Goldy

Speaking of going negative, Rep. Rick Larsen has a very effective web video up bashing is opponent, John Koster, for his lavish praise of the Tea Party. “The Tea Party Movement, the Patriot Movement to me is one of the most exciting things to happen to this country for a long time,” the video opens with Koster pronouncing, before proceeding to illustrate the teabaggers’ legacy of racism, stupidity, hate.

Just as disturbing is Koster’s praise of “the Patriot Movement,” long known for its white supremacist and anti-semitic rhetoric, and its close ties to the right-wing militia movement. Either Koster doesn’t really know what the Patriot Movement is, or more frightening… he does.

UPDATE:
Eli Sanders at The Stranger notes that “Patty Murray Goes Negative“…

Not surprising, given that the Dino Rossi campaign (and its allies) have been hitting her for some time.

Yeah, but also not surprising considering that going negative is exactly the right strategy in this particular electoral cycle, and that Murray, smart politician that she is, has never shied away from going negative in the past.

I’m in Philly this morning, preparing to drive down to the Jersey shore, so don’t expect much from me in the way of posting today. I’ve been working on a monster post on the future of newspapers — a very simple thesis that’s extremely complicated to explain — but I just can’t seem to get it right, so… maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, just thought I’d give folks a heads up.

Revelation 13:1-2

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

Discuss.

So my daughter and I flew east today for our annual summer trip to the Jersey shore with my family. (For my daughter it’s a vacation, for me it’s, well, visiting family.)

At the time we booked the flight we couldn’t get two seats together; the best we could get were two middle seats one in front of the other. Not too much of a concern though, as this has happened before, and seats generally open up 24-hours before departure. And sure enough, when I went to check in online, there was an open aisle seat next to my daughter.

But rather than trying to accommodate a father and daughter flying together, fuckin’ US Airways insisted instead on charging me an extra $15 to upgrade to a “Choice Seat.”

You know, it’s not really the money that pisses me off. In the end, it’s never really the money; I mean, it’s only fifteen bucks. In fact, I wouldn’t even mind paying a little more to fly if I knew I was getting better service and a well-maintained plane. But this endless nickel and diming is just so goddamn irritating and insulting. You spend hundreds of dollars a ticket to fly, and then they want to charge you extra to sit next to each other? Fuck that. I mean, really.

The airlines may be raking in millions on these extra fees, but they’re sure as hell losing money on me. Because I simply loathe forking over money to companies who treat me like crap, I now fly maybe half as much as I used to, and considering they fly the only nonstop from Seattle to Philly, it’s mostly coming out of US Airway’s pocket. This year alone I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on tickets for my daughter and I to visit my mother in Florida, or to come in to Philly for my 25th college reunion. That’s four tickets in only a few months that US Airways didn’t sell, not because it cost too much, but because their whole customer experience sucks.

But, you know, they’re the experts, so who am I to tell them how to run their business?

UPDATE:
Yes, I know, my daughter and I arrived at our destination safely, and that’s all that really matters. But honestly, how many other legal products or services do we consume, where the most commonly accepted measure of customer satisfaction is not dying? Could we set the bar any lower?

Dino Rossi is holding another one of his last minute, barely publicized, “underground” meet-ups this weekend, and if any of my HA regulars would like to politely attend, maybe make a small donation to Dr. Coday to assuage suspicions, and surreptitiously record the events, I’d love to have some audio or video.  Here’s the invite:

Dear PSCU Members,

If you were part of “Art’s Army” this past spring and supported Dr. Coday’s bid for the Senate, he could now use your support in his campaign for State Representative. Even if you don’t live in the 32nd District, helping to elect Dr. Coday will benefit all conservatives. (His Democrat opponent supports a state income tax!) Bringing a principled, common sense conservative to Olympia, with the bonus of someone who has first hand experience in Medicare and Medicaid, will be a welcome change.

The Kickoff Event for Art Coday’s State Representative campaign is on Sunday, August 1, at 5:30 pm at the Hess family’s home in Kenmore.

Senate candidate Dino Rossi will be there as will conservative talk show host Kirby Wilbur, both to talk about Art’s campaign and the need for conservatives to be elected this November so they can make positive changes both in Olympia and Washington DC.

This Kickoff Event will include a great BBQ meal for the family!

Donations to Dr. Coday’s campaign are encouraged, so please remember to bring your checkbook with you. If you want to meet Dino, meet Kirby, and support Art, please RSVP here:

http://www.meetup.com/PugetSoundConservativeUnderground/calendar/14164105/

or directly with Dr. Coday’s campaign by emailing: info@artcoday.com

They may ask folks to take the batteries out of their cameras and cell phones, so hide an extra recording device in your underpants or something. Be creative. And be sure to play the part of a teabagger and ask whether he supports some of their issues. I mean, the public deserves to know what he’s saying in private, right?

And again, be polite and well behaved, even if they’re not; we don’t want to disrupt their events any more than we want them to disrupt ours. And if your hosts are unfriendly, try to record that too.

UPDATE:
Oh… and if you do go, on your way out, say hi to Kirby for me.

Imagine on a beautiful day like today, taking your kids to play in an amazing playground like the one highlighted above. Or, imagine taking your kids to a glass museum.

You choose.

UPDATE:
Oh, and by the way, NYC’s Imagination Playground also serves to illustrate how ridiculous and unfair the Seattle Center’s “process” really is. The Chihuly proposers had a year and a half to put together the details of their project, while every else had just a few weeks. The Imagination Playground took five years from conception to completion.

If you wonder why more governors don’t follow Gov. Chris Gregoire’s lead and create an online suggestion box to solicit cost-saving ideas for voters, just take a look at the most popular suggestions on her Transforming Washington’s Budget page.

You’ll find such bright ideas as “cut government waste,” “require proof of legal residency,” “limit salaries” and “English only.” What you won’t see anywhere near the top of the list are realistic, specific proposals that reflect a willingness to accept the kinda dramatic cuts in government services that would make a substantial impact on the budget… you know, things like “slash state funding of K-12 education,” “shut down the state ferry system,” “privatize the state universities,” or, you know, “raise our taxes.” Most of the suggestions either wouldn’t save much money (for example, the state doesn’t own the land or buildings housing most of its liquor stores, so there’s nothing to sell off), and/or wouldn’t be possible (ie, federal law prevents the state from taxing tribal casinos without their permission).

Meanwhile, the number one suggestion, which admittedly would raise a significant amount of revenue while cutting costs, presents its own legal and political hurdles. And while Gregoire’s office assures the pothead community that she’ll consider “Legalizing Marijuana” as a “legitimate idea,” it’s hard to imagine this governor actually following through.

One thing this public suggestion box does illustrate, is that as frustrated as voters may be with the current budget crisis, they don’t really want smaller government. They just want government to be cheaper. And that something-for-nothing attitude is, of course, at the heart of our structural deficit.

It sometimes seems like Dino Rossi has been running a nonstop campaign for more than six years now, so it’s easy to understand why journalists and voters alike feel that we know the man so well. Too well, perhaps.

But in light of his hard, rightward veer in recent weeks, it is past time for all of us to question whether this is really the same Dino Rossi who ran such a strategically bland, blank-slate campaign back in 2004, or whether Rossi circa 2010 is an entirely different beast? You know, is he just saying and doing the crazy righty things he thinks he needs to do to win the election… or, has Dino Rossi been radicalized?

No Republican can win statewide in Democratic-leaning Washington by running an aggressively conservative campaign (see John Carlson and Ellen Craswell), a fact Rossi knows damn well. Indeed his nearly successful, 2004 tabula rossi strategy has been a model for Washington state and local Republicans ever since.

The trick is not simply to run to the middle, but to run away from the very notions of ideology and partisanship in an effort to snare independents and soft Dems; this can prove an especially effective contrast in a state like Washington where the Democratic base is so proudly partisan, a trait that can admittedly turn off both swing voters and the press. It is this strategy that Rob McKenna effectively executed against Deborah Senn in 2004, and that led Dan Satterberg to victory against Bill Sherman in the 2007 race for King County Prosecuting Attorney.

Of course, this strategy is not without its dangers or its nuance. The candidate who fails to strongly define himself risks being defined by his opponent (Susan Hutchison and David Irons come to mind). Meanwhile, Mike McGavick’s clever twist of attempting to use Cantwell’s very effort to brand him as a wedge against her in his battle to win swing voters, while brilliant, backfired spectacularly. Still, Democrats hold a substantial edge in Washington state, so a Republican’s gotta do what a Republican’s gotta do.

But in 2010, not Dino Rossi.

The same candidate who used to shrug off questions about reproductive rights by quipping that he’s not running for Supreme Court, now seems eager to take the lead on a number of very conservative, very partisan, very Republican issues. Let’s be clear: there’s a difference between opposing the health care reform bill as passed, and signing on to the Tea Party’s “Contract From America” that pledges to “Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care,” (presumably, including Medicare). And there’s a huge difference between saying that he wouldn’t have voted for the recent Wall Street reform package as is, and being the first senatorial candidate in the nation to pledge to repeal it.

Rossi’s more aggressively conservative posture has not only won him millions of dollars from Wall Street, the insurance industry and the usual corporatist suspects, it’s also earned him endorsements from far-right-wing lions like Sen. Jim DeMint, FreedomWorks, and Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council. Does Rossi, like Perkins, consider “homosexuality, bi-sexuality and transgenderism” not to be “acceptable alternative lifestyles or sexual ‘preferences.’ “…? And if so, how will that play with the vast majority of Washington voters on both sides of the political spectrum who believe that what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom is nobody’s goddamn business?

It’s a curious strategy for Rossi to take, one which our media has thus far appeared to mostly brush off with their usual “politicians say the darnedest things” attitude, but at some point, shouldn’t we start taking Dino Rossi at his word? When, like fellow Republicans Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, his rhetoric proves to be counterproductive, shouldn’t we reasonably question whether his public proclamations represent the real Rossi, rather than just a political misstep?

In fact, the radicalization of Dino Rossi is nothing new, and is part of the reason why he lost by 200,000 votes in 2008 rather than 129. Rossi was clearly embittered by the 2004 election, and it came through in 2008. He proved an angrier, less likable candidate the second time around, but more importantly, one much more eager to embrace divisive, partisan issues. For example, the 2004 Rossi never would have publicly spoken in favor of cutting the minimum wage, but the 2008 Rossi couldn’t help himself.

Yeah sure, blame a lack of message discipline if you want, but don’t forget to question where this lack of discipline comes from: Rossi’s understandable resentment over his (misguided) belief that crooked Democrats stole the 2004 election. The 2008 Rossi proved a more stridently partisan candidate than voters saw in 2004, and the 2010 Rossi is proving more partisan still. Democrats aren’t mere opponents anymore; we and our policies are “the greatest threat” to the American dream. Thus for Rossi, this no longer a battle for the electoral middle, but rather a battle between saints and sinners, good versus evil.

Exactly the kinda rhetoric one might expect from a radicalized Dino Rossi.

I know it’s been mentioned elsewhere, and the Dems have certainly attempted to pound it home in their press releases, but it really is worth emphasizing that the first (and so far, only) Republican senatorial candidate to come out for repealing Wall Street reform wasn’t crazy Sharron “2nd Amendment Remedies” Angle or nutty Rand “I Wouldn’t Have Voted for the Civil Rights Act” Paul… it was our very own Dino Rossi.

Makes you proud to be a Washingtonian, huh?

I’m all for greater accountability in the Seattle Public Schools, but honestly Lynne, could you have found a stupider and less convincing bit of data to support your thesis?

Let’s move from fattened paychecks to misplaced and stolen district property. (Feel free to pause here to get a drink, take some deep breaths — I had to.)

Thanks to generous voters of technology levies and other funding, Seattle’s schools boast $56 million in multimedia equipment, including laptops, televisions, digital cameras and camcorders. But auditors found $7,412 in inventory missing.

The district’s response — shoddy record keeping means some lost items will turn up eventually, others will be replaced — is too blasé for the gravity of this.

That’s right… auditors could only account for 99.99% of the district’s technology inventory! Oh. My. God.

Really Lynne? Did you take that drink after you ran across those numbers, or before?

I wish I knew where 99.99% of my stuff was, and I’m guessing most private corporations would simply drool over the same. In fact, $7,412 worth of missing inventory out of $56 million is so bizarrely low, that I just have to assume that either Varner or the auditor got the numbers wrong, for there’s absolutely no way an operation that big and that distributed can possibly keep track of that much inventory that reliably.

Again, I’m not arguing against greater accountability — we should always strive for our taxpayer funded institutions to be as accountable as humanly possibly — but there are real problems in Seattle Schools, and if Varner’s numbers are right, this sure ain’t one of ’em.

As the Seattle Center prepares to sell off a chunk of precious open space to a for-profit, paid-admission Chihuly gallery/gift shop/catering hall, purely for financial reasons, the city might want to take a look at what’s happening in New York City, where in the midst of the Great Recession the city is building a series of innovative, kick-ass playgrounds… as economic development tools!

NPR’s Planet Money has a piece up on NYC’s new Imagination Playground, a $7 million project that reimagines urban play spaces from the cookie-cutter collection of slides, sandboxes and jungle gyms with which we’re all familiar, into a space where kids can use their imaginations to play in a less structured way. And according to NPR, playgrounds like this are popping up all over the city, despite falling tax revenues and tight budgets.

Why? Because when you build family friendly amenities like this, it attracts families with children, raising surrounding property values and drawing customers to nearby businesses. And isn’t that what the Seattle Center is really looking for? More repeat business for its existing tenants to help finance its operations?

Take a few minutes to watch the video above and listen to the Planet Money report below, and then try to tell me that something like this wouldn’t be a more valuable addition to both the city and the Center than the Chihuly proposal. In other words, you know… use your imagination.

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

KUOW’s Steve Scher is talking about sex this morning, and honestly, I can’t think of anybody I’d rather hear talk about sex than Steve Scher. Can you?

As Eli at the The Stranger confirms, President Barack Obama is coming to Seattle on Aug. 17 to hold a fundraiser for Sen. Patty Murray. What’s so special about Aug. 17? It’s primary election day.

And as Eli explains:

There aren’t very many Senate races in the country that get the president’s personal attention. So it’s a sign of both Murray’s good relationship with the White House, and the seriousness with which national Democrats view Dino Rossi’s challenge to Murray’s re-election, that Obama will be here.

Yeah, true, though I’d add that taking the race seriously and “knows she’s in trouble” (as the Rossi campaign asserts) are two different things. I would sure as hell hope the Democrats would take this race seriously, regardless of the opponent, just as Murray and the Democrats took George Nethercutt’s challenge seriously back in 2004. Indeed, one of the big differences between 2010 and the electoral disaster of 1994 is that Democrats are taking damn seriously the possibility of a Republican wave… thus making one that much less likely.

So if I were a WA Republican, I wouldn’t exactly be buoyed by news of a presidential visit.

Another nuance that Eli fails to mention is that this is one of the regions where support for the president and his policies is strongest, and thus one region where a presidential visit is nothing but good news for local Democrats. In fact, you could say that Obama’s visit symbolizes one of the most striking contrasts between the two campaigns: the degree to which the candidates’ stance on major issues is in or out of step with public opinion.

For example, Sen. Murray fights and votes for President Obama’s health care reform bill, and then brings the president home to this Washington to fight for her, while Rossi promises to repeal health care reform after heading to D.C. for a closed-door, high donor fundraiser hosted by anti-HCR GOP senators. Sen. Murray fights and votes for President Obama’s Wall Street reform bill, and then brings the president home to this Washington to fight for her, while Rossi promises to repeal Wall Street reform after heading to Manhattan for a closed-door, high donor fundraiser hosted by hedge fund manager Paul Singer. Sen. Murray fights and votes for President Obama’s DISCLOSE Act, and then brings the president home to this Washington to fight for her, while Rossi refuses to support these tough new public disclosure rules after heading to D.C. for a closed-door, high donor fundraiser hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

See a pattern here? Sen. Murray is bringing President Obama to our Washington to campaign for her because the policy agenda they mutual share is totally in step with the values of Washington voters, whereas Rossi has to slink off to NYC and DC to quietly raise money from powerful corporate interests, because the policy agenda they mutual share is totally out of step with WA voters.

Out of sight, out of mind, I guess his handlers hope.

I mean, if Rossi is so intent on repealing the Obama agenda and returning us back to the George Bush era, why doesn’t he bring former President Bush out here for a high-profile event? In fact, I dare him.