Goldy

A 12-year-old girl was abducted and murdered, and what is our good friend Stefan’s response to the arrest of her suspected killer, Terapon Dang Adhahn? The headline: “And He’s a Registered Voter.”

Stefan likes to dismiss me and my fellow progressive bloggers as the crazy “nutroots,” but what kind of sane person would instantly respond to a heart-wrenching tragedy like this by looking up the suspect’s voter registration record? I guess, in Stefan’s mind, Dean Logan has yet more blood on his hands.

Um… need I say more? (Via Slog.)

Via Radar Online, the type of incisive political reporting you’d expect to read over on Slog:

In the final days of his imploding candidacy, John McCain has taken a page out of Richard Nixon’s play book, finding increasingly bizarre explanations for his political failures. Strangest of all: He reportedly feels his handlers forced him to wear “gay sweaters.”

According to one insider, the knit-picking was the crescendo of a tirade by the Arizona senator, in which he blistered aides about the minutiae of the campaign. While many septuagenarians live in a perpetual state of sweater weather, McCain reportedly declared his frustration with being told to don the perceived homosexual outerwear in order to look younger and more approachable.

“He wasn’t happy being dictated to. The sweaters were part of that,” the source says.

[…] The McCain campaign did not officially respond for comment, but one source that has been close to the senator poses the question most J. Crew shoppers are no doubt asking: “How can a crew-neck sweater make you look gay? They make him look silly, sure. Old, too. But not gay. That’s Romney’s department.”

For decades our government has been dominated by a conservative ideology that claims to despise big government, abhor regulation and adhere to an unswerving faith in the infinite wisdom of the market. Rick Perlstein dubs this philosophy “E. Coli Conservatism,” and in practice it is not only flawed but corrupt: a calculated conservative project intended to gut our regulatory systems in the interest of sheer corporate greed. We eat adulterated food not because we cannot adequately regulate the industry but because to do so would eat into the profits of the corporations our regulators serve.

In the six years since 9/11, food-borne pathogens and toxins have quietly killed ten times the number of Americans who died in the terrorist attacks. How many more Americans must conservatism kill before our leaders embrace a more responsible ideology?

That is the provocative conclusion to “Poison for Profit”, my new piece on food safety (or the lack thereof) in the July 30 edition of The Nation. The issue won’t hit newsstands until the end of the month, but you can read my contribution online now.

In case you’re wondering, America’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine pays even worse than The Stranger, but I’m told it’s a tad more prestigious. Yes, that’s right, a magazine that has published the likes of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gore Vidal, Hunter S. Thompson, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, John Steinbeck, and Jean-Paul Sartre, has now also published potty-mouthed Goldy. I know there are those who sneer that my love of foul language is symptomatic of some character, literary or mental defect that will forever relegate me to the role of mere blogger, but believe it or not, I managed to get through an entire essay without writing the words “fuck,” “shit,” “asshole” or “cocksucker” even once. Imagine that.

So a heads up to all you local publishers: I’d just love to supplement my meager income with a regular column. Come and get me while you can still afford me.

“I don’t think, quite frankly, that Darcy being in or out of the race will make that big a difference.”

That was state Rep. Christopher Hurst in today’s Seattle P-I, and while I’ve never met the guy, I have to wonder… is he an absolute moron?

He doesn’t think Darcy being in or out will make a difference? He thinks now that he’s decided not to run, the nomination is Rodney Tom’s for the taking? What planet does he live on?

“No disrespect to Darcy,” Hurst told the P-I, while totally dissing her, “but she had her run, in what was probably the best year in 40 years to run as a Democrat, and she came up short.”

That is the sort of simplistic analysis that may comfort the thumb-suckers in the GOP, but as the basis for a Democratic campaign, it is downright embarrassing. It is also insulting, as it implies that the only reason Burner came close in 2006 was a national trend beyond anybody’s control or power of prediction.

But there were many, many factors that played out in 2006, and the Big Blue Wave was only one of them. As Chris Bowers pointed out in a post over on Open Left, as good a year as 2006 was for Democrats in general, it was an oddly bad year for Democratic women:

In 2006, of the thirty Republican-held House seats most heavily targeted by Democratic Party committees and allied progressive organizations, twenty-one of the Democratic nominees challenging for those seats were male, and nine of the Democratic nominees challenging for those seats were female. With the elections over, twenty of the twenty-one men in that group are now serving in Congress. However, Kirsten Gillibrand in NY-20 is the only woman in that group who is now serving in Congress. For some reason, of the top thirty Democratic House targets in 2006, Democratic men won 95% of the time, while Democratic women won only 11% of the time.

I’m not exactly sure what is behind this statistical anomaly, but it is unlikely to be explained away by simple randomness alone. Something unusual happened in 2006 that we don’t fully understand, and it left Burner in some very good company.

Of course, each race is unique, and you have to look at both internal and external factors to understand the final outcome. As I mentioned yesterday, the Burner campaign made some tactical missteps during the final weeks of the campaign, and the late vote ended up breaking toward Reichert. Those mistakes won’t be repeated. Externally, second tier races like WA-08 drew the brunt of the GOP firepower, leaving Democrats to romp in the first and third tiers. Karl Rove’s now infamous PowerPoint presentation highlights the Reichert/Burner race as the RNC’s top example of a massive get-out-the-vote campaign that targeted 585,164 voter contacts into the 8th CD — 41,666 on election day alone. That’s over 100,000 more than the next closest district.

I suppose if Hurst had been the nominee, this never would have happened.

But perhaps the biggest factor that Hurst, Tom and other nay-sayers ignore is the most obvious one of all: turnout. Despite the national Democratic tide, turnout was actually much lighter than expected in WA-08. Only 251,383 people voted in in 2006, compared to 336,499 in 2004. Democrats simply don’t turn out in the same percentages as Republicans during non-presidential years, and thus with greater turnout and presidential coattails, we can expect that 2008 will be a very good year for the Democratic nominee. And with the war in Iraq continuing its tailspin into disaster, who’s to say that 2008 won’t be the “best year in 40 years to run as a Democrat”…?

Finally, wave or no wave, Burner started out with zero money, zero name ID, and zero support from the Democratic establishment. She worked hard to earn her credibility, and the media and institutional attention that made her viable, and she continues to work hard today. All of those disadvantages have been erased, and if Hurst really doesn’t understand how this changes the dynamics of the 2008 campaign, one has to wonder why anybody would take anything Hurst has to say seriously?

Hurst told the P-I that he and Tom “talked things over pretty extensively in the last six weeks or so.” If that’s true, it isn’t a very good sign for Rodney Tom fans.

So, state Sen. Rodney Tom is now officially unofficially in the race for the 8th Congressional District Republican Democratic nomination, telling the Seattle P-I that he will officially make his official announcement next Tuesday. Whatever.

There are two minds on this within the Burner camp. On the one hand there are those who welcome Tom’s challenge, as a primary fight will focus media attention on Burner, while a decisive victory over a sitting state senator can only add to her credibility and confidence. On the other hand, Tom’s announcement will definitely freeze some of the early money, shaving maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars off Burner’s 2007 totals.

I’m similarly ambivalent, having come to the conclusion that the positive or negative impact of Tom’s campaign depends on how he eventually runs it. If it is a positive campaign, focused on the issues, everybody wins. If it is a negative campaign, adopting Reichert’s dismissively sexist “oh, she’s just a little girl” meme, well, Tom still loses, but he’ll piss off a lot of people in the process. People with long memories. People who hold grudges.

But my overwhelming concern is whether Tom is willing to make the personal sacrifices necessary for the good of his recently adopted party. Last cycle, Randy Gordon, the first Reichert challenger out of the gate, pledged early on that he would drop out of the race if money and support coalesced around another candidate. It did, and he did.

I would like to see Tom take a similar pledge. By April of 2008 it will become abundantly clear whether Tom has a snowball’s chance of running a competitive primary challenge. If he doesn’t, and he stubbornly stays in a race he has no chance of winning, he will needlessly cost Burner a substantial amount of contributions and independent expenditures that will be committed elsewhere long before ballots are counted in our August primary, one of the latest in the nation.

If Tom is a real Democrat, then his primary focus should be on defeating Reichert. Whatever his personal ambitions, Tom should understand that should he contribute to a Reichert victory next November, he will earn the lasting animosity of those whose support he will need in the future.

I’m just sayin’.

Local Republicans are once again dismissing Darcy Burner, but they do so at their own peril.

As a no-name newcomer with zero electoral experience, Burner came within a shiny white hair of defeating name-brand incumbent Dave Reichert. Ask any experienced politico worth their salt (of either party,) and they’ll tell you the race could have broken either way in the final weeks of the 2006 campaign. It broke towards Reichert. And there are lessons to be learned from that.

Burner is nothing if not smart, and you can be damn well sure that she’s learned those lessons. And as her 2Q fundraising numbers prove, she’s also a damn hard worker.

Over at u(SP), Eric Earling says that’s it’s too early for me to be crowing about Burner’s record fundraising, but let’s put those numbers into perspective. Burner didn’t start raising money until March, giving Reichert a four-month head start (coming out of the campaign with a six-figure debt, Reichert never stopped raising money)… and yet she still beats Reichert $185K to $160K in cash-on-hand, the all important figure by which DC insiders judge the health of campaigns.

Last year the Reichert campaign never pre-released its quarterly numbers, even while Burner was making headlines for her surprising totals, but this time around the other guys blinked, rushing to match Burner’s announcement of a $200K quarter (yes, a WA state record for a challenger) with a $244K quarter of its own. But the cash-on-hand disadvantage is such an embarrassment that one Democratic politico laughed that “the idiot” who made the decision to release it won’t be with the campaign much longer. (I hear John McCain has some job openings.)

What do strong Republican fundraising numbers really look like? IL-10, in the suburbs just north of Chicago, is a competitive district somewhat comparable to WA-08, in which 3-term incumbent Rep. Mark Kirk got quite a scare from netroots challenger Dan Seals. After slipping by with only 53-percent of the vote, Kirk has transformed himself into a fundraising machine, chalking up $617K in 2Q for a comfy $1.1 million total cash-on-hand. Those are the type of fundraising numbers one might expect from Reichert, given his 51.5 to 48.5 percent squeaker. And you wonder why I’m crowing?

Earling knowingly points to a quote from the Seattle P-I, in which “other Democrats” criticize Burner for failing to defeat Reichert in a Blue Tide year, and for repeating the same campaign themes as 2006, but those “other Democrats” are those backing undeclared Republican Democratic challenger Rodney Tom. That’s okay. They’re entitled to their rhetoric. But they’re wrong.

Burner, like the other second-tier Democratic challengers, was a sacrificial lamb in a grand strategy in which all of the first-tier and most of the third-tier Democrats won. She played an instrumental role in the Democrats taking control of Congress, drawing heavy Republican fire in a district the R’s hadn’t planned on seriously defending. And yet she came within a few thousand votes, and a couple tactical decisions, of winning. Had she responded to Reichert’s derisively sexist “job interview” ad in kind — had she nailed Reichert on his fundamentalist opposition to reproductive rights (both abortion and some forms of birth control) — it would be Burner who was posting Kirk-like numbers in defense of her incumbency.

As for Tom, the presumed “Democratic” challenger, he’s in for a shock. In 2006 my fellow bloggers and I took great joy in launching withering attacks on Tom’s opponent, the much-hated state Sen. Luke Esser. Tom didn’t ask for our support back then, and he shouldn’t this time around either, because he ain’t gonna get squat. No doubt, he’s a nice enough guy, and a helluva lot better than Esser, but he has a voting record as a Republican legislator that’s not going to endear himself to many 8th CD Democratic primary voters. Talk about great blog fodder.

And for all Tom’s misreading of the 8th District (you know, that the best way for the Dems to defeat the Republican Reichert is with another Republican,) general election strategies don’t mean a damn if you can’t find a path to the general election. Burner is gonna kick Tom’s ass. That’s a fact. She’s smarter, she’s harder working, and with likes of Dan Kully and Sandeep Kaushik on board, she’s assembling a killer team with a killer instinct.

That said, run Rodney, run! It’s good for Burner. Keeps her looking over her shoulder. And it helps build cred to crush a state senator early in the campaign. All I ask is that you bow out gracefully next April when you’re trailing by 20 points in the polls, and $700K in the bank.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. What better way to beat the heat than some icy cold beer, and… um… air conditioning?

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s eleven Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

UPDATE:
Almost forgot… King County Prosecutor candidate Bill Sherman will be dropping by tonight. I would publicly endorse him tonight, but I’ve pledged to keep Drinking Liberally above politics.

In one of my very first posts here on HA, way back before pretty much anyone was reading me, I called out bowling alley operators for their ridiculous claims in support of Tim Eyman’s Initiative 892, which would have put tens of thousands of slot machines in bars, restaurants and bowling alleys, scattered throughout nearly every community in the state.

Support from bowling alleys comprised the heart of Eyman’s claim that his was a battle for equal treatment for mom-and-pop businesses versus a powerful “tribal monopoly,” and throughout the campaign a handful of bowling alley owners routinely made the rounds of talk radio and editorial boards, arguing just that point. I wasn’t convinced.

I remember one particular phone call from a woman who pleaded for slot machines on behalf of the bowling alley that had been in her family for three generations. She claimed she just couldn’t compete against the tribal casinos anymore, and if I-892 didn’t pass, she would probably shutter the family business.

Now, at the risk of sounding unsympathetic, I’d like to impart a bit of wisdom from one small businessperson to another:

YOU’RE RUNNING A FUCKING BOWLING ALLEY!!!

And perhaps, instead of trying to compete with the tribal casinos, you should spend a little time and effort promoting… gee, I don’t know… bowling?!

Saying that bowling alleys need slot machines to compete with tribal casinos is like saying Chuck E. Cheese’s needs a liquor license and strippers to compete with the Deja Vu.

The point is, if you can’t make ends meet enticing people to chuck balls at pins, then perhaps you’re in the wrong business. Or sadly, perhaps bowling just isn’t a viable industry anymore.

Well, apparently bowling still is a viable industry, with a brand new Lucky Strike Lanes set to open one floor below a trendy billiards parlor in downtown Bellevue.

Sure, it’s not the beer stained, smoke filled “family” bowling alley of my youth, but then, I don’t remember slot machines vying for space with the Charlie’s Angels pinball machine either. And surprise: all it took to compete for entertainment dollars was some good, old fashioned innovation.

Hmm. Bowling alley owners capturing new business by catering to bowlers? Who’d a thunk?

President Bush’s first video blog, via OpenLeft.com.

Democrat Darcy Burner will report campaign contributions of $199,768 for the second quarter of 2007 — more than any challenger in any congressional district over the same three month period in the history of Washington state. Burner’s fundraising efforts now put her nine months ahead of her impressive 2006 pace, in which she raised nearly $3.1 million.

With $185,000 cash on hand, a 16,000-strong contributor list, the unwavering support of the local netroots, and a top-notch campaign team forming around her, I can’t imagine why another Democrat would attempt to challenge her for the opportunity to face-off against Sheriff Reichert. (But then, I’m not sure why any sane person would put themselves through the rigors of a race like this.)

When final numbers are reported on the 15th, I’m guessing we’ll find Burner ahead of Reichert in cash-on-hand, and in the top tier of challengers nationally.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

7PM: Is the 2008 presidential election already over?
Is Barack Obama inevitable? Is Fred Thompson rising? Is John McCain toast? Is Rudy Giuliani, well… Rudy Giuliani? Prof. Thomas Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South, joins me for the hour to talk about electoral politics and the state of the current presidential campaign.

8PM: Is Tim Eyman back?
Yeah, well, sure… back with another dumbass, unconstitutional, anti-government initiative, and a broad coalition has formed to oppose it, including the AARP, SEIU, WEA, and Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. Christian Sinderman from the No on I-960 campaign and Lauren Moughon from the AARP join me for the hour for a fair and balanced discussion of Eyman’s latest piece of self-serving idiocy.

9PM: TBA

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

America’s airwaves have been damaged by a series of rule changes the past two decades that have ushered in an era of bland commercial radio and television.
— The Seattle Times, 7/8/2007

Working for 710-KIRO, the commercial news/talk station with Seattle’s best local news coverage, the most live and local programming, and the most only balanced lineup of talkers in the market, I can agree with the thesis of today’s Seattle Times editorial entirely guilt-free. (You know, except for the part about agreeing with a Seattle Times editorial — it just makes me feel so dirty.)

But as long as we’re talking about “homogenized,” “formula[ic]” and “bland” commercial media, I’m wondering if the Times’ editors have bothered reading their own front page recently?

Saturday’s front page consisted of two soft features and two news stories, both lifted from the Los Angeles Times. Today’s front page is dominated by an infomercial for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, a bleak assessment of our military and political failures in Iraq (courtesy of the Washington Post,) and the first installment of a serial novella.

Two days. Two front pages. No hard, local news.

By comparison, every article on the front page of today’s New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Philadelphia Inquirer was written by staff reporters. I’m just sayin’.

To be fair, the Seattle P-I isn’t much better in this regard, and the kind of homogenized, formulaic and bland fare we tend to see in Seattle’s dailies is pretty typical of broadsheets nationwide. While I don’t mean to diminish the Times’ defensible thesis that lax ownership rules and media consolidation have damaged the broadcast industry’s ability (and willingness) to serve local interests, the steady decline in both quality and readership of our nation’s daily newspapers suggests that there are broader forces at work.

This isn’t the first time the Times has editorialized on media ownership rules, and I urge the editorial board to flog this issue with the same sort of zeal they reserve for estate tax repeal. But I would also encourage a little introspection into how staff cuts and a slavish devotion to style-book-over-substance has led to a steady decline in the quality and utility of their own product.

No doubt, local media ownership tends to better serve local community interests. But as the Times has proven by example, it is no panacea on its own.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Josh Feit
The Stranger’s Josh Feit joins me for the hour to talk about state and local politics, including Dino Rossi’s non-campaign, Dan Satterberg’s non-endorsements, and the Seattle Police Department’s non-accountability.

8PM: TBA

9PM: Are you feeling lucky?
Thousands of couples flocked to Las Vegas to get married today, lucky 7/7/7. Do you believe in luck? What’s the luckiest (or unluckiest) thing that’s ever happened to you?

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

In announcing his candidacy for King County Prosecutor, acting prosecutor Dan Satterberg made a big show of promising to keep his office “above politics,” instructing his staff that he would “not permit members of the office to either contribute money or a personal endorsement to my campaign,” yet when civil division chief Sally Bagshaw emailed attorneys at the region’s top law firms, saying she was “supporting” Satterberg, and asking for their endorsements, Satterberg said he thought it was “an appropriate thing to do.”

Huh. That’s a pretty fine parsing of the meaning of the word “endorsement.” So since I obviously lack his sharp legal mind, perhaps Satterberg could explain to me how his admonishment against staff contributing a “personal endorsement” is consistent with Bagshaw’s name appearing on his own web site’s list of… um… personal endorsements…?

SNIDE ASIDE:
On a tangential note, in her controversial June 9 email, Bagshaw stated that “Our goal is to get the top lawyers in King County to endorse Dan early, and I would like to place 1000 lawyers’ names onto the website this week.”

One month later she seems to be about 700 lawyers short of her goal.