Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but feel free to join some of us for an earlier dinner.
Not in Seattle? There is an excellent chance you live close to one of the 227 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.
I know…I shouldn’t pick on the pathetic. But I will anyway.
Two weeks ago, after an Elway poll came out with mixed news for Sen. Maria Cantwell, I did a preliminary assessment of Cantwell’s vulnerability to a Republican challenger. I didn’t find the minor weaknesses uncovered by the Elway poll overly concerning. The poll didn’t do head-to-head match-ups for a general election, but it did find 46% would vote to keep Cantwell in office, and 36% would vote to replace her—a result almost identical that at this point in the 2006 election cycle.
My non-concern also reflected evidence from a much richer series of data from Survey USA’s regular tracking polls. They show Cantwell’s recent approval bouncing erratically from about 40% to 55%, with the most recent one at 49%.
Now Public Policy Polling has released a new poll that sheds more light on Cantwell’s lack of vulnerability. The poll finds her with 50% approval and 36 disapproval:
Cantwell is pretty universally well liked within her own party, at 80/7 with Democrats. She’s also on narrowly positive ground with independents at 44/40 and has a 17% approval rating with Republicans, which is a decent amount of crossover support (we generally found Patty Murray with a single digit approval with GOP voters over the course of last year’s campaign.)
The Republican who comes closest to Cantwell is an old favorite- Dino Rossi, who trails 53-40. Susan Hutchison and Dave Reichert do next best, both trailing by a 49-35 margin. Clint Didier trails 51-35 and Cathy McMorris Rodgers has the largest deficit at 50-31. Cantwell wins independent voters by 5-12 points in all of the match ups and picks up 8-9% of the Republican vote while only losing 2-5% of the Democratic vote.
Wow…a 17% approval with Republicans!
The head-to-head match-ups suggest that none of the Republican challengers can do any better against Cantwell than Mike McGavick’s dismal 39.9% result in 2006.
The bottom line:
Cantwell’s reasonably popular and the GOP doesn’t have anyone good to run against her.
This pretty much validates my statement from two weeks ago, “given the absence of a strong opponent on the horizon, I am simply unwilling to fret over a single Elway Poll….”
This new poll illuminates the state of the state Republicans: their candidate pool is nothing short of pathetic. There are almost no Republicans with any statewide appeal. Attorney General McKenna is about it, and he’s looking for opportunities elsewhere.
Last year during the I-1068 signature gathering effort (the legalization initiative that fell about 50,000 signatures short of the required amount to make the ballot), I encountered a number of people in the comment threads here and elsewhere who were at a loss as to how they could help. With that in mind, and with my extra free time over the past two months, I’ve helped Sensible Washington put together a new online resource for folks to help get I-1149 on the ballot this year. You can visit the page here or just click the screenshot below.
This page allows you find businesses that have I-1149 petitions on site. It allows you to locate the Sensible Washington coordinator closest to you in order to obtain petitions or turn yours in. And it has a compilation of festivals, sporting events, concerts, and other events between now and July 4th weekend where you can stand with a clipboard and help us get this initiative on the ballot in November. Get involved, and let’s get it done this year in Washington!
I’ve been critical of Gregoire for various things. And Lee has bee a lot more critical than me especially after the misguided veto of the medical marijuana bill. But unlike Lee, I’d have no problem voting for her again (although I hope she doesn’t run, and if she does, I’ll gladly support someone else in a primary). There are real and important ways that she’s better than Rossi would have been. For one thing, she doesn’t seem to hate teachers like The Seattle Times’ Ed Board.
They spend a whole lot of time not engaging with Gregoire’s stated reasons for opposing the measure (in short, we’re in the middle of revising the way we evaluate teachers because how we currently evaluate them doesn’t work). There’s a little dancing around that, but even then it’s pretty minimal.
It would be great to have the 82,000-strong union on the right side but not at a cost that would be borne by students betting their educational futures on the success of reforms. Requiring districts to take performance into account during layoffs represents a significant game changer. Layoffs are disruptive; robbing classrooms of good teachers is even more harmful.
Lynne (or whoever, but it’s Lynne Varner), just because you saw Waiting For Superman doesn’t mean that teachers are wrong. They’re the ones pushing for smaller class sizes and better teacher pay while your ed board keeps demanding tax cut after tax cut that has the effect of larger class sizes and worse pay. Teachers and their unions are the ones pushing for higher quality K-12 education in Washington.
I’d bet if you wanted, it wouldn’t be too tough to get the teachers on board with these sorts of reforms as part of a grand bargain: If you pushed for 25 student maximum classes and teacher pay in the six figures (for example) along with smarter evaluations of this kind, I bet you could get the teachers unions to support it. Instead you insist on something less meaningful (and quite possibly arbitrary). And your ed board insists on the things that have made gutting education inevitable.
Most teachers are good instructional leaders not threatened by accountability. Uncertainty about the shift is outweighed by the fairness and legitimacy promised from new teacher evaluations coming down the legislative pike. Some districts, including Seattle Public Schools, have adopted better evaluations.
The newer evaluations are still untested and in most cases not even through the legislature yet. Let’s impose them!
The only employees left to fear performance-based layoffs are those who aren’t performing. That’s not who the governor should be protecting.
Or teachers who think perhaps the system won’t work as advertised. Maybe, just maybe, teachers think that the same legislature that’s been slashing education budgets doesn’t have the best interests of children we’re trying to educate at heart.
– I know I’m just a filthy hippie blogger or whatever. Sure HA has accused people of fucking pigs. But at least none of us have given an elected official the TMZ treatment. As the kids say, time for a blogger ethics panel.
– Another reason why Seattle should fish or cut bait on White Center annexation. I hope they keep both libraries open (h/t Ivan on Facebook).
– Vulnerable User Bill signed!
– Hexapod Haiku! (h/t)
Genesis 2:3
Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Discuss.
Last week’s contest was one of the toughest ever. It was won by Luigi Giovanni for his second in a row and by David D for getting the movie reference. It was the Burger King in Poughkeepsie, NY where they filmed the “Liter of Cola” scene in Super Troopers.
Here’s this week’s, it’s a location in Washington state. Good luck!
The comment threads are dominated by just a few people. Some are great, some are trolls. Some are somewhere in between. But there are a lot of people who don’t comment. So, here on a lazy Saturday is a chance for those of you who don’t comment or don’t comment much to say “hi.” Or don’t: who in their right mind would want to interact with some of the commenters. Comments from regulars will be deleted.
A very late notice here, but I’m scheduled to be speaking sometime between noon and 1pm today at the Cannabis Freedom March in Volunteer Park. After the march, I’m supposed to be on a panel in Westlake Park with Alison Holcomb and Douglas Hiatt speaking about cannabis laws. If I’m sitting in between them, I’ll be wearing a full suit of armor to protect myself.
Maddow: John Ensign OUT, Tom Coburn NEXT.
Stephen goes all flaggy on Donald Trump (via Slog).
Sam Seder: Teabaggers willing to trade debt limit for closeting gays.
Young Turks: Gov. Mitch Daniels de-funds Planned Parenthood.
Thom: Wisconsin Wingnuts rush to pass agenda.
Maddow: Republican social issues.
Pap w/Andy Kroll: Who is pushing the G.O.P. anti-labor agenda?
Obama Bin Gotten:
Thom interviews Gov. Jesse Ventura on various conspiracies.
Cenk debunks Rep. Boehner’s bullshit.
RapperGate:
Sam Seder: Conservatives vote their conscience ignorance.
Mike Huckabee “fixes” American History (via TalkingPointsMemo).
Torture Chronicles:
Thom on Florida’s latest War on Democracy.
SCTV: Skype gets Binged.
Newt the Kook:
Sam Seder: Congressional Wingdings back way off on destroying Medicare.
Ed and Pap: Boehner’s debt fight shows GOP’s greed.
Lawrence O’Donnell: The tragedy of Alaska’s Sarah Palin; The ‘Drilla From Wasilla’ is a hopeless ‘disasta’.
Delaware Gov signs civil unions bill into law.
Fracking:
Sam Seder: FCC Comish Baker hired by Comcast/NBCU after voting for Comcast/NBCU merger.
ONN Live: Congress debates new sex-based American dream.
Thom: Pima County Dems move to secede from Arizona.
Immigrants for sale (via OneGoodMove).
White House: West Wing Week.
Maddow: “Big Brother’s” War on Women in South Dakota.
Romney Runs…From His Own Record:
Maddow: Unemployment and how Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott takes ‘Big Government’ to new heights.
Cenk: C-Street, The Family & Coburn’s Ensign cover-up.
If Atlas Shrugged trailer was honest (h/t Carl Ballard).
The Paul Family Circus:
Young Turks: Megan McCain’s PSA makes Glenn Beck vomit.
Maddow: “Family values” ex-Senator Rick Santorum covered for John Ensign.
Thom: Should the Koch brothers be making hiring decision for university professors?
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
I’m writing you as one of the few honest tunnel supporters who doesn’t seem to hate Seattle. One who opposes the cost overrun provision and has said at public forums that you think it matters and should be repealed. I know the cost overrun provision wasn’t on the agenda for the special session: how to fuck over education and public health slightly less badly than the Republicans tops the list. But now the tunnel will go to Seattle voters, and Seattle voters probably will reject it. This is probably your last chance to keep the tunnel, but the state is going to have to pick up the cost overruns.
I’m asking you to lead the charge to repeal the cost overrun provision and kneecap tunnel opponents like me. Repeal the cost overrun provision and commit the state to paying for a state highway. Repeal the cost overrun provision and take away an argument that resonates with Seattle. Repeal the overrun provision and stem the tide of anti-Seattle nonsense that the legislature keeps pushing.
Now, a repeal of the cost overrun provision won’t be enough to get me to support the tunnel project: it’s a bad project and Surface/Transit/I-5 is a much better option. Hell, the shit rebuild option is a much better option, at least I get to keep my on and off ramps. But repealing that provision would give some certainty to the process and would mean that for once in God knows how long the state isn’t actively trying to fuck Seattle up. It would make it more likely that city voters let the tunnel go through.
And yes, I know: Voters rejected a stadium and we got stadiums. Voters rejected a tunnel and we got a much bigger tunnel. But I wouldn’t count on that if you’re a supporter of the tunnel. The difference between those and this vote is that there wasn’t significant opposition to those things among elected officials. The only elected official who really opposed the stadiums, Maggi Fimia, got King County off the hook for cost overruns (at least for Safeco) despite most of the rest of county government supporting it. Imagine what you can expect when McGinn will veto any tunnel provision and has shown an ability to get anything that overrides his veto on the ballot.
Finally, this should give you a reason to confront the people who keep saying that the overrun provision is meaningless (while, oddly, not wanting it repealed). I know you don’t share that view, but it’s pretty common.
While this isn’t what you want to spend your time in the special session on, you’ve been given a time crunch by Judge Laura Gene Middaugh. And, of course, you’ve been given a time crunch by the Seattle voters (myself included) who signed the ballot measure. Please make the best of it.
Love,
Carl Ballard
– This piece on how Seattle plans on zoning for medical marijuana is interesting, but it’s more Lee’s than my bailiwick. But I would like to complain about the headline: It’s an online publication so headline space isn’t as valuable as for an actual newspaper. So don’t say “medical pot” say “marijuana” or “cannabis.”
– God damn (h/t, trigger warning).
– Seems like we ought to be able to do 520 right.
– Testing as a way to evaluate teachers is very misguided.
– I loved this interview with Felix Hernandez (h/t).
Quick summary of our last chapter: It’s 2220, and people you don’t care about exist. Space and Science Center. Nap time.
In chapter 2 Quixby dreams of the time he helped invent a jet pack. Or I’m kind of confused if it’s a jet pack or not. Something about wings and birds and play dough, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We start with Boeing recruiting him out of college, but please note, don’t try to make too much sense out of this:
It was inevitable that the first invitation to employment in its laboratories should be Boeing, the world’s largest and most advanced aircraft producer. Boeing executives already knew about his prowess as a fighter pilot in the Air Force three years before entering M.I.T. They had followed his career and knew that as soon as he graduated, he should be welcomed to the aircraft maker’s domain.
So he’s a fighter pilot. And he’s in the military 3 years. My guess is there was a war, that won’t get mentioned again. I mean Quixby made colonial in those 3 years (I assume). While I’m no expert that seems like a very quick rise unless a lot of people above him died (like the boy generals in the Civil War). And he’s a good enough pilot that Boeing wants him for his solo human flight designing skills?
It was left to Quixby to solve the last remaining problem in the design of the revolutionary flying device. The fuel problem had already been solved by Boeing engineers. After years of experimentation, they came up with a combination of hydrogen and three other chemicals that would power the small but sturdy and dependable booster attached to the flying uniform. One more serious hurdle remained: How to sustain flight for hundreds of miles and rise to ordinary flight levels.
H + Some Chemical + Some Other Chemical + Yet Another Chemical → fuel, or something. I feel perhaps there is too much science in this fiction, but I’ll attempt to go on:
Boeing engineers had solved every problem with personal flight except the bit about people flying significant distances. So they had someone with no engineering experience outside of a classroom but who did help us beat the Krouts in WWIX (maybe?) lend a hand. He solved this problem the way everyone solves problems: birdwatching.
It was Quixby and his own research that solved the problem. After diligent studies of the total wing structure of eagles, he determined that, among other things, the project needed a new type of material to simulate the muscle structure of the eagle. It had to be material that was simultaneously strong as steel and supple as play dough.
I don’t care that the in the 21st century we call the product Play-Doh. Maybe it’s called something more boring in the future. Anyway, Quixby’s contribution to the project is having someone else invent a magical substance and another somebody test it out. Anyway, flying is a great success and Boeing patents it. But Quixby in one sentence convinces them to share their patents with anyone else who wants it. I understand that there’s precedent with friction matches. But I’d be more interested in how corporations decide that profit shouldn’t matter than I am with eagles and magical chemicals.
Then Quixby and the Washington Congressional delegation flies from Seattle to DC.
The televised coverage of the seven fliers as they approached the airport in the capital and went in for a smooth landing created a sensation in the United States and in every country in the world. This was no longer the stuff of which science-fiction was made! This was the real thing!
Holy shit, we get it. Science fiction. Is this going to be every chapter?
As soon as the news spread over what had happened, people were calling the Boeing company to ask how much the personal-flight machines cost and how soon they could place an order. Nothing like it had ever been experienced in American or world history. Immediately, political leaders in virtually all the capitals of the world were asking their governments why they hadn’t developed such an extraordinary vehicle.
I like how it’s virtually every capital. In Guzzo’s mind there’s some country, I’m guessing Prussia, that isn’t interested in this but everyone else wants in. And is every other country communist, because otherwise the governments might not be the ones tasked with inventing these things.
Then Guzzo talks about what this did to the economy in pretty much the same manner that he explained it in chapter 1. So we’re out of ideas. Then Jean Marshall wakes Quixby up and tells him to call “General Bennett at the Science Center.” They work for the Space and Science Center, so I feel like Marshall has been through these conversations a lot with a senile George Quixby:
Jean Marshall: General Bennett on the phone.
George Quixby: Who?
Marshall: Our Boss. The commanding general of the Space and Science Center.
Quixby: Right, I work there. Who is this Bennett fellow?
Marshall: He hired you away from Boeing like 30 years ago or whatever.
Quixby: Hey! I used to work for Boeing. Is that where this Bennett person is from?
Marshall: No, please answer the phone. It’s General Bennett of the Science Center.
Quixby: I knew that!
I know I made a lot of assumptions based on what amounts to just shitty writing. But I’m committed for 14 chapters and I think speculating wildly will help speed this thing along. Anyway, end of chapter 2.
…it was good getting to know ya.
Washington state will not have a presidential primary for the 2012 election season.
One part of me is sad. I mean…the 2008 primary was when I came out as a Republican—a ardent Mike Huckabee supporter. I really voted for him.
Even without a primary, there will be caucuses. I am not trying stir up troubles or anything, but is there any reason whatsoever for Democrats to show up and caucus? I mean, does anyone really believe there will be a credible challenger to President Obama? (NO, NOT YOU, crazy trollfuckwad…I’m asking the non-crazy readers.)
So…where you can really make a difference for America is to lend a hand to your Republican brethren at our caucuses. Admittedly, most of the Republicans showing interest in the office have some serious monkey on their backs (if not Santorum in their faces). I think we need your wise council. We’d appreciate the assistance.
So, who do you think should win the Republican nomination for President in 2012?
– The latest from Libya.
– Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is set to sign a bill that licenses and regulates medical marijuana dispensaries, once again illustrating that our own governor lied to us when she said she couldn’t do so because of federal policy.
– A police officer was involved in a two-vehicle accident on Rainier Avenue yesterday, but witnesses dispute the report that SPD released. SPD claims that his sirens were on, but multiple witnesses claim they weren’t on until after the accident occurred. Another witness claims the officer was talking on his cell phone at the time of the crash.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!