regulatory reforms is to hear them auditioning for jobs as industry lobbyists after Congress.

… [Senate Republican leader Mitch] McConnell and his colleagues do not offer any suggestions or ideas about how to rein in the most reckless — and lucrative — behavior by commercial and investment banks.

Nor do Republicans offer any leadership in providing American consumers and investors with trustworthy, accessible information about investment products, and their hazards to the treasury. How or why the GOP would oppose such elementary transparency must puzzle voters.

Huh. And on a similar note, how or why the Times would consistently endorse such Republicans must puzzle its readers.

The unsigned editorial goes on to laud U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell for her leadership on this issue, a Democrat whose candidacy the Times has twice opposed despite the fact that during the run up to her 2006 reelection the editorial board agreed with Cantwell on nearly every single issue except her opposition to repealing the estate tax.

Does anyone believe that had Times-endorsed, insurance industry executive Mike McGavick won the 2006 campaign, he’d cast anything but a party-line vote against financial regulatory reform, let alone provide the kind of effective legislative leadership we’ve seen from Cantwell? I don’t think so.

The Times’ endorsements have proven incredibly predictable in recent years, even the Democratic bones they toss readers in an effort to maintain a semblance of nonpartisanship. (This cycle it will be Patty Murray, even if Dino Rossi enters the race. Mark my words.) So if they’re going to complain about “Republicans missing in action,” shouldn’t they be focusing on Western Washington’s only congressional Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert, who recently voted against financial regulatory reform along with every single other House Republican?

No doubt when they endorse him again next October, the Times will praise Reichert for his moderation and bipartisanship — you know, his “conscience-driven independence” — but apart from some environmental issues, and that one vote on Terri Schiavo, when has he ever bucked his party leadership when it really mattered?

The Times implies that Republican opposition to financial regulatory reform stems from greed — the lure of an eventual windfall as a Wall Street lobbyist — and who am I to dispute such a cynical assertion? But given the bigger picture, one in which House and Senate Republicans vote as a unified block against nearly everything President Obama proposes or supports, one can only understand their uncompromising obstructionism as part of an even more cynical political strategy.

So the question is, at what point will Republican boosters like the Times editorial board hold the candidates they endorse responsible for the votes they cast? At what point, instead of simply castigating Republicans in general, will the Times call out Republican Reichert for his own lockstep politics and lack of leadership?

Personally, I’m not holding my breath.

Yesterday I asked for your financial support to help keep me blogging through the end of the year, and 31 loyal readers quickly responded with $1,515 in individual contributions over just the first 24 hours. And SEIU 775, the long-term care workers union, just became HA’s first institutional sponsor, pledging to purchase $2,500 in advertising over the remaining year.

Thank you all for generosity.

That’s a great start to my first fundraising drive in two years, but we’re still a long ways from our $25,000 goal. $25K may seem like a lot of money, but not when you’re living on it, and it’s the bare minimum I need to keep the lights on and the mortgage paid over the next 8 months.

Am I worth it? You decide. Was it worth having me blogging when I exposed failed FEMA Director Mike Brown’s emergency management “experience” as consisting of supervising horse show judges for the International Arabian Horse Association, a post that moved national headlines and ultimately led to his ouster? Was I worth your support when I knocked David Irons out of the 2005 King County Executive race with my exposé on his physically violent family feud?

Is it worth having me here to watchdog the out-of-touch and condescending editors at the Seattle Times, and to help set the media frame on any number of local issues?

If it is, then I need your support, because without it I simply cannot continue blogging. It’s not a threat, it’s not a complaint… it’s just a simple economic reality. So if you want to maintain HA as one of the best written, best read and most surprisingly influential local political blogs in the nation, please give generously today. And then badger your fellow travelers to do the same.