Goldy

A new Washington Poll released today shows Democrat Dow Constantine leading Republican Susan Hutchison 47-34 in the race for King County Executive.

This is a reversal of previous publicly released polls, but is consistent with two private polls I’ve heard word of over the past week. It will be interesting to see if SurveyUSA, which has consistently shown Hutchison in lead, finds a similar reversal in their final survey, which I believe is due to be released later today.

The Washington Poll also shows Referendum 71 passing by a 57-38 margin, while Tim Eyman’s incredibly idiotic Initiative 1033 fails 40-49.

I’d say all of that is good news.

Susan Hutchison will run for the U.S. Senate. (As a Republican, silly.)

If elected executive, who would Susan Hutchison appoint to the Sound Transit board? Erica’s got the scoop.

Once again, isn’t it ironic that it is Darcy Burner, not Dave Reichert, who is playing the bigger role in our national health care debate? According to The Hill:

The head of a not-for-profit organization affiliated with House Democratic liberals plans to raise $1 million next year to give liberals an edge in public policy battles with the conservative Blue Dog Coalition.

Darcy Burner, the executive director of ProgressiveCongress.org, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization, has played a behind-the-scenes role in the healthcare debate, applying constant pressure on Democratic leaders to keep the public option on the negotiating table.

[…] The renamed group, which includes an educational wing organized under section 501(c)3 of the tax code and a 501(c)4 advocacy wing, has served as an important bridge between House liberals and outside groups such as MoveOn.org, US Action, People For the American Way and the AFL-CIO. It has also worked with influential liberal blogs such as Daily Kos and OpenLeft to provide updates of internal Democratic deliberations and keep up a drumbeat of demand for the public option.

But, you know, don’t expect any coverage of Darcy’s efforts in the Seattle Times, because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to dismiss her as inexperienced should choose to run for office again.

Those who have criticized my relentless attacks on Susan Hutchison as a Bible-thumpin’, evolution-denyin’, partisan right-wing Republican, have generally missed the point.

I do not argue that any of her beliefs or affiliations, however extreme, should disqualify Hutchison from holding public office. “No religious test shall ever be required…” and all that. That’s a good thing.

I just insist that Hutchison be honest about it, and barring that, that the press hold her accountable.

Take for example the video above, in which I compare and contrast Hutchison’s effort to minimize her contribution to Mike Huckabee, with her obvious infatuation with the most prominently Evangelical of the 2008 presidential candidates. When asked about her $500 contribution to Huckabee during a KCTS debate, Hutchison could’ve just said that she supported his candidacy, and explained the reasons why. But she didn’t.

Instead, she attempted to explain it away:

Well, when I was a journalist, as you know, we don’t contribute to political campaigns. And so when I ended my career, I started to respond to all of those messages that we got in the mail, or phone calls.

And one of them was from a friend of mine who said, “Let’s go hear Mike Huckabee speak… he’s a popular governor from Arkansas,” and at that point nobody had really heard much about him. And she said “He’s got innovative ideas.” And this friend of mine has done a lot of politicking, and so I said, “Okay, I’ll go with you to that lunch,” and I wrote the check. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the lunch, and so, that is the extent of my check writing for Mike Huckabee.

To anybody who watched the KCTS debate, the impression she gave was clear. 1) Journalists “don’t contribute to political campaigns,” so Hutchison was new to the world of partisan politics. 2) Like most everyone else, she hadn’t heard much about Huckabee at the time. And 3) she wrote the check merely at the request of a friend who spoke highly of Huckabee, and invited her to hear him speak. When Hutchison says “that is the extent of my checking writing for Mike Huckabee,” she clearly intends to leave the impression that this was the extent of her involvement with Huckabee as well.

But all three of these impressions simply aren’t true.

First of all, KIRO-TV ended Hutchison’s “journalism” career way back in 2002, while the Huckabee luncheon wasn’t until November 15, 2007. That’s a full five years of responding to all those messages and phone calls, so she couldn’t possibly have been the partisan political novice she makes herself out to be at the time.

In fact, according to PDC and FEC reports, Hutchison started giving to political campaigns as early as September of 2003, with a $500 contribution toward the reelection of President George W. Bush; by 2005, she had become a regular contributor to Republican candidates and causes. Indeed, by the time Hutchison wrote her $500 check to Huckabee, she had already written 23 checks totaling $12,500, to 16 different campaigns and committees… Republican all.

So the image of Hutchison as a naive check-writing newbie? That’s misimpression number one, especially considering her entire career since leaving KIRO had been writing checks on behalf of billionaire Charles Simonyi.

As for the impression Hutchison leaves that she didn’t know much about Huckabee at the time, well the video clips above speak for themselves, but here’s the timeline. The Huckabee luncheon was on Nov. 15, 2007, and her check is recorded on Nov. 19. Yet on Sept. 27, 2007, nearly two months earlier, Hutchison can be seen lauding Huckabee before a packed house at the conservative Washington Policy Center’s annual dinner, an event she’s been emceeing for years:

“As you know, if you’ve been here before, our speakers inform, inspire and predict the future. Anyone who was here last year is not surprised that Mike Huckabee is performing well in the presidential race for the Republican primary.”

Hutchison is talking about the 2006 annual dinner, at which Mike Huckabee was the featured speaker, and she, as usual, was the master of ceremonies. So… even though she implies that she didn’t know much about Huckabee in November of 2007 at the time she wrote him a $500.00 check, she had in fact personally met the man, and had been “informed and inspired” by him, a full year earlier, in 2006… a speech she fondly recalled in September of 2007 at the following year’s dinner.

That’s just plain deceptive.

And finally, that politically involved friend Hutchison refers to… the one who invited her to hear Huckabee speak, and who allegedly gushed about his “innovative ideas”…? That was almost surely Sarah Rindlaub, “one of Hutchison’s closest political allies,” a Washington Policy Center board member.

And the lunch itself? An Evangelicals for Huckabee endorsement event, sponsored by Joe Fuiten and twenty other conservative pastors.

Again, Hutchison has the right to associate with and contribute to anybody she wants, but the public has just as much a right to know about it. And therein lies my biggest complaint with the way Hutchison has run her campaign, and the way the press has covered it.

Knowing the facts, anybody watching Hutchison’s efforts to minimize her support for Huckabee simply wouldn’t find her credible. Yet most voters don’t know the facts, and for that I hold our local media complicit.

UPDATE:
TVW is playing its games again, filing takedown notices with YouTube for what clearly amounts to fair use. So I’ve reposted via Vimeo.  So there.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
TVW has apparently had my video pulled from Vimeo, so I’ve replaced the embed with one from LiveLeak. I’m willing to play this game as long as they are.

Susan Hutchison has made much hay in recent days about an email from County Councilmember Reagan Dunn that allegedly shows he was concerned that he would lose funding for projects within his district if he didn’t vote for a ferry district tax sponsored by Dow Constantine.

In his Nov. 5, 2007 e-mail to County Council attorney Jim Brewer, Dunn asks if “vote-trading” is legal in Washington, and asks whether council members can legally “remove projects located in one Councilmember’s district when that Councilmember refuses to vote in favor of tax increases.”

Dunn said today he was worried that senior centers and other programs in his district would lose funding if he voted against the tax to fund passenger-only ferries.

At first I just wrote off Dunn’s alleged concerns to woosy naivete, or perhaps naive woosiness. I mean, horse trading in politics? Heaven forfend!

But as it turns out, Dunn is just a shameless hypocrite, as evidenced by how proud he is over his councilmanic arm-twisting to restore funding to the King County Fair in Enumclaw:

King County Councilman Reagan Dunn is pushing the issue in Seattle, urging his fellow council members to include at least $318,000 in the 2010 budget to make the fair a reality.  … Dunn said he’s working on the rest of the county council, calling in favors when necessary.

“This is budget politics at its best,” he said, referring to the give-and-take that occurs when nine elected officials must come together to pass a working budget.

So let’s see… when Republican Dunn twists arms and calls in favors to save projects in his own district, that’s “budget politics at its best,” but when Democrat Constantine allegedly does the same, well, that’s a clear sign of corruption.

Uh-huh.

Susan Hutchison continues to deny that she’s ever given money to the far-right-wing BIAW, even though PDC records show she’s given $1000.00 to BIAW’s ChangePAC. I guess in Hutchison’s mind, ChangePAC isn’t BIAW because BIAW isn’t mentioned anywhere in the name.

Likewise, I guess, by this same dishonest standard then, BIAW isn’t funding robocalls in support of Hutchison’s campaign for King County executive:

[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/msg0029.mp3]

Yes, that message is paid for by the Affordable Housing Council, which sounds like an advocacy group with a positive enough agenda, until you learn that it’s really just a PAC for, you guessed it… BIAW.

So see… Hutchison has not given money to BIAW, and BIAW is not spending money in support of Hutchison… you know, per se. And if you believe that, I’ve got a deep bore tunnel to sell you.

UPDATE:
As Steve Zemke reports in the comment thread, this is just one of at least two different robocalls BIAW is busy tying up the lines with this week:

I got another call on Wednesday with a different message that she has been endorsed by Rob McKenna and Wes Uhlman also paid for by the “Affordable Housing Council”. I also received the one you have yesterday.

Also, I’m hearing that the calls are going out countywide, both Eastside and within Seattle.

I’ve got a longer fisking in the works, but I just needed to pause for a moment to call out Susan Hutchison for a particularly infuriating piece of hypocrisy that local righties always seem to get away with:

Paula Hammond, the state transportation secretary and Sound Transit board member, said “I was surprised it (the 520 proposal) came up. I don’t understand it.”

“The voters have decided. It makes it a bit moot.”

Hutchison believes voters were really just approving a general endorsement of extending rail to the Eastside rather than of a specific route.

Get that? According to Hutchison, voters didn’t really know what they were voting on last November when Sound Transit put forth very detailed plans for Eastside rail expansion, so as county executive it would be her prerogative to change the plans as she saw fit.

Now to be fair, I happen to agree that voters often don’t fully understand the ballot measures on which they’re asked to vote, and that many, many such issues would be better decided through a deliberative legislative process rather than a thumbs up or down at the polls. But at least I’m consistent in my cynicism towards so-called direct democracy.

But not so our political and media establishment which almost uniformly stands up for the inviolability of tax-cutting, government-restricting ballot measures like those peddled by Tim Eyman, yet seems almost eager to second guess voters when it comes to their support for actually spending money and other policy priorities.

Car tab slashing initiative I-695? Well yeah, it was unconstitutional, but we better implement it via legislation anyway because that’s what the voters say they want, whatever the consequences. But the teacher pay and class size initiatives? Oh those silly voters… they were so irresponsible in not specifying a revenue source, so we’re pretty much free to suspend those whenever budgets get tight.

The renewable energy initiative overwhelmingly approved at the polls? Voters didn’t really understand the specifics and the consequences we were told, so legislators felt free to try to loosen the terms last session. But I-747’s arbitrary and unreasonable one-percent cap on revenue growth from regular levies? Again, unconstitutional measure, but we better call a special session to reimpose it because, damn, it was the will of the people you know.

Voters reject a baseball stadium, we get a baseball stadium. Voters reject replacing the Viaduct with a tunnel, and local and state leaders get together and compromise on, you guessed it, a tunnel. And hell, then there’s the Monorail. Boondoggle or no, it took five separate ballot measures before voters finally rejected the Monorail, but only that last vote was somehow considered definitive. Yet even dare to question the tax and revenue limits already in place, and an elected official is virtually guaranteed a scathing attack from our state’s opinion leaders, not to mention the usual, bullshitty, angry email-cum-fundraising-scam from our friend Timmy.

Huh?

I mean, if Dow Constantine were to imply voters didn’t understand what they were voting on in approving I-747 (which by the way, failed in King County), just imagine how he would be castigated by Eyman and the Seattle Times ed board for his arrogance. Yet Hutchison implies the same about last year’s excruciatingly deliberated, negotiated, debated and hard fought Sound Transit Phase II expansion — a measure that passed in King County with an extraordinary 63% of the vote — and nobody bats an eyebrow.

What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.

Well you can’t have it both ways. Either a vote of the people is carved in stone by the invisible hand of God, or it isn’t. And since after two years our state constitution gives initiatives the same standing as any other law, I’d say it is clearly the latter.

But either way, popular ballot measures like last year’s Prop 1 simply shouldn’t be abrogated via executive fiat, and any suggestion to the contrary should be roundly greeted with ridicule. It is Hutchison, not the voters, who clearly hasn’t been paying attention when it comes to regional transportation planning, and she desperately needs to be called on the table for her ignorance, if not her arrogance.

Ted Van Dyk is voting for Susan Hutchison, not because she’s qualified to run anything more complicated than Charles Simonyi’s social calendar, but because Van Dyk thinks Dow Constantine is too partisan:

Democrats enjoy a huge registration edge in the county. Constantine, therefore, has based much of his campaign on his long partisan affiliation, in contrast to former TV anchorwoman Susan Hutchison’s uncertain affiliation. (Hutchison says she is a genuine independent who has voted for both Democrats and Republicans and who is endorsed by both Democrats and Republicans). More recently, Constantine’s allies have attacked Hutchison on the basis that she might not be pro-choice.

As the general-election campaign has proceeded, Constantine has diminished himself with his low-politics tactics. (Neither partisan leaning, in a nonpartisan office, nor presumed position on a social issue has anything to do with the duties of the King County executive).

Uh-huh.

But then, I guess such an attitude shouldn’t be surprising, coming from a man who clearly pines for the high-minded bipartisanship of a long lost era, when even a Democratic stalwart like Van Dyk could be counted upon to deliver suitcases full of $100 bills to President Richard Nixon’s private attorney.

[…]

Now that’s what I call bipartisan cooperation.

According to transcripts from the Watergate hearings (yes, the Watergate hearings… Van Dyk’s name comes up surprisingly often in the transcripts), the amount of money funneled to the Nixon administration from this milk industry co-op was closer to $900,000, not the $100,000 originally reported in the New York Times, but who am I to quibble? The point is, according to Van Dyk (who later served as a milk industry lobbyist), bipartisanship is a good thing that always leads to better and less corrupt government than that nasty partisan stuff Constantine practices.

I’m just sayin’….