Goldy

I have been berated as a hypocrite, from time to time, and in my own comment threads, for not covering Democratic scandals with the same vigor with which I attack those of Republicans, a charge to which I generally provide a twofold answer: 1) I only have time for a couple posts a day; and 2) HA is a partisan, liberal blog… attacking Democrats is Stefan’s job, not mine.

See, it really doesn’t bother me when folks accuse me of being biased, because I’ve never claimed otherwise. What annoys me is when folks like Stefan claim to be “small ‘L’ libertarians” instead of the knee-jerk Republicans they really are.

That said, I do I think I do a better job than the competition at being fair, if not balanced, and today’s post on Venus Velazquez’s DUI is a perfect example. After my inumerable posts castigating both Mike McGavick and Jane Hague for their DUI’s, and their failure to come clean about them, I couldn’t very well ignore a similar indiscretion from a fellow Democrat in a high profile Seattle City Council race. And I didn’t.

But after studiously avoiding discussion of Hague’s more scandalous drunken escapade, and the other infamies that have dogged her campaign, you’d think Stefan might be a tad embarrassed to quickly jump on Velazquez’s DUI arrest. He isn’t.

I’m just sayin’.

I’m blogging from Philadelphia today after grabbing a red-eye through DFW last night. I’m exhausted, headachy, a little disoriented… all the symptoms of a hangover… you know, kinda the way Venus Velazquez must feel right now after driving her campaign off a cliff last night.

Seattle City Council candidate Venus Velázquez was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to the Seattle Police Department.

“I take the charge very seriously. I take the process very seriously,” Velázquez said this morning. “I don’t feel good about it.”

No Venus, I bet you don’t. And neither do a lot of people who have invested an awful lot of time and money into helping Velazquez get elected. Time and money, I’m guessing, that will totally go to naught.

Velázquez said, “I was not impaired, I had drinks at dinner, as many of us do. I don’t even have a speeding ticket.”

Reminded that according to court records, she was cited for speeding in Seattle in 1995, she responded, “Well, that was a long time ago.”

Oy. Have our local politicians learned nothing from the whole Jane Hague affair?

The correct response might have been “I’m mortified. It was a terrible, terrible lapse of judgment, that will never, ever happen again. We all make mistakes, and I promise to learn from mine…” or something like that. But to try to make excuses on something as serious as a DUI…? That’s just plain dumb.

Truth is, Velazquez is both petite and buff — not an ounce of excess fat on her — and it is very possible that two drinks with dinner could put her over the legal limit while it might take more than twice that for a seasoned pro like Mike McGavick. But she refused to submit to the breath test, so we’ll never really know, which quite frankly doesn’t work in her favor.

And besides, that’s not really the point. Maybe she was .11. Maybe she was .05. But she never should have been behind the wheel of a car, let alone speeding — not as a candidate in a high profile city council race, not on the day the absentee ballots started arriving in the mail, and certainly not after a couple drinks. There is no excuse, and any attempt to make one just adds one more lapse of judgment to the list.

I like Velazquez, and she may still get my vote. But I think she just cost herself the election.

UPDATE:
Velazquez has issued a formal statement. I think it hits most of the right notes. We’ll see if it helps.

On Friday, Dave Reichert campaign spokesman Mike Shields told Postman that they raised $340,800 for the 3rd quarter, beating Darcy Burner’s $306,784. Yesterday, after questions were raised about $47,100 in refunds, Shields insisted that the refunds would be repaid, and thus should be counted in the 3rd quarter. Well, he issued a press release this afternoon, and now… not so much.

“Late last week and earlier this week I made a mistake in representing the amount of money Friends of Dave Reichert (FDR) raised in the third quarter of 2007. FDR had to return some of the funds that were deposited in its account and I misunderstood the accounting surrounding those refunds.

“The correct numbers, as reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show the Reichert campaign raised $294,888 in the 3 rd quarter of 2007. So far this cycle the campaign has raised $766,703. The campaign has $339,460 cash on hand.”

Okay, now that we’ve cleared that up (I think,) maybe Shields can come clean and tell us exactly how much money was raised at that big Bush fundraiser? Was it a half-million bucks? Or a measly $127,025?

UPDATE:
Now that’s the headline I wanted to see! From the AP: “Reichert: Fundraising numbers wrong, Burner ahead.”

The truth will out.

Well, you knew it would happen sooner or later — a blogger running for public office — but I didn’t think it would happen across the mountains in Richland, WA.

Yep… you read that right. Complete with PDC filings (coming soon). I am officially running for Richland City Council. Butterflies in my stomach and all. Needless to say I didn’t sleep well last night.

I’m not a reluctant candidate. I always figured I would run for something besides ‘Internet loudmouth’ someday. But I wasn’t exactly expecting to announce a run for anything today!

That’s Jim McCabe, proprietor of McCranium, declaring his write-in campaign for Richland city council, after Mayor Bob Welch’s surprise announcement that he will be stepping down… shortly after his reelection. (Welch is running unopposed this November.)

I hope that when Jim becomes a powerful politician, he remembers us little folk. And buys us drinks.

It turns out, Dave Reichert isn’t one of your typical House Republicans after all…

Although House Republicans currently face a tough national political environment, most of their vulnerable members enjoy a substantial lead in the money race over their Democratic challengers at this early point in the 2008 election cycle.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) financial filings for the third fiscal quarter of 2007, which ended Sept. 30, reveal that the 22 Republican House members in races ranked by CQ as “No Clear Favorite” or “Leans Republican” lead more than two to one in cumulative cash on hand versus their nearest Democrat opponent.

[…] The Republicans in these two categories that CQPolitics.com regards as competitive reported a total of $12.7 million cash on hand as compared with $5.2 million in total for the nearest challengers.

Of these 22 vulnerable Republican incumbents, only five currently trail their opponents in cash on hand, putting Reichert in such rare company as Ohio’s embattled Jean Schmidt (who trails not one, but three challengers,) and soon to be indicted John Doolittle of California. Reichert’s poor performance is even more remarkable when you consider that he was the only House member last quarter to benefit from a high-profile, high-dollar fundraiser with President Bush. Ouch.

Reichert spokesliar Mike Shields, the man behind the campaign’s Enron-style accounting, attempts to put a ridiculous spin on Reichert’s disappointing results, arguing that he’s just too busy being a congressman to do what congressmen notoriously do… raise money.

“That’s one of our challenges: Dave actually has a job,” Shields said. “He has to come serve the people, and he takes that very seriously.”

Yeah, right… unlike nearly every other member of Congress. But as CQ points out, incumbents are not only expected to hold a money advantage, it is absolutely critical for vulnerable Republicans given the current political environment.

The Republicans’ overall fundraising edge in these competitive districts, though expected for incumbents, is critical given that the party has few other advantages going into the election season. In addition to the weaknesses of individual candidates, Republican members as a whole also are saddled with the party baggage of an unpopular war and president. And they cannot count on a boost from the party’s fundraising committee for the chamber, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which badly trails its Democratic counterpart in money raised and cash on hand.

Shorter CQ: Reichert’s in deep doo-doo. The NRCC has to be putting together its budget with the expectation that Reichert, now a two-term incumbent, starts carrying his own weight. And with party resources scarce, Reichert just can’t rely on the same sort of huge infusion of party cash that put him over the top in 2006.

If Reichert can’t out-raise Darcy Burner in a quarter that included a presidential fundraiser, there can be only two explanations: he either has the wrong message, or he’s just not working hard enough. And in Reichert’s case, it is clearly both.

Apparently, absolutely nothing happened in Seattle yesterday… at least nothing important enough to make the front pages of the dead tree editions of either daily newspaper.

Seattle Times:

World comes to Seattle to fight malaria
Invitation-Only Forum
Because nothing screams top story like a report on a scientific conference, to which none of us are invited, that hasn’t even happened yet.

Local travel agency’s pitch: 2 hours in space for $200,000
Very, very wealthy travelers are bored of Earth, because, you know… “Everybody’s been to Iceland.”

The first baby boomer applies for Social Security
Breaking news about a staged PR event symbolizing a “long-anticipated stampede.”

He’s fast, not afraid of a challenge:
Deaf Bothell football player shines
It’s always nice to have a heart-warming human-interest story balance out the day’s hard-edged news… assuming you bother to print any hard-edged news.

Seattle P-I:

Sellers trying it all to hook choosy buyers
Apparently, the key to selling your home quickly is to clean it up and price it right. Who knew?

Mutants? Saviors? Modified trees eat poisons
No kidding. UW scientists have crossed a poplar tree with a rabbit, setting off a nationwide search for an effective punchline.

Small farmers seek a slice of institutional markets
Cheesy headline, worthy installment in the P-I’s special report on where our school lunches come from.

If Republicans breathed a sigh of relief last Friday when Dave Reichert announced he would lead Darcy Burner by about $36,000 in the 3Q money race, they better take a deep breath before reading his actual FEC report. For hidden in his $342,639 of total receipts, is a whopping $47,100 in refunded excess contributions… money he couldn’t legally receive.

Subtract those ill-gotten gains from his contribution totals, and Reichert actually trails Burner for the quarter, $295,539 to $306,784 — and that’s after Reichert’s high-roller funder with President Bush. And again, subtracting the refunds, Reichert only reported $171,134 in individual contributions. So, either our $123,000/3,200 donor netroots fundraiser actually raised more money than the President… or Reichert raised less than $49,000 in individual contributions on his lonesome.

Either way, the President of the United States got his ass kicked by a bunch of bloggers, but rather than acknowledge this simple reality, Reichert chose to cook the books. The bulk of the excess contributions were recorded on 9/30, the last day of the quarter (and then somehow refunded two days earlier.) This is the type of accounting that made Enron famous, allowing Reichert to inflate his quarterly results by simultaneously booking the $47,100 in excess contributions as both a receipt and an expenditure. And since Burner announced her totals early, Reichert’s accountants knew exactly how much they’d have to pad his numbers to convincingly beat her mark.

And for Reichert fans, the news only gets worse. Daniel Kirkdorffer has a thorough breakdown of the two campaigns relative performance, and it presents a stunning contrast:

More impressively, 89% of Burner’s contributions this election cycle came from individuals, while Reichert’s contributions from individuals made up only 57% of his totals, the rest, over $340,000, coming from PACs and campaign committees. Just about half of Burner’s contributions are unitemized, i.e. less than $200 a donation. Only 7% of Reichert’s contributions from individuals are categorized as unitemized. As much as anything that tells so much of the story regarding the breadth of Burner’s support and how much Reichert is having to rely on wealthier donors.

Yeah, you want a really amazing number? Over her two campaign cycles, Burner has raised money from over 22,000 unique contributors — more than some presidential candidates — a donor base she can go back to again and again over the next year. Meanwhile, a sizable chunk of Reichert’s contributions have come from individuals and PACs that have already maxed out. Indeed, unless he turns things around, Reichert faces the very real possibility of recording a quarter-to-quarter decline in cash on hand at the end of the next reporting period.

If the Reichert camp isn’t nervous yet, they better stop believing their own math.

If you were driving through Bellevue this morning and noticed firefighters waving signs for city council candidate Keri Andrews, get used to it: the firefighters plan to be out there every day between now and the election.

Why the passion and effort behind Andrews and her race against two-term incumbent Phil Noble? Chronic under-staffing has made Bellevue response times some of the worst in the nation, putting lives at risk and threatening the department’s accreditation. And that could mean huge premium bumps for residents and businesses should the insurance industry lower Bellevue’s Public Protection Classification.

“We are very concerned about our ability to provide a timely response to fire and medical emergencies,” Bruce Ansell, president of Bellevue’s firefighters union, said, “If the people of Bellevue really understood how serious this problem is, they would be asking the City Manager some very pointed questions.”

But rather than fixing the problem the city council keeps lowering the bar. In 2001 the council rejected the national standard of 5 minutes or less for emergency response time as too stringent, adopting instead a target of 6 minutes, 90% of the time… a goal they have not met since 1997. Now, in preparation for review of its accreditation, the city is setting a standard of 8 minutes, 80-percent of the time… almost twice as long as Seattle’s average response time of 4 minutes, 19 seconds.

If Bellevue voters want to continue electing conservative, anti-tax councilmembers like Noble, they could pay with their lives. Or they could elect a progressive like Andrews and get the kind of public service they demand.

Of course, I always expected the Seattle Times editorial board to endorse a “No” vote on Proposition 1… they’ve been smearing the Roads & Transit package for weeks. But I was a bit surprised by the curious logic that underpins their argument to reject the package: apparently, rail simply doesn’t work.

Light rail replaces buses, and at a much higher cost per rider. Rail soaks up money buses might have used. Rail funnels transit. Buses extend it. And most rail riders will be people who were already riding the bus.

[…] Seattle may deny this, but the surest way to reduce congestion on roads is to build more lanes.

Damn right Seattle denies it — recent polls show that as many as 80-percent of Seattle voters support extending light rail. So… um… is the so-called “Seattle” Times calling 80-percent of Seattle voters stupid? Huh. That can’t be good for business.

As for the Times assertion that “the surest way to reduce congestion… is to build more lanes”… um… you mean like that twelve-lane section of Arizona’s I-10 that has done such a good job reducing congestion, they’ve decided to double it to twenty-four lanes?

Arizona’s “Freeway to Heaven”

Yup, can’t argue with “human experience” like that.

Indeed, the Times seems to argue that rail has absolutely nothing to do with reducing congestion, but is rather some sinister exercise in social planning.

It is about increasing density, levering us into apartments around rail stations. If we live next to rail, we will drive less and help save the Earth. It is a fetching, utopian vision, but it is not so easy to change the way Americans live.

A “fetching, utopian vision”…? But wait… what about Portland, where the Times’ own Danny Westneat recently found that city’s transformative rail system to be “fast,” “cheap,” “reliable,” “quiet” and “mostly pollution free”…?

Consider Portland. That city opened its first light-rail line two decades ago, and has built several of them, all of which replaced bus lines. Overall, Greater Portland is no less car-dependent than Seattle. Its congestion has gotten worse, just as it has here.

Oh… so there’s the logic. Portland built rail. Portland’s congestion has gotten worse. So therefore, according to the brilliant logicians at the Times, rail does not reduce congestion. In fact, one might argue, it actually increases congestion.

Huh. New York City is incredibly congested, and I guess, the Times would argue, that its extensive subway and commuter rail system is at least partially to blame. Chicago’s nightmarish traffic? Must be that damned El. Same goes for Boston and its “T”, London and its Underground, Paris and its Metro, and hundreds of other gridlocked cities that also, stupidly, clog up their transportation systems with subways, elevateds, streetcars, trolleys and rail systems of all types and gauges. If only these cities had followed the sage advice of the transportation experts at the Seattle Times, and invested in roads rather than rail, traffic congestion would be a thing of the past.

No wonder you can’t drive anywhere in NYC, what with all these damned colored lines getting in the way.

After all, who needs rail, when like Frank Blethen and Jim Vesely, you live on Mercer Island and have SOV access to I-90’s HOV lanes speeding your commute to and from Fairview Fanny?

And that’s what this editorial really comes down to: selfishness. Ron Sims opposes Prop. 1 because he’s wrong. The Sierra Club opposes Prop. 1 because they’ve sadly succumbed to their Naderite demons. But the Times editorial board opposes Prop. 1 because damn if they ever intend to ride a train, and goddamnit all to hell if they’ll ever be caught dead on a bus. I mean, just look at the disdain these folks hold for mass transit, arguing that the better (ie cheaper) alternative to rail is buses… you know… “if people will ride them.”

But then, what do you expect from the editors of our city’s largest newspaper when most of them can’t even bring themselves to live in the city they write about? When your perspective of Seattle comes from driving through it at 60 miles-per-hour, of course SOV and Lexus Lanes are your preferred transportation solutions. And of course you resent paying for a rail system that 80-percent of your readers are apparently too stupid to oppose.

Carl and Lee at EFFin’ Unsound rejoice: WhackyNation’s Mark Gardner is blogging again after two weeks in Hawaii, and he picks up right where he left off:

Got to meet Donald Rumsfeld and hear him speak to a small group. In person, he is an incredibly gentile, humble human being, a great public servant.

So Donald Rumsfeld is an incredibly “gentile” person. Or as Ann Coulter would say: “perfect.”

On Tuesday we kicked off a netroots fund drive for Bill Sherman, with an ambitious, five-day target of $5,000 in online donations, and once again our region’s progressive community came through. 101 of you donated a total of $5,335. I personally thank all of you.

I spoke with Bill early last night, after we had passed our target but before the tally was final, and I can’t tell you how grateful he was. We didn’t just raise enough money for a targeted mailing, we created a whole lot of excitement and buzz, prompting more well-heeled donors to open up their checkbooks and help close the money gap between Bill and Republican Dan Satterberg. Bill might still be outspent nearly two-to-one, but if he can raise enough money to get his message out, he’s in a great position to be our first Democratic King County Prosecuting Attorney in over sixty years. So if you haven’t already given, please give now.

And while we didn’t hit my personal target of 200 new donors, 101 represents an amazing response rate relative to the few thousand readers who hit the participating blogs on a daily basis. By comparison, earlier this month Satterberg held his last big fundraising event of the campaign, attracting about 60 donors. By that measure, we kicked his ass, and with only a handful of blog posts. Not bad at all.

What we are witnessing both nationally and locally is an emerging progressive movement with the potential to challenge the dominance of both party’s political money machine. When Darcy Burner and I first met back in 2005, and talked about the role the blogs might play in supporting her campaign, the first thing I told her was “don’t expect us to raise you any money.” We can create buzz, I said, help frame the debate and debunk media coverage, but we just can’t raise money. And so nobody was more surprised than me when HA readers contributed over $30,000 to Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark over a ten-month period in 2006.

Then came Darcy’s astounding $125,000 national netroots funder — over a weekend in August — and now Bill’s $5,335, which relative to the size of the audience is at least as impressive, if not more so.

The point is, that by helping Bill win we are not just gaining a progressive perspective on the administration of justice in King County, we are sending a message to the local political establishment that the rules are changing. As the Democratic Party and other progressive organizations have increasingly relied on local bloggers to get their message out, we have necessarily played an important role in helping to shape their message. And now, in a campaign finance system where most races have contribution limits, our growing ability to harness the financial resources of a diffuse netroots community, and focus it on a handful of very local races, has the potential to transform our movement into one of the most sought after “endorsements” in the state. When a union or corporate PAC or wealthy individual can only give $700 to a race, but we can bring in thousands — in $50, $25, $10 increments — our broader progressive voice becomes louder than any individual special interest.

This is a slow process; it will move forward in fits and starts. But together, we have the potential to transform the face of local and national politics.

Send a message — help elect Bill Sherman.

The headline on Postman’s blog was “Reichert bests Burner, a bit, in latest money totals,” but a closer look at the numbers doesn’t bode so well for the incumbent. According to Postman, Dave Reichert will report raising $340,800 from July through September, compared to $304,901 for Democratic challenger Darcy Burner. So yeah, Reichert raised a bit more than Burner in the third quarter.

According to Postman, Reichert also leads Burner in total dollars raised Year To Date (YTD), $830,440 to $518,630, but of course, the whole point of raising money now is to spend it later, and despite Reichert’s presidential fundraiser, Burner still leads $370,228 to $339,400 in the all important category of Cash On Hand (COH).

That puts Burner in a pretty damn good position heading into an election year against one of the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbents. How good a position? Well, a quick comparison of the numbers this cycle to those at the same point in the previous cycle is quite stunning.

	Reichert:	Burner:
Oct. 2005, YTD:	$937,829	$105,156
Oct. 2005, COH:	$455,120	$43,952
Oct. 2007, YTD:	$830,440	$518,630
Oct. 2007, COH:	$339,400	$370,228

In October of 2005, Reichert led Burner by a substantial ten-to-one margin, with over $455,000 in the bank (both went on to raise about $3.1 million each,) but this time around Reichert’s fundraising is noticeably down while Burner’s — fueled by her $123,000/3,200 donor netroots fundraiser — is way up, actually giving her a $31K lead in the number that really matters, Cash On Hand… and that’s after Reichert brought President Bush into the district for a high-donor fundraiser. And note, the YTD numbers represent “net receipts”; if you only look at contributions and subtract out Reichert’s $64,000 2Q “committee transfer,” Reichert’s fundraising is running about 20-percent below last cycle’s efforts.

It’s harder to raise money when you are in the minority, as Reichert is discovering, but it still ought to be easier as an incumbent than as a challenger, especially this early in the contest. If the Reichert folks were as pleased with their candidate’s anemic showing as they claimed to Postman, I’m guessing they wouldn’t have buried their announcement on a Friday afternoon.

Today is the last day of our netroots fund drive for Bill Sherman, Democrat running for King County Prosecuting Attorney, and as of the last update, 85 people have given $4835… just $165 shy of our $5,000 target! You could be the one to put us over the top.

Of course we’re way shy of our target of 200 new contributors, and I’d like to at least get above 100… that would be more than the number of contributions to Dan Satterberg during his previous reporting period. So if you haven’t already given, just $5 or $10 bucks is enough to make a difference.

Satterberg and his surrogates are working hard to paint Sherman as unqualified for the office, but as Joel Connelly pointed out yesterday, that’s simply not the case:

It’s an oft-frustrated hope that democracy will give us a choice between the greater of goods, rather than the lesser of two evils. The Sherman-Satterberg contest offers two top-notch individuals with different approaches to the job.

All Sherman needs to win this race is the money to get his message out and refute Satterberg’s attacks. Please give to Bill Sherman today.

Scary progressives launch preemptive invasion of Bellingham

The Washington Bus rolls into Tacoma Saturday morning (details here,) to doorbell for Tacoma City Council Candidate Marilyn Strickland, and you can be sure that the local righties will be all aghast at the “out-of-towners” and “special interests” invading Tacoma to influence their precious “non-partisan” election. (Don’t the smiling young folks in the picture above look scary?)

This is a theme that has grown quite popular with Republicans throughout the region this campaign season, as they watch their political prospects steadily shrink. When the Bus made a trip up to Whatcom County a couple weeks back to doorbell on behalf of County Council candidate Ken Mann, local Republicans flew into hysterics, launching a whisper campaign warning of a “National Socialist Organization that is Supported by Hanoi Jane Fonda.” On Mercer Island, where my ex-wife, Maureen Judge is running for City Council, wide-eyed righties stand up at candidate forums, frantically waving Progressive Majority print-outs, a la Joe McCarthy and his “list” of known communists. In Bellevue, incumbent Councilmember Phil Noble unsuccessfully pleaded with the 48th District Democrats to withhold their endorsement of his opponent Keri Andrews, claiming it would be an inappropriate intrusion into their non-partisan race. (Noble is so non-partisan that he gave a second contribution to Republican Jane Hague… after her drunk driving incident was made public.) And of course in the region’s marquee race, Republican Dan Satterberg has made non-partisanship the central theme of his campaign for King County Prosecuting Attorney, even promising to lobby to officially change the office to non-partisan, should he be elected.

Why the fearful reaction to progressive organizers, and the sudden public embrace of non-partisan ideals? Because in a region where Republicanism has been discredited perhaps more thoroughly than anywhere else in the nation, these nominally non-partisan races are the only chance most Republicans have of ever holding public office.

Non-partisanship has become the last refuge of political losers.

After twelve years of corrupt congressional rule, an inept and contemptuous Bush administration, and the collapse of the Eastside GOP, the red “R” has become a scarlet letter few Puget Sound Republicans are eager to wear, and the growing chorus of protestations against the politicization of non-partisan offices should be understood in this context. For decades conservatives have dominated these local races using the cloak of non-partisanship to hide their very partisan agenda, resulting in a virtual Republican lock on councils and school boards in otherwise Democratic districts. Ironically, the grassroots tactics employed by organizations like Progressive Majority and Washington Bus are largely those that were pioneered by conservatives decades earlier.

In fact, non-partisanship has always been a lie… a sham… a fiction, in which even the most casual observer could generally pick out the players without a program. We all know who the liberal and conservative justices are on the state Supreme Court, and we’re usually pretty damn sure about party identification. Likewise non-partisan councils and school boards throughout the region routinely factionalize along ideological if not party lines. Party identification reflects the candidate’s values and judgment, and it is not only dishonest, but fundamentally undemocratic to hide these labels from voters.

It has oft been written that our nation’s founders were uncomfortable with the notion of political parties, but they created this framework nonetheless, and in so doing helped create the greatest political, economic and military power in the history of the world. While America may not have invented the notion of “the loyal opposition,” it was here that it reached full fruition, for by institutionalizing a public debate in which endless argument is embraced as patriotic dissent rather than a treasonable act, our nation has managed to achieve a degree of political stability that is the envy of people everywhere.

Indeed, it is not less partisanship that is needed, but more… a truth self-evident in the familiar groans of self-described independents and third-party fantasists who routinely complain about the lack of difference between the two major parties. Of course, at the policy level, nothing could be further from the truth, but the general failure of Democrats to forcefully distance themselves from the conservative rhetoric that dominates public discourse, only sows such confusion.

Politics, like the law, is an adversarial process, and if one side is less dedicated to winning than the other, then the entire system fails. The Republican brand is tarnished for a reason, and GOP fortunes deserve to be punished accordingly. If we meekly allow them to tear off their scarlet letter and masquerade as non-partisan, we will be doing ourselves and the electorate a great disservice.