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Three days into HA’s Second Annual Pledge Week we’re almost halfway toward our $6,000 target and a third of the way toward our goal of 150 contributors. A big thanks to all of you who have given thus far.

But as great as the response has been we’re heading into a slow weekend, and we’re still a long way off, so I’m hoping a lot more of you will pull out your credit cards and chip in. A little over $30 a person from 101 more contributors will get us past both our targets… is that so much to ask in support of a blog that has become a regular part of your daily routine and a critical part of our local progressive media infrastructure?

This morning I posted a preview of the The Ti-Po, a snarky review of Seattle’s two dailies, just one of many new features we’re developing for the expanded HA. Your contributions make this work possible, so thank you in advance for giving whatever you can today.

Just a quick note to our friends at Slog. I’m totally fine with building fences along the Aurora Bridge, but can we cut out the nonsense that it’s going to save the lives of the suicidal? Fencing off the Aurora Bridge will not save those lives for the same reason that fencing off the Mexican border will not stop illegal immigration.

Sure, Darcy Burner kicked Dave Reichert’s ass in the January-March fundraising quarter, but how bad do things really look for Congressman 401? On The Road to 2008 takes a closer look at the numbers:

As compared to Reichert’s numbers from two years ago, he has raised $35,848 less than back then, while spending $20,928 more. He has $26,682 less cash on hand at this point than he had two years ago. Meanwhile Burner has $564,554 more cash on hand than she did at this point two years ago in a race she started as a complete unknown, and that ended with Reichert eking out a 7000 vote margin of victory.

I hate to focus so much on the money race, as I think it dumbs down the political debate, but at this point in the cycle it is usually one of the best metrics for evaluating the relative strength of campaigns. Without sufficient financial resources no congressional candidate can successfully get their message out, but dollars raised also reflects both the competency and efficiency of the campaign, as well as the general enthusiasm for the candidate. Burner received almost 4,900 contributions from individuals last quarter, about ten times that of Reichert, who once again relied on PAC money and high-dollar fundraisers to pad his coffers. And a preliminary analysis of itemized contributions shows Burner expanding her substantial lead in both in-district and in-state contributors.

This fundraising disparity represents a HUGE shift from two years ago, and no doubt is one of the reasons why Congressional Quarterly recently upgraded WA-08 to one of only three Republican held seats rated a “toss-up.” Eventually, once this money starts being spent, we’ll get a better idea of how close this race really is, but you can be sure that it is a helluva lot closer than Reichert and his surrogates are willing to acknowledge.

SurveyUSA has just released a new poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 634 people shows Governor Christine Gregoire leading Dino Rossi 50% to 46%. The 4% spread is an improvement for Gregoire from the 1% spread in the early April SurveyUSA poll and the 1% spread in a late March Rassmussen poll.

Clearly, the current SurveyUSA poll results are within the 4% margin of error for the poll. What this really means is that the probability of Gregoire beating Rossi is less than 95%, based on what we can tell from a relatively small sample. But we can do better than to just dismiss the poll as “a statistical tie.” Instead, we can estimate the probability that Gregoire should win, given the information available from a sample of this size. This can easily be calculated mathematically. But it is more intuitive to simulate elections and simply count the number of Gregoire wins and Rossi wins.

I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 634 voters each, where each person had a 50% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 46% chance of voting for Rossi and a 4% chance of voting for neither.

The results give Gregoire 859,651 wins and Rossi 132,432 wins. This suggests that Gregoire has something like an 86.7% probability of beating Rossi if the election were held right now, and Rossi has a 13.3% chance of beating Gregoire.

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

The area to the right of the red line are wins for Gregoire and those to the left are wins for Rossi.

Things may change between now and November, but if I had to bet the (server) farm on a candidate right now, my money would be on Gregoire.

This week’s Birds Eye View Contest is posted.

Barney Frank has introduced his “Make Room for the Real Criminals” bill

It hasn’t been talked about much, but this is really bad news for McCain.

Two days into our 2nd Annual Pledge Drive we’re more than a third of the way toward our $6,000 target with slightly less than five days remaining. That’s great, and I thank all 33 donors for your generosity. But so far, only 33 of you have contributed, and that’s well below where I’d hoped to be at this point in the fund drive.

Reaching our goal is particularly crucial because it will give me the breathing space I need to continue developing the new HA, bringing you expanded content, new interface features, reader blogs and more. I have rededicated myself toward taking HA to the next level, but I also need to pay my bills; only with your help can I afford to do both.

Only $40 each from 150 donors — less than 5-percent of my typical daily readership — is enough to reach our goal, but I certainly understand that not everybody can afford to be so generous, so please give whatever you can afford. A ten dollar donation brings us ten dollars closer, and lets me know that you appreciate all the hard work I put in to making HA the most widely read and influential progressive political blog in WA state. Thank you for your support.

I’ve been reading through Dino Rossi’s transportation “plan,” trying to figure it out, and for the life of me I just can’t make his numbers add up. Wider bridges cost less than narrower bridges? Tunnels are now suddenly cheaper than elevated viaducts? We can divert $10 billion out of the state general fund to transportation, without raising taxes or cutting services, and still balance the budget?

You gotta give Dino credit though for listening to voters. Polling conducted in the wake of Prop 1’s defeat showed that voters want a transportation plan that does more but cost taxpayers less — and that’s exactly what Dino is promising. Too bad the only way for him to deliver on these promises is to print the money to pay for them.

UPDATE:
It looks like I’m not the only one who can’t figure out Dino’s new math…

“Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington state Transportation Center at the University of Washington, said Rossi’s numbers are ’completely divorced from reality.’ […] ‘He lowballs almost all the estimates and never says where all the funds are going to come from. It’s a political statement. It’s complete silliness,’ Hallenbeck said.
— Seattle Times, 4/16/08

“The Republican candidate for Washington’s governor outlined a number of spending initiatives, from an expensive tunnel replacing Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct to a north-south freeway in Spokane. But when it came to paying for them, he punted. Actually, faked is more like it. […] it’s another something-for-nothing scheme…”
— Lewiston Tribune, 4/17/08

“Can Dino Rossi’s freshly unveiled transportation plan solve our traffic mess? Doubtful. Many of the cost figures cited in it appear to be based more on wishful thinking than thoughtful analysis.”
— Everett Herald, 4/17/08

“…the particulars of his proposal seem a little delusional.”
— The Stranger, 4/16/08

“Of course, his plan to use all that state money has only a snowball’s chance in hell…”
— Tacoma News Tribune, 4/15/08

“Rossi’s ideas run counter to local public opinion…”
— Seattle P-I, 4/16/08

“Further criticism came from the Director of the Washington State Transportation Center, who said in the Seattle Times that Rossi lowballed all of his estimates.”
— KXLY, 4/16/08

Credit: Clifford DesPeaux/Seattle P-I

Honestly, this never would happen on light rail.

I’ve written about it before, but never in such detail as Paper Noose at Blogging Georgetown… the bizarre, semi-secret way we elect the King County Conservation District board. This is the only kind of election the righties win around here anymore — you know, the kind almost nobody votes in.

Join the fun at 3Trillion.org.

April 17, 2008 – LOS ANGELES – Fox News channel is debuting a new show next week called “Fox’s PC Police.” The half-hour show will be a daily recap of all the groups who have recently been offended by Barack Obama. Hosted by Michelle Malkin, the first week of shows covers how Obama has offended Amway salesmen, CPAs, the University of Utah field hockey team, John Wayne’s ghost, KLM stewardesses, and Brit Hume’s cat “Whiskers.”

The show will also feature several other daily and regular segments.

John Gibson will frequently join Malkin in the studio in order to show clips of Jeremiah Wright’s sermons and to explain how Bill Cosby would lecture Wright on how to be a civilized black person.

Brent Bozell III will host a segment called “Panties in a Bunch” where he will point out how Satan’s influence is destroying your children through your television set.

And finally, Charles Krauthammer and Bill Donohue will have a daily debate called “The Victim-Off,” where the two men argue over whether American Jews or American Catholics are the most persecuted people on the planet. The only thing they will agree on is that African-Americans, Palestinians, and gays have absolutely no reason to be angry and should stop playing the victim card all the time.

Now that the show has been previewed by select members of the press, the show already has a higher viewership than The Glenn Beck Program.

No joke… Democrat George Fearing outraised incumbent Republican Doc Hastings in the first quarter, $38,000 to $33,000. Hastings still has big cash on hand lead, but it’s not so big that Fearing can’t get on a level playing field. And this is WA-04 for chissakes.

Jimmy’s got the details.

Yesterday I announced my second annual HA Pledge Week with an ambitious goal of $6000 from 150 readers… and in the first 24 hours we raised $945 from 16 contributors. That’s a great start. A big thanks to everybody who has contributed thus far.

This pledge drive is crucial for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that maintaining HA has become a full time job, and for the moment, my only source of regular income. The ads you see and the contributions you make are what permit me to pay my bills and keep on blogging. But I also have ambitious plans to expand HA over the coming months, and your demonstrated commitment will make it all the more possible for me to raise the kind of money necessary to make my vision a reality.

If HA has become a regular part of your daily routine, please show your appreciation by contributing today. And if you believe we need more progressive media, not less, then your contribution is all the more important.

New meaning was given to the expression “happy birthday, and many happy returns” in this birthday/tax day edition of Podcasting Liberally.

Joining The Birthday Boy (who has no business pushing their buttons, some Righties claim) was a taxing panel of political bloggers and boisterous blowhards: Will, Lee, Carl, and Nick.

They begin with a bitter discussion of “bittergate,” and a better discussion of a bitter Rossi’s budget busting “Progressive” Transportation “Plan” fantasy. Next the bloggers barked at Reichert’s sub-prime fundraising bust and boasted about Burner’s better fundraising bonanza. There was some banter about the Colombia trade deal and bellyaching about the Sonics, too.

The show is 54:46, and is available here as a 51.3 MB MP3.

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_april_15_2008.mp3]

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