New York Times columnist Bob Herbert asks:

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Paris Hilton and Britney Spears aren’t just “sexually provocative.” These are women whose celebrity, to a great extent, was shaped by very public airing of their sexual exploits and parts. These women have become cultural icons of the infamy that arises from celebrity mixed with unrestrained sexuality.

At the same time, images of nubile, promiscuous women juxtaposed with Barack Obama churn up stereotypes and primal fears held, largely beneath the surface, by many Americans: Black men with their uncontrolled sexuality are out to steal and rape “our” women.

Don’t fool yourself. Hilton and Spears were not simply chosen because of their celebrity. The same ad makes no sense whatsoever with other scandalous celebs substituted in for the starlets.

Take Martha Stewart…a scandal-ridden white woman who is closer in age to Obama than is Spears. Umm…no, doesn’t work. The ad becomes incomprehensible. But why a woman? How about pairing up Keith Richards and Steven Tyler, celebrities who are both closer in age to Obama than are Hilton and Spears, and have well publicized substance abuse problems and public personas of hypersexual rockers. Obama has confessed to drug use as a youth, so isn’t the Richards/Tyler imagery a much better way to paint Obama as an empty celeb?

This doesn’t work at all. We expect our rock stars to engage in hedonistic self-destruction and take on a hyper-sexual persona. It’s in the job description. Obama, by comparison would come out as clean cut, self-restrained, and rigorously responsible. Besides, they look old. The ad would invoke universal puzzlement (if not ridicule).

Let’s try Michael Jackson, who matches the Hilton/Spears celeb-gone-wild bits, but has the advantage of demographic accuracy: Jackson is male, is close to Obama in age, and is black. Surely, this must make for a better ad than using much younger, white women to exemplify indiscretions of celebrity.

This still doesn’t make any sense. Nobody believes Obama is on the Wacko-Jacko track, which is obviously pathologically bizarre. But, when it comes right down to it, nobody really believes that Obama is on the Hilton or Spears pathologically slightly-less-bizarre tracks, either. The analogy is deeply flawed. Obama has become a celebrity as a result of his skills as a politician and orator, not because his sexual imagery was successfully marketed. An certainly not because he was born, like Hilton, fabulously rich.

The fact is, the Hilton/Spears imagery fails any kind of test as a sensible analogy. (This is one reason why the media is all abuzz about it.) Superficially, the ad was supposed to paint Obama as a shallow celeb. The real function of the ad is identical to that of the infamous NRSC hit advertisement on Harold Ford : frame Obama as the frightening “sexual savage.”

Why would the McCain campaign use hateful, racist messages in a political contest against a sitting U.S. Senator whose only scandalous vice is chewing Nicorette? Because the tactic still works, as was demonstrated by the Republican’s smear ads against Harold Ford in 2006.

One thing that emerges clearly from this episode: John McCain has become a shell of the man he was in 2000.

The discussion opens on the Big Indictment of Alaska’s Senator “for life,” Ted Stevens, and what might happen in the Alaksa senatorial race. Naturally, that raises the question of whether Alaska is in play for Obama. Goldy wonders if Obama will visit Washington state, and why didn’t Obama show up at Netroots Nation, anyway? Is McCain too old, mean, and angry to be President? Or is it his technological ineptitude that should rule him out? In three years, will anyone even remember free plastic bags? Finally, the panel makes their predictions about whether the transit measure will pass in November.

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist and Strange Bedfellow senior contributor Joel Connelly, Washington state Communications Director for Obama for America Josh Field, Cogitamus contributor Nick Beaudrot, and The Stranger’s and Slog’s Eli Sanders.

The show is 50:59, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_july_29_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Strategic Vision has released a July poll that includes the Washington state gubernatorial contest. The poll shows Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) leading challenger Dino Rossi (GOP-Party) 47% to 45%, with 8% “undecided”. The poll of 800 people was taken from July 25th to July 27th, and has a margin of error of 3.5%

This is the fourth July poll in this race. Here are the results from the four polls:

Poll	Start	End	# Polled	MOE	% Gregoire	% Rossi
Strategic Vision	25-Jul	27-Jul	800	3.5	47.0	45.0
SurveyUSA	13-Jul	15-Jul	666	3.9	49.0	46.0
Moore Information	09-Jul	10-Jul	400	5.0	45.0	45.0
Rasmussen	09-Jul	09-Jul	500	4.5	49.0	43.0

Rossi last led in this race thirteen polls ago, back in late February.

I’ll do two Monte Carlo analyses. First is an analysis of the poll numbers in the new Strategic Vision poll in order to estimate the probability that Gregoire (and Rossi) would win an election held right now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 800 voters each, where each voter had a 47% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 45% chance of voting for Rossi and a 8% chance of voting for neither.

Result 1: Gregoire won 716,473 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 271,349 times. This suggests that, in an election now, Gregoire would have a 72.5% probability of winning and Rossi would have a 27.5% probability of winning. A statistician would point out that Gregoire’s lead in this poll is within the margin of error (i.e. her probability of winning is less than 95%).

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections (blue bars are wins for Gregoire and red bars are Rossi wins):

The second analysis combines the polls from all four polls in the Table, to give a July score for this race.

The combined polls yield a pool of 1127 (47.6%) votes for Gregoire, 1061 (44.9%) votes for Rossi, and 177 (7.5%) who voted for neither. Again, I simulate 1,000,000 elections.

Result 2: Gregoire won 919,335 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 77,493 times. The results suggest that, if a July election were held, Gregoire would have won with an 92.2% probability, and Rossi would have won with a 7.8% probability.

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections for the combined polls:

Strategic Vision also polled for the presidential election in Washington state. Sen. Barack Obama (D) leads Sen. John McCain (R) by a +11% margin, 48% to 37%. Obama’s lead is well outside the margin of error for this poll.

Well…this sure isn’t going to help the godfather of the Corrupt Bastards Club win reelection.

Update: The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury, is for 7 felony counts of false statements (18 USC 1001). Sen. Stevens is accused of accepting gifts from VECO Corporation (whose executives were a big help to Mike! McGavick in his failed Senate race).

Essentially, VECO did extensive remodeling to Steven’s home. The house was raised and a new first floor was built. They finished the basement, added a first-floor deck, re-roofed the upper deck, rewired part of the house, added furniture and a new gas range, and even had some sort of “car exchange” to give Stevens a new vehicle. In total the gifts (or unpaid loans) were worth an estimated $250,000.

The problem for Stevens is that he did not disclose these as either gifts or as loans on his 1999-2006 Senate disclosure forms.

Goldy was joined in political punditry by a diverse panel: Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, initiative specialist Laura McClintock of McClintock Consulting, the newest Seattle Weekly online contributor (and former Sound Politics front-pager) Don Ward, and Eat the State, KEXP and occasional HorsesAss contributor Geov Parrish.

The conversation begins with a Netroots Nation debriefing. Goldy observes that Darcy Burner was welcomed to Austin as a veritable rock star. Do voters in the eighth notice? Should they? The topic turns to Tim Eyman, his so-called anti-congestion initiative, and the media’s failures to scrutinize his initiatives and claims.

The panel then takes a bite out of Attorney General Rob McKenna. Are his PSAs being used as a campaign tool in violation of the law? Are the words followed up by actions? The podcast closes with a round of speculations about vice presidential running mates.

The show is 52:01, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_july_22_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We begin at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E, but some of us will be there early for Dinner.

Tonight we will welcome back a contingent of Pacific Northwest bloggers from Netroot Nation and commend them for braving the 100 degree Texas heat and suffering for want of a proper caffè latte (or even a good cup of joe).

For tonight’s theme song, we’ll raise a toast and sing a ditty in honor of “not our fault” FEMA, with this Bob Dylan classic.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

SurveyUSA has come out with their July poll in the Washington state gubernatorial contest. The poll shows Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) leading challenger Dino Rossi (GOP-Party) 49% to 46%. The poll of 666 people was taken from July 13th to July 15th.

The new poll follows the release of two other polls within the last week. A few days ago, Moore Information released a poll in this race that was taken from July 9 to July 10. It showed Gregoire and Rossi tied at 45%. The Moore Information poll was paid for by the Rossi campaign.

Last Friday, a poll was released by Rasmussen Reports, showing Gregoire leading Rossi, 49% to 43%. That poll was taken on July 9th. Gregoire led Rossi by single digit margins in all three June polls, including last month’s SurveyUSA poll that gave Gregoire a +3% advantage.

I’ll offer two Monte Carlo analyses using the new poll. First is an analysis of the poll numbers in the new SurveyUSA in order to estimate the probability that Gregoire (and Rossi) would win an election held right now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 666 voters each, where each voter had a 49% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 46% chance of voting for Rossi and a 5% chance of voting for neither.

Gregoire won 780,736 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 11,542 times. This suggests that, in an election now, Gregoire would have a 79% probability of winning and Rossi would have a 21% probability of winning. A statistician would point out that Gregoire’s lead in this poll is within the margin of error (i.e. her probability of winning is less than 95%).

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections (blue bars are wins for Gregoire and red bars are Rossi wins):

The second analysis combines the polls from Rasmussen Reports, Moore Information, and SurveyUSA. Since the combined responses were all taken within one week, from July 9th through the 15th, we could look at the combined polls as the best evidence available for who would win the election now.

The combined polls yield a pool of 1,565 polled people, of whom 751 (48.0%) voted for Gregoire, 703 (44.9%) who voted for Rossi, and 111 (7.1%) who voted for neither. Again, I simulate 1,000,000 elections, this time with 1,565 people.

Gregoire won 893,646 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 101,700 times. The results suggest that, if an election were held now, Gregoire would win with an 89.9% probability, and Rossi would win with a 10.2% probability.

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections for the combined polls:

SurveyUSA also polled for the presidential election in Washington state. Sen. Barack Obama (D) leads Sen. John McCain (R) 55% to 39%. Obama’s lead is well outside the 3.9% margin of error for the poll.

(Cross-posted at Hominid Views.)

This week the panel was briefly joined by Democratic Candidate for Washington State Attorney General and current Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, who discusses Sound Transit’s next moves and that Washington State is second worst in the nation for consumer fraud. Next Goldy seeks free legal advice from John on whether current Attorney General Rob McKenna has thrown our primary election into chaos through incompetence.

The discussion then gets all touchy-feely over the Doug Sutherland sexual harassment scandal and contemplates Peter Goldmark as Sutherland’s replacement. The local political races add a wonky finish to the podcast.

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, John Ladenburg, The Stranger’s Erica C. Barnett, HorsesAss blogger Will, and Eat the State, KEXP and occasional HorsesAss contributor Geov Parrish.

The show is 50:12, and is available here as an MP3:

[Audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_july_15_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

Moore Information has released a new poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 400 people, taken from July 9 to July 10, shows Governor Christine Gregoire (D) tied with Dino Rossi (GOP-Party) at 45%.

The race has tightened up even further than the +6% spread found in a July 9th Rasmussen poll discussed last Friday. June polls gave Gregoire (chronologically) +3%, +6% and +8% leads over Rossi.

My usual Monte Carlo analysis is unnecessary…with a tied poll, Gregoire and Rossi each have a 50% chance of winning an election held now. But given that the Moore and Rasmussen polls were taken simultaneously, I’ll do my usual analysis of the combined results.

When the July 9th Rasmussen poll is pooled with the July 9-10 Moore poll we end up with 900 pooled polled individuals, of which 80 (8.9%) were undecided, 425 (47.2%) voted for Gregoire and 395 (43.9%) went for Rossi. I simulated 1,000,000 elections of 900 people, each randomly voting with probabilities equal to the three percentages.

Gregoire won 848,698 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 143,199 times. The combined results suggest that, if an election were held now, Gregoire would have something like an 85.6% chance of beating Rossi, and Rossi would have a 14.4% chance of beating Gregoire. (When the Rasmussen poll was analyzed alone, Gregoire had a 90.9% probability to Rossi’s 9.1% probability of winning.)

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections for the pooled polls:

Blue bars are wins for Gregoire and red bars are Rossi wins.

Moore Information also polled a head-to-head match-up between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. Obama lead McCain 47% to 37%. The +10% advantage for Obama is very similar to the +9% edge found in the Rasmussen poll (48% to 39%).

Stop by Hominid Views later this evening to see a 50-state Monte Carlo analysis that will include this new poll.

Oh…one other thing. The Moore Information poll was paid for by the Rossi campaign.

Check out the cover that will adorn Monday’s The New Yorker:

The Politico reports:

[Obama] Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

Not to be outdone…

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

For crying out-fucking-loud! This is political correctness gone amuck on the part of both campaigns. The caricature is clearly satire, and done in the best tradition of editorial cartooning. It mocks those who are truly tasteless offensive and, frankly, un-American: those right-wing retards who actually spread the “Obama is a radical Muslim who hates our freedoms and his wife is an angry psychopath who hates America” bullshit.

You know, Wingnut retards like the Clark County Republican Party and the Island County Republican Party.

If you want to express outrage (or even take mild offense), go after the assholes who disseminate such lies…not a magazine using satire to belittle them.

Update: The artist who drew the cover (Barry Blitt) responds.

Rasmussen has just released their July poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 500 people shows Governor Christine Gregoire (D) leading Dino Rossi (GOP-Party) 49% to 43%.

(Oddly enough, I was one of the 500 randomly selected Washington state voters who was called and chose to participate in this poll.)

The +6% spread in this poll shows the race tightening slightly from the +9% found in the late June Elway poll, but better than the +3.5% found in an early June SurveyUSA poll, and on par with the +7% found in last month’s (early June) Rasmussen poll.

As usual, I use a Monte Carlo analysis to estimate the probability that Gregoire would win if the election were held now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 500 voters each, where each person had a 49% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 43% chance of voting for Rossi and a 8% chance of voting for neither.

Gregoire won 900,804 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 90,599 times. This suggests that Gregoire has something like a 90.9% chance of beating Rossi (if the election were held now) and Rossi has a 9.1% probability of winning. A statistician would point out that Gregoire’s lead in this poll is within the margin of error (i.e. her probability of winning is less than 95%).

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections:

Blue bars are wins for Gregoire and red bars are Rossi wins.

This current poll makes this the ninth consecutive poll in which Gregoire has led Rossi. It is highly unlikely that Gregoire’s lead is due to chance (sampling error).

Rasmussen also polled a head-to-head match-up between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. Obama lead McCain 48% to 39%. Tomorrow I’ll provide my usual Monte Carlo analysis of the presidential election that incorporates the new Rasmussen poll.

I began this week serving on Jury duty at the King County Superior court in downtown Seattle. At lunch time, I made a beeline to Ivars on the waterfront for some fast, delicious, and artery clogging seafood as only Ivars can make it.

To get there from the courthouse, I have to pass under the monstrosity known as the Alaska Way Viaduct—a noisy, ugly mass of concrete and steel that sits just east of the waterfront. On this beautiful Monday I ate my fish and chips in a little park a couple of blocks due south of Ivars, while enjoying the spectacular view and, of course, bathed in the deafening sound of traffic on the Viaduct.

I don’t spend a lot of time in downtown Seattle, so maybe I just don’t “get it.” But to me, the Viaduct completely and utterly destroyed any sense of beauty and serenity that might otherwise be found on the spectacular Seattle waterfront. Really…it stinks.

Apparently not everyone shares my opinion:

The 2.2-mile viaduct is viewed by many as an aging waterfront misfit but was considered unique and “very clever” as a structure and a highway bypass when it was opened in 1953. That makes it ‘historically significant,’ ” said Art Skolnik, a land use consultant.

Skolnik, a longtime advocate of repairing and preserving the viaduct, said he’ll ask the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation to on Friday nominate the viaduct for placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historically significant my ass! It’s an ugly, dirty, noisy blemish on the landscape. In fact, it’s hard to imagine anything more disturbingly invasive, or more destructive of the potential for the Seattle waterfront, aside from, say, using the space to store dead bodies or nuclear waste (maybe…I mean, nuclear waste is much quieter).

At the time it was opened “it was a big solution to a difficult problem,” Skolnik said. “Back then it was cheered.”

…until people actually thought about being pedestrians on the waterfront!

We can learn from our mistakes. Tear the fucking thing down! And vow to never, EVER make that mistake again!

The Freeway Blogger has a new blog site—gasoline stations:

The episode begins with an air of disappointment and disgust as the panel anticipates today’s Senate FISA/Telco-immunity bill vote. The topic changes mid-stream to Plum Creek and the raping of the Montana environment. From there, they take up rural land use issues in Washington. The panel revisits the assisted suicide death with dignity initiative, and then switches tracks to a discussion of light rail. Next they reveal the secrets behind the not secret ballot currently in use in some Washington state counties.

This week Goldy was joined by HorsesAss’ and EFFin’ Unsound’s Carl Ballard and HorsesAss’ (and now Slog’s) blogger Will, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, DailyKos uber-blogger Joan McCarter (mcjoan), and Mr. Tim White.

The show is 61:31, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_july_8_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]