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Exactly a month ago, after the Seattle Times editorial board transparently feigned bipartisanship by endorsing Barack Obama, I wrote:

As expected, the Seattle Times editorial board has endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States, paving the way for endorsements of Republicans Dino Rossi, Rob McKenna, Sam Reed, Allan Martin, Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, all the while leaving their vaunted bipartisan principles intact.  At least, in their own minds.

In fact, with the possible exception of the race for Commissioner of Public Lands, I can’t imagine a single additional closely contested statewide or federal race in WA state in which the Times endorses a Democrat.

I’d be happy to be proven wrong.  But I wouldn’t bet on it.

So, how did my predictions turn out?  As of today, the Seattle Times has endorsed Republicans Dino Rossi, Rob McKenna, Sam Reed, Allan Martin, Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, while Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark did indeed get the ed board’s nod for Commissioner of Public Lands.  I ran the table.

Of course, the Times will publish meaningless endorsements of Democratic incumbents in the virtually uncontested races for Lt. Governor, Auditor and Insurance Commissioner (nominally Democratic in the case of Owen and Sonntag), but with the exception of Obama and Goldmark, the editors of the self-proclaimed paper of record for one of the bluest cities in America are once again backing a full slate of Republicans for every high profile contested statewide or federal race.

As is their right, I suppose.

But how thoughtful and meaningful are editorial endorsements when they can be so easily predicted a month in advance?

I’d say, not very.

UPDATE:
I want to be clear that I did not attempt to predict the Seattle P-I’s endorsements, because I couldn’t. No doubt the P-I’s ed board tends to lean significantly more liberal than the Times, but they are still media establishment types who overwhelmingly favor incumbents.  And, as naive a notion as it is, the P-I seems to genuinely embrace nonpartisanship as a lofty ideal, whereas the Times merely manipulatively embraces it as useful rhetoric.

There’s yet another Republican campaign finance scandal brewing in Washington state, one with the potential to lead to felony charges, and so I eagerly scanned the headlines this morning to see if our dailies had figured out the huge story that was falling into their laps.

As Josh first reported yesterday, Dave Reichert is getting his TV ads on credit, an arrangement that now appears to amount to at least a half a million dollars in illegal loans.  And what is the headline the Seattle Times chooses to slap on the story?  “Burner loans campaign $140,000 for ads.”

Really?  That’s the big story here?  Are the Times’ editors that dumb, or are they just incredibly dishonest?

See, Darcy’s short-term bridge loan is legal, and extremely common.  It’s nothing but a cashflow maneuver that permits the campaign to continue spending money as fast as it’s raising it without drawing down reserves to zero.  Darcy doesn’t have the personal wealth to fund her own campaign, and you can be damn sure she plans to pay herself back.

But Reichert’s media credit card, that’s a clear violation of FEC rules:

If you loan money to a candidate or political committee, you have made a contribution, even if you charge interest on the loan. The outstanding amount of the loan counts against the contribution limits. Loan repayments, therefore, decrease the amount of your contribution.

Nevertheless, if your loan exceeds the limits, it is an illegal contribution, even if it is later repaid in full. Endorsements and guarantees of  bank loans are also considered contributions. Endorsers and guarantors are liable for equal portions of a loan unless the agreement states otherwise. You alone, therefore, may not endorse a $10,000 loan to a candidate committee. There must be four other individual endorsers so that each one is liable only for $2,300, the per  election limit.

The point of these regulations is obvious; if Reichert can buy advertising on credit, with payment not due until after the election, that means he can pay off 2008 expenditures with money raised for the 2010 cycle… something apparently Reichert did to a much smaller extent last time around.  Now Reichert going much deeper into the hole, booking ads worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more than he has cash on hand, or any expectation of raising between now and November.  And whether it be from the TV stations or his media buyer, that constitutes a massive campaign contribution far in excess of federal limits.

This is clearly illegal, and the campaign must know it, but like other Republican campaigns in Washington state this year, Reichert has apparently determined that the inevitable fines after the fact are just a part of the cost of winning.

That our local media can’t (or won’t) see this scandal, is truly stunning.

UPDATE:
To be fair to reporter Emily Heffter, she didn’t write the bullshit headline.  And to be fair to the Times, at least they attempted to report on the story, even if they haven’t yet recognized its significance.  Meanwhile, crickets from the P-I and the TNT.

Via Artistdogboy.

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 364 electoral votes	Mean of 174 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis had Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 360 to 178 electoral votes. If the election had been held yesterday, it almost certainly would have gone to Obama.

Today there were 17 new polls in 13 states released. The polls are something of a mixed bag, but Obama gets the better of ’em.

Now, after 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins every one.
Obama gains back four electoral votes from yesterday for an average of 364 to McCain’s 174. Once again, an election held now would go for Obama with a near 100% chance.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

This Eric Earling post from today reminded me of this laugher he posted up on the night of the Pennsylvania primary:

This may be hard news for the netrooters, the urban liberals, and the idealistic youth whose collective undergarments have frequently been moistened in the throws of Obama-mania. But, it is what it is. The county-by-county maps of Ohio and Pennsylvania look awfully similar: islands of urban, Obama liberalism, surrounded by a sea of working class support.

Does anyone think that trend will be reversed in Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky? Does anyone think Obama isn’t going to consequently have significant problems in key portions of the Rust Belt come this fall? With states like Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and even perhaps Pennsylvania on the table in November, is that really path Democrats want to go down?

I responded in comments:

In the end, they’ll vote for a pile of dogshit before they’ll vote for a rich Republican from Arizona

Earling’s foolish optimism that somehow Obama wouldn’t be palatable to working-class folks in the upper midwest shows how we ended up with a campaign desperately trying to focus its attention on the plight of a Toledo plumber who mistakenly believes his taxes will go up under Obama. The true believers in the McCain camp are still convinced that those who support Obama are simply brainwashed by the “liberal media” successfully covering up Obama’s various disqualifiers. At every turn, they’re convinced that the latest thing is the thing that turns the tide and “wakes America up” to what they think this election is really about. This is why they’ve just finished trying to coronate an unlicensed plumber who owes back taxes and doesn’t appear to be very good at economics. As Earling concludes:

It’s not over, but McCain needs help.

He’s right. It’s not over. We need to finish what we started here and make sure Obama wins this thing. But the help McCain needs is for his insane, racist supporters to stop motivating so many of us to kick every Republican out of public office on the 4th.

(And 10 points to the first person to get the reference in the headline… you know, without Googling it.)

At 9:30 AM, about an hour into our flight to Philadelphia, our plane abruptly veered back toward Seattle.  There was no terrorist threat, no elderly passenger suffering a heart attack, no engine blowout or sudden loss of cabin pressure or anything dramatic like that.  No… the three rear toilets had malfunctioned, leaking an oddly sweet-smelling, bluish effluent into the aisles and, the pilots worried, into God knows what else… and it was this mundane mechanical failure that temporarily grounded the weekend plans of me, my daughter and a couple hundred other frustrated passengers.

A broken toilet. A fitting metaphor for an industry that has long been circling the drain.

It’s been four decades since I first took flight, and while the five-year-old me’s sense of wonder and delight has never quite faded, the allure of flying certainly has.  Sure, domestic air travel has generally become quite a bit more affordable in this post-deregulation world, but it would be imprecise to describe it as merely inexpensive. Cheap, that  is what air travel has become, and in every sense of the word.

Of course, at it’s core, flying isn’t all that different now than it was back in 1968, for despite all the technical advances during the decades since, there really isn’t that much of a difference between this leaky 757 and the idealized 727 of my youth.  Both are essentially long, hollow, pressurized, stuffy tubes, packed with dehydrated people, hurtling through the sky at globe-shrinking speeds.  And both manage to get their passengers and cargo from one place to another.  Usually.

But long gone are the days when service was king, and the airlines treated passengers as more than just those things they cram into the space above the cargo hold.  Gone are the skycaps, the uniforms, the hot meals, and the justifiable obsession with beverage service.  (Not to mention the free beverages.)  Gone are the days when a missed connection would automatically be rebooked on the next available flight, even on a competing airline.  Flying has never been comfortable per se, especially for those of us packed into coach, but the attentive service airlines once lavished on their customers served as a calculated distraction from the noise, the cramp, the stink and the tedium inherent in air travel.

Take a road trip and you can pull over from time to time and break up the monotony by enjoying a meal, a walk, or a little sightseeing.  Ride the train and you can comfortably stretch your legs, stroll the aisles or relax in the Club Car.  But once they seal that cabin door behind you, the air traveler is confined to a tiny, upholstered cubby where even air and light is miserly rationed.  We are at the mercy of the airline for our smallest needs, a mercy that, after decades of contract givebacks, layoffs, and mergers, has finally been extinguished from the hearts of flight attendants, perhaps the last airline employees to abandon their long held role as passenger advocates.

In the days before deregulation, when the airlines were all but guaranteed a profit but were prohibited from competing on price, they competed on service, and it showed.  And so it is hard to imagine the old Pan Am treating its customers the way US Airways did Friday morning, refusing to rebook tickets while mechanics inspected the plane, and forcing passengers to check back at the gate every half hour for useless updates.  And when, five hours late, after mechanics concluded there was no safety hazard, we finally reboarded the same plane, we discovered the carpets still soggy and the toilets still leaking, but with thick wads of paper towels shoved up against the walls as a temporary dike.

If this is the sort of stunning lack of pride the airlines now show in the most visible sections of their aircraft, how can we trust them to maintain the parts we can’t see?

I’m not suggesting we totally abandon competition for the days of tariffed fares and regulated monopolies, but perhaps there’s something that lies in between, something that restores a level of confidence and competence to the system, while returning stability to an industry that has collectively lost $15 billion since deregulation?

Sarah Palin:

“Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth, Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic, but Joe the plumber and Ed the Dairy Man, I believe that they think that it sounds more like socialism,” Palin said. “Friends, now is no time to experiment with socialism.”

Ben Bernanke:

Bernanke said Monday that economic recovery would depend greatly “on the pace at which financial and credit markets return to more normal functioning” and said Congress should consider ways to encourage lending in any package.

“If Congress proceeds with a fiscal package it should consider including measures to help improve access to credit by consumers, homebuyers, businesses and other borrowers,” he said in his prepared remarks.

The central bank chief said in the slowing US economy consumption was falling, confidence was low and the housing market still depressed.

“The slowing in spending and activity spans most major sectors,” he said.

Clearly the McCain-Palin campaign’s sole purpose at this point is to heighten the stupidity of what Atrios always refers to as “our stupid discourse.” Because nobody who has the slightest idea what is going on in the real world can take seriously Republican claims about “socialism” when a former head of Goldman Sachs is advocating for massive demand-side spending. The traditional media would be doing its job to point out the absurd nature of the McCain-Palin attacks.

At some point a half-truth or quarter-truth or one-eight truth starts to become a bald-faced lie, at least in the reality based community. Without some sort of effort to shore up the consumer economy, a recession will likely be very painful, to put it mildly.

As always with the current incarnation of the Republican Party, hating the dirty hippies is far more important than any actual policy prescriptions. If they can’t keep “spreading the wealth” to fund vinotherapy for corporate executives, they’ll throw a series of massive temper tantrums.

While the initial (and horribly flawed) $750 $850 billion bailout was “government by Dow,” McCain-Palin represents the possibility of government by pique. It’s a pathetic and troubling spectacle to see the McCain-Palin campaign thrashing about hoping for a “game changer” when their only hope was to level with the American people.

John McCain is not a stupid man. He must know that something has to be done about the larger economy, so for him to countenance these ridiculous statements by his running mate puts him at risk of losing whatever shred of credibility he still possesses.

I wanted to give McCain a break a while back when he appeared to be signaling to his supporters that they should stop acting like a bunch of middle school students (apologies to middle school students everywhere,) but it appears that was a temporary blip or something. It looks like McCain wants to go down dirty. So be it. The historians can sort it out, if they wind up caring who McCain was.

The election is happening now in Washington state, so as always urge all your progressive friends and neighbors to get those ballots mailed back (except, of course, where you still have those old-fashioned voting thingies, I think they are known as “polling places.”)

Early voting has now begun in all 50 states, and it appears that turnout thus far is largely favoring Obama… a fact that did not escape a group of Republican protesters who gathered to heckle early voters yesterday in Fayetteville, North Carolina, accusing a line of mostly black voters of being “cheaters”:

Also at the polling site was a group of loud and angry protesters who shouted and mocked the voters as they walked in. Nearly all were white.

As you can see from these videos, no one held anything back. People were shouting about Obama’s acknowledged cocaine use as a young man, abortion and one man used the word “terrorist.” They also were complaining that Sundays are for church, not voting.

So this is what the Republicans have been reduced to… complaining that voting is cheating.  And they wonder why they’re losing this election?

Though, I don’t think it’s all that coldly calculating to actually admit to being coldly calculating, but, you know, whatever.

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 360 electoral votes	Mean of 178 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 370 to 168 electoral votes. In an election held yesterday, Obama would
have almost certainly won.

There were eight new polls in six states released today that weigh in on the score. The most influential are two West Virginia polls that hand the state back to McCain, and a new poll showing McCain leading by +1% in Ohio. As a result, McCain gains back some lost turf today.

Now, after 100,000 simulated elections, Obama still wins them all and, in a hypothetical election held today, receives (on average) 360 to McCain’s 178 electoral votes. Obama would still win an election held now with near certainty.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

Senate Democrats	Senate Republicans
100.0% probability of a majority	0.0% probability of a majority
Mean of 59 seats	Mean of 41 seats

Here is an analysis of the recent Senate polling and what these polls suggest about control of the Senate. I am using methods identical to what I’ve been doing for the presidential race except that, because of the relative paucity of polling in Senate races, I use polls taken in the last three weeks as “current” polls.

A Monte Carlo analysis of 100,000 simulated elections gives Democrats control of the Senate with, on average, 59.0 seats to the Republican’s 41.0 seats. The analysis suggests that, if the election had been held today, the Democrats would have about of 30% chance of taking a “veto-resistant” 60 seat majority.

Here is the distribution of outcomes from the 100,000 simulations. The tallest bar (i.e. the mode) in the distribution is at 59 seats. (Of course, I am assuming that the two “Independents” in the senate—Senators Sanders and Lieberman—continue to caucus with the Democrats. There is about a 25% probability of exactly 60 seats and about a 5% probability of taking 61 seats.

Detailed results for this analysis, including the polls that contributed to this analysis, are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.