Goldy

Speaking of prognostication, the Seattle P-I reports that the AP has declared Peter Goldmark the winner in the race for Commissioner of Public Lands, while Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson has conceded her race to challenger Randy Dorn.

While the uncertain results in WA-08 are making it difficult for me to celebrate Tuesday’s election, I’m taking more than a little joy in the outstanding performance of Peter Goldmark in the race for Commissioner of Public Lands.

Goldmark currently leads Republican incumbent Doug Sutherland by 28,592, or about 1.5% of the total ballots cast, and while nobody has officially called this race yet, a look at the county by county results suggests it’s pretty much in the bag.  That’s because a significantly greater proportion of the ballots remaining come from counties which Goldmark won, thus even if late absentees trend conservative, as many election observers expect, Goldmark should easily maintain or expand his margins.

For example, assuming all counties turnout at 85%, and the remaining ballots split along the same lines as those that have already been counted, Goldmark would finish with a margin of about 90,000 votes, or greater than 3 percent.  He likely won’t finish quite that way, but that’s an awful lot of ground for a late conservative trend to make up.

So congratulations Peter on a great campaign.  I’m proud to have played my own little part in your victory.

I was driving my daughter to school this morning when we heard something on KUOW about a “Clown County man.”

Of course, they probably said “Clallam County,” but both my daughter and I heard “Clown,” and it got me thinking… wouldn’t it be cool if Washington state really did have a Clown County?  Not just in name, but a county that embraced the entire clown theme the way Leavenworth embraces its faux Bavarian heritage.

Though if we did, I’m guessing it would vote Republican.

Darcy Burner lost ground after yesterday’s ballot dumps, and now trails Dave Reichert by about 1,800 votes, with about half the ballots counted.  And of course, that’s a very discouraging trend.

That said, it may not represent a trend at all, as at the moment we have absolutely no idea where these ballots came from, either geographically or temporaly.  These could be early absentees. These could be recent arrivals.  These could be a random sample.  Your guess is as good as mine.

For those following the results from outside Washington state, it is important to remember that unlike neighboring Oregon, ballots must merely be postmarked by election day, and they’ll continue to arrive for days.  So once (if?) King and Pierce counties catch up with the ballots on hand we’ll have a much better idea of the status of this race.

Whoever “they” are, just called the Oregon Senate race for Jeff Merkley.  Congratulations Jeff.  (And congratulations Carla and Sarah.)

The name “Lisa Brown” has popped up in the recently released list of Obama’s transition team, and at least one diarist on Daily Kos has identified her as our Lisa Brown, Washington’s State Senate Majority Leader.

Huh.  You’d think that would be bigger local news… something she’d want to promote a bit… so I called state Senate Dems communications director Jeff Reading, and he says that’s the first he ever heard of the story.

So while it would have been cool, apparently not.  Too bad.

UPDATE:
Sen. Brown responds:

I wish it was me, but alas, I haven’t heard from them. The closest I have been to the campaign (besides endorsing early) was meeting the President-elect in Seattle  and meeting and introducing Michelle Obama in Spokane.

Yeah, well, that’s closer to Obama than I ever got.

From November, 2004:

This past election cycle, [the BIAW] spent between $1.7 million and $1.8 million, mostly in support of three candidates: Republican gubernatorial hopeful Dino Rossi, Republican Attorney General-elect Rob McKenna, and conservative state Supreme Court Justice-elect Jim Johnson. Erin Shannon, the BIAW’s public relations director, is thrilled with the results: “It was a big ‘Fuck you!’ to all the liberals out there.”

Hey Erin… after pissing away over $7 million in the governor’s race, imbuing your illegal smear campaign with the BIAW’s own nasty and dishonest spirit, only to see your boy Rossi get trounced by an 8 to 10 point margin… exactly who is getting their ass kicked these days?

I’m just askin’….

More crackerjack reporting from the Seattle Times:

Burner kicked off her campaign in May by publishing a plan to end the war in Iraq.

In fact, Darcy kicked off her campaign the previous year, and the Responsible Plan was actually published in March. Heffter and the Times may not have been paying any attention to Darcy before May of 2008, but that doesn’t mean her campaign didn’t exist.

Geez… if the Times can’t get simple things right, like, you know, undisputed facts, then how can we trust their reporting on anything?

UPDATE:
In the comment thread, Daniels asks if Heffter is “lying.”  Hmm.  I dunno… maybe it’s just an exaggeration?

Yesterday, we won nearly every race in which I was emotionally invested… the governor’s race, the statewide ballot measures, most likely Peter Goldmark, and of course, the White House.  Everything except for Darcy Burner in Washington’s 8th Congressional District.

At this point Darcy is trailing Reichert by less than one percent of the vote, but there are tons of ballots left to count, so I really can’t predict this one way or the other.  What seems clear is that Darcy did very well with the early absentees, and Reichert did very well with poll voters.  That shows a clear trend in Reichert’s favor that we can mostly attribute to the rank partisan work of the Seattle Times and their decision to assist Reichert in smearing Darcy’s educational record during the final weeks of the campaign.  And that’s simply pathetic.

That said, both camps should be very nervous right now.  Later today, and possibly tomorrow, after more early absentees are counted, Darcy will likely regain the lead… and then over the next few days, as the late absentees are added to the tally, that lead will likely slowly ebb away.  To what degree either of these predictions hold true, if at all, depends on turnout and the partisan composition of yesterday’s electorate, neither of which we know enough about yet from the ballots that have been counted in the district thus far.

What I can say in that regard is that looking at the governor’s race the statewide electorate appears to have trended at least somewhat more Democratic than the pollsters had predicted.  And that gives me reason for hope.

So I’m here at the Bellevue Westin, waiting for King County to actually report some results, and I read on the Seattle Times front page that “Burner goes home, volunteers wait.”  Which was a bit of a surprise to me, as she’s sitting right behind me:

Huh.  Unless Darcy actually lives at the Westin, I think the Times got this story wrong.

ABC, CBS and CNN have called the governor’s race for Chris Gregoire.

Four years ago I cut my teeth as a blogger defending the legitimacy of Gov. Gregoire’s election from the mean spirited and misleading attacks of Stefan Sharkansky and the (un)SoundPolitics crowd, and while she ultimately won at the polls and won in the courts, she lost in the court of public opinion.  So had Dino Rossi won this rematch, largely on the strength of the lies spread during the election contest, Stefan would have won and I would have lost.

Yeah, I know… I’ve once again personalized an election, but hell, if that’s what it takes to motivate me, that’s my business.  I’ll post some more cogent commentary tommorrow, but for the moment all I know is that I kicked Stefan’s ass, and that’s a sweet victory in itself.

Get used to it.

It’s over.  CA, OR and WA alone take Obama to 277.

“President Barack Obama.” Get used to it, righties.

Obama is leading McCain 175 electoral votes to 70.  And McCain’s home state of Arizona is “too close to call.”  Kick ass.

I know it’s early, but so far McCain is kicking Obama’s ass, 16 electoral votes to 3.  It’s a landslide.

UPDATE:
Oops.. spoke too soon.  A bunch of polls just closed, and now Obama leads 77 to 34.  What a relief.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
We’re watching CNN, but MSNBC has called Pennsylvania for Obama, which really puts a knife through McCain’s electoral strategy.