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Mike!™ McGavick says he wants to talk about the issues, yet ask him why he’s running and he’s bound to tell you that he wants to bring civility back to the US Senate.

How does a real straight shooter answer the question? Listen to Peter Goldmark lay down his priorities:

I’m running for Congress because we need to change things in Congress, and we need to change the direction of our country. We need look no further than the price of gas, no further than the corruption and problems in Congress, no further than the agricultural crisis in eastern Washington, no further than the escalating cost of health care, and no further than the fact that nobody seems to be paying any attention or taking care of those issues. It is my intention to go back to Washington, DC and address those issues. People out here need a representative that will work on these issues on their behalf.

Energy, corruption, agriculture and health care. Bam! Those are Goldmark’s priorities if elected to Congress.

Mike!™, on the other hand? I’ve been following his campaign for over a year, and hell if I know what his legislative priorities are. Do you?

To learn more about Peter Goldmark and where he stands on the issues, read a full transcript of the interview over on McCranium.

“What’s wrong with politics today? The candidates and the incumbents spend their time attacking each other’s personal character instead of attacking the issues and problems that face our country and our families.”
— Mike!™ McGavick

George Lakoff simply illustrates the subtle power of framing in the title of his seminal book, Don’t Think of an Elephant. This is Cognitive Psychology 101: the very instruction not to think of a pachyderm, of course, instantly conjures its image.

I’m not sure whether Democrats have studiously read their Lakoff, but Mike!™ McGavick and his team apparently have. For in constantly stressing his desire to campaign on “the issues” rather than “personal character attacks,” the Republican US Senate wannabe has in fact made character the central theme of his campaign.

One simply cannot accept McGavick’s “civility” meme without inferring that his opponent, Sen. Maria Cantwell, is not sufficiently civil.

Indeed the very preamble to Mike!™’s much talked about public mea culpa is little more than a thinly veiled attack on the character of his opponent. Read it in its entirety (the emphasis is mine):

What’s wrong with politics today? The candidates and the incumbents spend their time attacking each other’s personal character instead of attacking the issues and problems that face our country and our families. They also pretend that they are without fault, yet we all know that none of us are.

In this campaign for example, my opponents have attacked my leadership in turning around Safeco. I am even the subject of a politically-motivated lawsuit. But I am convinced that these kinds of character attacks don’t matter to most people here. I have held dozens of open public forums in communities all around Washington state, and not a single person asked me about my compensation at Safeco. Instead, people ask about the many challenges that face their own families and our country.

Still, I know that the character attacks against me will not stop. So, how about I just tell you directly the very worst and most embarrassing things in my life for you to know, and then I will get back to talking about how much the U.S. Senate needs a new direction.

What does one take away from this statement? That Mike!™ wants to talk about the issues, but his opponent does not. That his opponent engages in character attacks, but Mike!™ refuses. That Mike!™ admits to human frailty, while his opponent “pretends” to be perfect.

But most importantly, that the “new direction” Mike!™ wants to take the US Senate — towards a more civil debate on the “issues and problems that face our country and our families” — is exactly the opposite direction of where his opponent is leading the nation and the state.

What a clever frame. This isn’t a campaign about “the issues” — it’s a campaign about campaigning about the issues, with the clear implication being that his opponent refuses to embrace this lofty ideal. At it’s very core, Mike!™’s “civility” meme, as noble as it may appear, is nothing more than a personal attack on Sen. Cantwell’s character.

Don’t think of an elephant.

In this context, Mike!™’s unprompted revelation of a thirteen-year-old DUI actually makes tactical sense if the strategy is to reinforce his campaign’s primary frame… a frame that at least some in the media have swallowed hook, line and sinker. Writing in Saturday’s Seattle P-I, columnist Robert Jamieson congratulated Mike!™ for his “courage” and “candor.” “He showed he’s human,” Jamieson wrote, by comparison implying that Sen. Cantwell is, well… not.

McGavick has just shown us that he isn’t clinical, rigidly guarded and remote — labels that have dogged Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Democratic incumbent he hopes to beat.

Notably absent from Jamieson’s column was any discussion of where the two candidates actually stand on “the issues and problems that face our country and our families” — exactly the kind of empty discourse the civility frame encourages, for it intentionally diverts our focus away from substance and onto style. Which of course, works in Mike!™’s favor, because he is on the losing side of almost every single issue of importance to Washington voters.

Think about it. Which candidate is really campaigning on the issues? Compare the two candidates’ television and radio ads, and which candidate has made the stronger effort to educate voters about their legislative priorities?

We all know that Sen. Cantwell is an environmental leader, a fierce opponent of drilling in ANWR and of increasing supertanker traffic in the Puget Sound. We know that Sen. Cantwell is perhaps the Senate’s most passionately wonkish leader on energy issues, a champion of alternative energy technologies and of higher CAFE standards, and a victorious defender of Snohomish County rate-payers against the extortionist energy contracts signed at the height of Enron’s unprecedented corporate fraud. We know that Sen. Cantwell staunchly supports reproductive rights and a living minimum wage, and believes the Republican controlled Congress has abdicated it’s obligation to provide necessary oversight of the executive branch.

And even though she was at first reluctant to talk specifics about her evolving position on the war in Iraq, she has been incontrovertibly clear that she believes it is now time to start bringing the troops home, and that she absolutely opposes the establishment of permanent US bases in Iraq.

And what do we know about Mike!™? Um… we know that he wants to bring “civility” back to the US Senate.

Really. Think about it. If elected, what will be Mike!™’s legislative priorities? He hasn’t told us.

Sure, if pushed and prodded you can sometimes torture an answer out of him. He’s for drilling in ANWR, and mostly opposed to abortion. He opposes the estate tax, but is for slashing the minimum wage for millions of tip earners. And he not only opposes a ban on permanent military bases in Iraq, he suggests that it’s inappropriate to even debate the war while our troops are still in harms way.

But he’s not running on any of this. He’s running on being civil. He’s running on being human. He’s running on being candid and courageous.

He’s running on character.

Last night on my radio show I asked the Seattle Times‘ David Postman if he thought Democrats are overly guilty of attacking Mike!™’s character, and he answered that for the most part, no. I also asked him whether character is a relevant issue in a political campaign, and of course he said yes.

This morning the Times editorial board echoed their senior political reporter, arguing that “honesty, integrity and character matter“:

McGavick has never voted on anything. His record is thin. Character matters haunted him. The public has a legitimate need to know about these.

And I’d argue that Mike!™’s character is especially relevant in light of the fact that he chose to make it the central theme of his campaign. Not that I can argue with his strategy.

The fact is, if voters elected representatives solely on the issues, the Democrats would hold a comfortable majority in both houses. But they don’t. We elect people, not issues, and the Republicans have simply done a better job electing their people than the Dems have.

Mike!™ knows this, and so in the midst of a political backlash that threatens to produce a huge Democratic wave, and running against an incumbent who wins hands down on almost every major issue, Mike!™ has chosen to run as simply gosh-darn more likable than that “cold,” “remote” Maria Cantwell. He’d surely lose a truly issue-oriented campaign, and so unable to run on the issues, he has chosen to run around them.

So central is the civility frame to Mike!™’s campaign, that even a potentially damaging revelation about his own human frailty was strategically (and successfully) played to call into question the humanity of his opponent.

So the next time Mike!™ rails against personal character attacks, try this little exercise: don’t think of an elephant.

I bet you can’t.

It’s the last Sunday in August, so what better way to bid farewell to our region’s short summer than to come inside, turn up the radio and tune in to “The David Goldstein Show tonight on Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM. Of course, the lineup could change in response to breaking news, but here’s what I think I’ll be talking about tonight:

7PM: In an Oprah moment, Republican US Senate wannabe Mike!™ McGavick revealed that some thirteen years ago he was pulled over for a DUI with a literally staggering 0.17 percent blood-alcohol level. Was this revelation a shrewd political move to inoculate the candidate from negative attacks, a gesture of genuine contrition, or a boneheaded blunder? Seattle Times political reporter/blogger David Postman joins me to discuss this and other political issues of the day.

8PM: King County Council Chair Larry Phillips joins me to discuss the prospects of a proposed county charter amendment that seeks to take the politics out of the elections office by making the county auditor an, um, elected position. Go figure. But if you have other questions for the Council Chair, here’s your chance to ask him.

9PM: The first hurricane of the season has formed in the South Atlantic, just in time to commemorate the first anniversary of the natural and political disaster that was Hurricane Katrina. How did the federal government’s failed response to this long anticipated emergency change your view of the Bush administration, and do you believe our nation is ready to respond to another major disaster or terrorist attack?

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

This Tuesday BBC Radio starts airing a five-part series called Meet the Bloggers, introducing you to the people “who’ve attracted attention in cyberspace by recording their thoughts and impressions on anything and everything.”

I’m pretty impressed with the lineup of bloggers featured over the coming weeks. For example, take a look at the program segment on political blogs:

Programme 4: It’s Political
Tuesday 19 September 2006, 9.30am

A look at Instapundit, one of the biggest “political’ blogs in America, written by law professor Glenn Reynolds from Knoxville, Tennessee, and Horsesass, where local political activist David Goldstein, from Seattle, gives what he calls “the Straight Poop on Politics and the Press’

Yeah that’s right. When the BBC went out looking for a couple of bloggers to represent the right and the left of the political blogosphere, they chose Glenn Reynolds and, um… me. (I know… it’s hard to believe somebody like Reynolds made the cut.)

My segment will be available for streaming after it airs on Sept. 19th, along with a longer version of my interview; I’ll post an update at that time. In the meantime you can read BBC producer Mark Savage’s impressions of meeting us bloggers face to face.

I’d like to perform an experiment, and I’m looking for a couple of volunteers.

First, I need somebody with a good quality, professional “breathalyzer.”

Second, I need an approximately 200-pound man, willing and able to consume eight drinks in a single hour. (Sorry Sandeep, you don’t meet the weight requirement.)

If we can get both of these to this Tuesday’s Drinking Liberally, I’d like to see exactly how many drinks it takes to achieve a 0.17 percent blood-alcohol level, and a general idea of the associated level of impairment. In fact, in the interest of accuracy, I am graciously extending an invitation to Mike!™ McGavick to join us as our test subject.

Send me an email if you can volunteer either or both. Drinks are on me, as is the ride home.

I’ve never really thought of Rep. Katherine Harris of Florida as an Evangelical fundamentalist, but then, it probably takes much of the cognitive dissonance out of stealing a presidential election to tell yourself that you are acting in the name of God.

In a strikingly candid interview in the Florida Baptist Witness, Harris — the presumptive Republican nominee for US Senate — calls “separation of church and state” a “lie,” and berates the notion that this is “a nation of secular laws.”

Uh-huh.

Harris gained notoriety as Florida’s Republican Secretary of State who did her best to rig the 2000 election in favor of gubernatorial brother George W. Bush; for her efforts she was elected to Congress. Now she’s running a quixotic campaign for Senate which threatens to tear the Florida GOP apart. Already trailing Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by over 30 points, these new comments suggest Harris may pushing for 40.

“If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin […] and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it’s wrong.”

Holy shit.

This is a US Senate candidate folks, and while we all know that there are prominent electeds out there who genuinely believe that us average, non-Christian citizens “don’t know better,” we certainly don’t expect them to come right out in public and say it. Last time I visited my snowbird mother down in Florida, I noticed an awful lot of CWANCs (Citizens Who Are Not Christian) kibitzing over lox and bagels. Some of these CWANCs even tend to be the type of affluent voter attracted to the Republicans’ undeserved reputation as the party of fiscal responsibility… but I’m guessing it’s a bit of a political turnoff to be called an ignorant sinner by an election-stealing, booty-shaking spoiled heiress whose name has become an urban lingo synonym for crazy.

But then, I’m just another one of those godless CWANCs, so I don’t know better.

Andrew at NPI has been down in Olympia this week observing the signature verification process on Tim Eyman’s presumably doomed I-917. Timmy will of course scream foul play if his initiative doesn’t qualify, but Andrew describes the process as “slow and methodical.”

We may not know the final results until the end of September.

I’m sure much of the discussion over Mike!™ McGavick’s surprise revelation yesterday afternoon that he had been arrested on a DUI thirteen years ago will probably focus on whether or not this was a shrewd political move. (The revelation, that is, not the DUI.)

But one thing that seems to have been glossed over in the media coverage thus far is how totally blotto Mike!™ admits to have been at the time:

He told The Associated Press that he registered 0.17 in a blood-alcohol test, well above the legal limit, after he was pulled over. He told the Seattle P-I that he wasn’t arrested and the charge never went on his driving record because it was ultimately dismissed.

“Well above the legal limit”…? Talk about an understatement. 0.17 is more than double the legal blood-alcohol limit of 0.08 percent, and more than halfway towards unconsciousness.

And what does it take to get this incredibly drunk? Well according to every blood-alcohol calculator and chart I checked online, an awful damn lot. For example, using the University of Oklahoma Police Department’s online calculator I plugged in 8 drinks over the course of an hour for a 200 pound man, and I only got up to 0.16 percent. (Perhaps it’s telling that OK’s calculator only goes up to 8 drinks an hour.)

A fluke? Check out charts and calculators here, here, here, and here. In fact, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation it takes over 9 drinks in an hour to hit 0.17 percent!

How drunk is this? HealthStatus.com provides the following helpful reference chart:

BAC Level Percentage	Effects
.03 to .12	Feeling of increased confidence, sense of daring. Look flushed or red in face. Trouble with fine actions, such writing.
.09 to .25	Trouble seeing or focusing, slow reactions, sleepy, stumble often or lose balance easily.
.18 to .30	Confusion, dizziness, slurred speech and lack of muscle coordination.
Above .25	Serious health issues, including death.

That’s pretty damn drunk.

I’m sure many of us have reached for our car keys wondering how close we might be to the legal limit; the thought has occurred to me leaving Drinking Liberally, where I typically consume two or three beers over the course of an evening. But 8 or 9 drinks? Since college, I don’t think I’ve had that much to drink in an entire day, and if I’d downed them in a single hour, my dorm mates would have found me face down, head in a toilet. (Okay… they did.)

This was no borderline lapse of judgement. Mike!™ was drunk. And it should have been damn clear to him, his wife and his friends that he was totally unfit to drive.

And while I’m guessing from his admission that this was the only time he got caught, it’s hard to believe that this was the first or only time he ever stumbled behind the wheel of a car. In any case, it certainly wasn’t the first time McGavick got totally shit-faced, as this type of serious drinking requires some serious training.

But then, we shouldn’t expect anything less from such a serious candidate.

UPDATE:
See, this is why we do what we do. The Seattle Times follows up:

But McGavick provided few details about the arrest, prompting Internet discussions about how much he had to drink.

Turns out it was mostly beer at a series of three parties, and the Times also cites the University of Oklahoma Police Department’s online blood-alcohol level calculator.

So let’s see. If it takes 8 or 9 beers an hour (1993 DC lobbyist crowd, I’m guessing Heineken or Becks) how many beers did he have over three or four hours to maintain a 0.17, and how much drunk driving did he do between the parties to get from one to the other? That must have been some evening of binge drinking.

KING-5 TV just released the first head-to-head poll in WA’s 8th Congressional District race between Republican incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner… and I’m guessing both sides are going to claim they’re thrilled with the results.

According to the poll of 609 registered voters conducted by SurveyUSA, Reichert leads Burner 54% to 41% with only 6% undecided.

So if Reichert is leading by an apparently comfortable 13 point margin, why did one longtime Democratic politico ecstatically email me that these numbers are “freakin’ fantastic”…?

I’m guessing the biggest reason for Democrats to get excited is that Burner’s 41 percent is damn impressive considering she entered this race with zero name recognition, and has only just begun to make her first tentative forays into paid media. The poll was conducted 8/22 – 8/23, only a week after Burner made her first, small TV buy; her first direct mail piece is only just now reaching voters.

Much of Reichert’s lead can surely be attributed to a huge advantage in name ID — which must register a stratospheric ninety-something percent for the former sheriff and self-proclaimed Green River Killer catcher. It is also an advantage that is surely exaggerated by the fact that the poll did not screen for “likely voters”; this screen won’t come until after the primary.

Burner supporters can also be buoyed by the crosstabs, which show only 35% support for President Bush, significantly lower than SurveyUSA’s national average. Those who approve of President Bush’s job performance choose Reichert by an overwelming 93% to 4% margin. Those who disapprove choose Burner 66% to 27%.

The task for Burner seems clear. She needs to improve her name ID while persuading voters to identify Reichert with President Bush’s failed policies. Given the time and the resources, both can be achieved, and fortunately for Burner she has plenty of both.

Of course this is only a single poll, and not necessarily one of the most reliable. As I’ve previously pointed out, many respectable news agencies like CNN and the Associated Press won’t even report on robo-polls like SurveyUSA’s. (Let’s face it, nobody really believes that only 6 percent of voters are undecided at this point in the race. Many undecided voters simply hang up on robo-polls.) The fact is, KING-5 contracts with SurveyUSA because it’s cheap.

That said, one thing seems pretty obvious: considering the dynamics of the race and the unique political climate this year, 41 percent in August absolutely puts Burner within striking distance for November. Reichert supporters can take solace in the 13 point margin if they want, but I’m guessing their internal numbers aren’t nearly as comforting, and I guarantee the race will narrow as voters learn more about the candidates.

We’re off to the races.

Both Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark have shared details of their internal polls (here and here,) yet their opponents, Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris have remained silent.

Hmm. I wonder why?

Via Swing State Project, Amy Walter of Cook Political Report explains:

Publicly released polls taken in individual districts also tell a pretty ugly story for the incumbent party in Congress. Since the beginning of this year, we have seen 38 polls released by Democrats, or Democratic-related groups, while we have seen just five public polls released by Republicans or Republican-related groups. And, when you look at the individual polls, it is easy to understand why Democrats are much more willing to disclose their numbers.

Democrats have released polling taken in 27 districts held by a Republican. Of those, 22 incumbents were under 50 percent of the vote against their Democratic opponent and 10 incumbents were either behind or within the margin of error. Republicans have only released three polls in Republican held seats – two of which showed the Republican under 50 percent (one was Rep. Bob Ney who announced this week that he was not running for re-election).

And with Burner on the air early, pumping up her positives and name ID unopposed, it’s awfully unlikely Reichert’s gonna find a more flattering poll than the one he commissioned in July — and quietly sat on.

In its quest to reach a hipper, younger audience, the Seattle Weekly (editorial motto: “Under New Management”) has started running the syndicated advice column Ask a Mexican.

Hmm.

When I first heard about Ask a Mexican a few months back on NPR’s On the Media, I thought it sounded like an amusing, edgy and oddly informative effort to combat racial stereotypes. But now that I’ve had the chance to read it in the Weekly… not so much.

Maybe it was just an off week. Or perhaps I just couldn’t handle the incongruity of seeing such an un-Brewsteresque column in the pages of the once venerable Weekly. But rather than combatting hateful stereotyping it just struck me as an opportunity for the questioners to luxuriate in it under the guise of enlightened sarcasm.

Writer Gustavo Arellano keeps his sense of humor as he slaps down the questions with snark, wit, and big wallop of reality. But the questions… oy. Questions like “What is it about the word ‘illegal’ that Mexicans don’t understand?” or “Why do Mexicans love public rest rooms so much?” Rather than encouraging dialog, the whole column comes off as an opportunity for sensitive liberals to have a good laugh at the expense of ignorant bigots — all the while giving the bigots a public forum.

But what do I know? The Weekly’s new publishers are successful professionals, after all. I mean… they even have focus groups.

So rather than criticize, I’m choosing to follow their lead and ride the wave of ambiguously self-hating ethnic stereotyping that surely leads to a younger, more lucrative demographic. And so I’m pleased to announce the launch of HA’s newest weekly feature: Ask a Secular Jew Who Married a Shiksa and Lives Near Two Orthodox Synagogues.

Here’s how it works. If you have a question about Jews or Judaism, and you think a secular Jew who married a shiksa and lives near two orthodox synagogues might have the answer, just ask away in the comment thread of this post. I’ll answer one or two of the most ridiculous and blatantly antisemitic questions in next week’s column.

All I ask in return is that you please show a little decorum and follow the rules. For example, I will not answer simple, Jew-baiting death threats. However, if, for example, like one anonymous email correspondent you were to ask “Why don’t you die you Christ-killing, motherfucking jewboy bastard?”… well, that would be acceptable… as long as you remember to include the question mark.

I look forward to your questions, and eventually, a lucrative syndication deal.

The race is tight, so the DCCC has extended its deadline on its “Candidate for Change” poll:

Only a handful of votes are separating the ten great candidates at the top of the list right now — Patrick Murphy, Joe Sestak, Tammy Duckworth, Patty Wetterling, Lois Murphy, Ron Klein, Mary Jo Kilroy, Darcy Burner and Zack Space — but others are well within reach.

So if you haven’t already done so please vote Darcy Burner now… and while you’re there, it certainly couldn’t hurt to write in Peter Goldmark. (That’s what I did.)

The top three finishers will receive the following extra support:

• A fundraising email from Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi or DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel to our list;
• A phone bank run out of the Democratic National Headquarters for their campaign;
• The feature spot on our Web site to get their message out, with a link to their campaign contribution page;
• An online chat with the DCCC community to exchange ideas on the campaign and the future of our country.

This will be a tight race, and every extra little bit of support helps. Plus, this is a great opportunity to show once again that Washington state has one of the strongest netroots movements in the nation.

Speaking of which, the MyDD/DailyKos/Swing State Project August fundraising drive is in full swing, and look which Netroots Endorsed congressional candidate has raised the most money over the past 48 hours. Way to go.

Apparently, the whole blogging craze has pretty much run its course, because other than me there wasn’t a single active, political blogger on the panel last night. (Political bloggers are so July.)

Joining me were non-bloggers Sandeep and Laura, former bloggers Will and Carl, and non-political blogger Gavin. So of course we led off our conversation with the biggest political issue of the day: Snakes on a Plane! No really… tune in and listen to how we cleverly connect this seemingly unrelated topic to Ned Lamont’s victory over Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary. Other topics of discussion included Mike!™ McGavick’s career path through Washington D.C.’s lucrative revolving door, the Seattle Storm’s imminent move to Oklahoma City after their fan support collapses in the wake of their disappointing playoff loss, the John Bircher behind WA’s estate tax repeal initiative, Will’s manly love for John Edwards, replacing the Viaduct with nothin’, the GOP’s intentional non-grammatical use of the term "Democrat" Party instead of the proper "Democratic" Party, Kyle Taylor Lucas’s strong challenge to faux-Democratic Sen. Tim Sheldon in the primary, and the hypocritical, mean-spirited Rev. Joe Fuiten.

The show is 53:49, and is available here as a 41.1 MB MP3. Please visit PodcastingLiberally.com for complete archives and RSS feeds.

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

Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski involuntarily retired yesterday when he came in third in his state’s Republican primary, polling just 19 percent of the vote.

So… um… where are all the headlines about crazed, right-wing extremists taking over the Republican Party? My God… the GOP rank and file tossed out an incumbent! Where’s the outrage? Where are the claims that Republican nominee Sarah Palin is the “al-Qaeda candidate”…?

Oh, and another difference between the reaction to this primary and the one in Connecticut:

Murkowski shook Palin’s hand in the middle of a crowd of her supporters.

“Congratulations, you’ve got my support. I’ll do everything to see that you’re elected,” Murkowski told her.

That’s because Murkowski is a Republican. But then, judging from his refusal to honor the will of Democratic voters, so is Joe Lieberman.

Gov. Christine Gregoire’s positive approval ratings hold steady for the second straight month, and Markos is impressed:

Christine Gregoire (D) of Washington continues to impress at 51/45. She began her controversial tenure at 34/58, but she is steadily establishing herself as an effective governor and the people of her state are coming around.