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Constituent Dynamics just released a new round of polls in 48 of the most competitive House contests around the nation, and they show the Democrats currently ahead in the race for control of the House by a 224 to 205 seat margin. Of course, it’s only a poll, and the election is still almost 4 weeks away… but I’d rather be a Democrat right now than a Republican.

Here in WA-08 the poll shows Dave Reichert leading challenger Darcy Burner, 48% to 45% — well within the poll’s 3.09% margin of error. Six weeks ago Constituent Dynamics shocked local race watchers by reporting Burner leading Reichert, 49% to 46% — also within the margin of error. But since then the results have been corroborated by a number of public and private polls, all of which show the race within the margin.

There can be no doubt now that WA-08 is a dead heat; the candidate who does the better job of getting their message out over the next few weeks, wins. Of course, Reichert still has a cash-on-hand advantage, so if you want to give Burner the resources she needs to take this seat, please give now.

I was listening to this week’s edition of Podcasting Liberally yesterday while writing up the blurb, and one particular point just sticks in my mind.

The Reichert campaign finally went on the air this week, and they immediately came out negative against Darcy Burner, following the lead of the NRCC attack ads that had already been running. Joel Connelly pointed out that it could be a self-defeating strategy for an incumbent like Reichert, with such a huge name ID advantage, to be out there pushing Burner’s name and face before voters. And as is Joel’s wont, he made his point by recounting an anecdote from WA political lore.

Then state senator Jack Metcalf was running against the legendary Sen. Warren Magnuson, adopting the campaign theme: “Wrong Again Maggie.” When asked to comment on Metcalf’s relentlessly negative campaign, Sen. Magnuson reportedly quipped: “Well, if this fellow wants to spend his money producing TV commercials using my name, I’m not going to stop him.”

No doubt, negative advertising generally works. Else candidates wouldn’t use it. But you’ve got to wonder about a campaign strategy that focuses almost exclusively on driving up the negatives of an opponent whose biggest weakness is her relative lack of name recognition.

You also have to wonder about the decision to focus on taxes as their main line of attack. Republicans always accuse their opponents of wanting to raise taxes — in their lingo, that’s part of the definition of being a Democrat. So while I understand that he wants to use his cash-on-hand advantage to define his opponent, I’m not so sure that defining her as a Democrat is gonna hurt Burner all that much in a district where polls show that voters are much more concerned about ballooning federal deficits than high taxes, and where President Bush’s approval ratings threaten to plunge below thirty percent.

The fact is, voters in the 8th CD are very fortunate to have a distinct choice in November’s election. If you want to stay the course in Iraq, and you want a congressman who will vote 90 percent of the time with President Bush and the Republican leadership, then cast your ballot for Reichert. But if you oppose a permanent occupation of Iraq, if you want new leadership, and you think our nation needs to take a new direction both at home and abroad, then cast your ballot for Darcy Burner.

The Reichert folks chafe at the description of their candidate as rubber-stamp Republican, not because it isn’t basically true, but because it’s not a popular thing to be in the current political climate. But by using the same tired old themes in attempting to define Burner as a “tax-and-spend” Democrat, they end up, by comparison, defining Reichert as an establishment Republican.

And in this district, in this race, in this year… I’d rather be an ass than an elephant.

There was an overflow crowd at the much anticipated Darcy Burner/Dave Reichert debate, and so most of us flowed over to Drinking Liberally to debate amongst ourselves.

Joining me in our unique brand of drunken debate were Mollie, Will, Carl, Sandeep and Seattle P-I political columnist Joel Connelly. Will gives us a first-hand account from the Burner/Reichert debate, Joel reports from his recent trip through the political wilds of Montana, and Sandeep fills us in on his futile existence begging editorial boards to oppose an initiative sponsored by the newspaper industry… and yet once again, I seem to do most of the talking. Go figure.

The show is 56:44, and is available here as a 40.9 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.]

Yet another prognosticator has moved the race for Washington’s 8th Congressional District into the toss-up category:

Democrat Darcy Burner’s challenge to freshman Republican Rep. Dave Reichert in Washington’s 8th District has become one of the year’s key battleground races

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I don’t generally just reprint press releases, but this one seems significant enough.

Hugh Spitzer is one of WA’s most respected attorneys, and a professor of constitutional and government law at the University of Washington. He’s not one to make rash statements, and he’s not easily persuaded to speak out… God knows I’ve tried. So when Spitzer says there’s a big problem with I-933, you damn well better believe that he damn well believes that there’s a problem.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

I-933 Would Affect Personal Property Too
New Report Finds Claims Possible on Everything From Pets to Plumbers

Seattle, WA

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From the NY Times:

President Bush said that he has “no intention” of attacking North Korea

Because of course, we only attack countries that don’t have nuclear weapons. That’s exactly why North Korea developed them.

Rep. Dave Reichert is in trouble, and he knows it. He hit the airwaves this week with his first TV spot, and surprise: it’s an attack ad against Darcy Burner.

You can smell the desperation coming from the Reichert camp, but that’s not all that stinks. Darryl over at Hominid Views does a great job picking apart the lies in Reichert’s ad, and in the process he stumbles across a really huge political no-no.

Take a look at this screen shot from Reichert’s ad:

“Burner’s charges hurt by ‘inaccuracies'”

Now go try and Google that quote. You won’t find it online. You won’t find it in the print edition either. It doesn’t exist.

Sure, there is a fairly even-handed article by Jonathan Martin in the 9/24/06 edition of the Seattle Times, critiquing ads by both the candidates. And it does contain the word “inaccuracies,” as in:

Ads against both candidates contain inaccuracies.

But you won’t find the words “charges” or “hurt,” in or out of sequence, let alone the quoted phrase. Reichert just plum made it up.

Notice from the screen shot that Reichert was careful to place the word ‘inaccuracies’ in single quotes, which I suppose was some sort of sneaky effort to defend himself against charges like the one I’m raising. But by surrounding the entire phrase in double-quotes, the ad clearly implies that the phrase was an exact quote from the Seattle Times. And as far as we can tell, it wasn’t.

It is one thing for Reichert and his cronies to make up lies about Darcy Burner — we all expected him to do that. But you just don’t make up quotes and put them into the mouths of newspaper reporters and editorial boards. There are very few rules that govern the ethics of political advertising, but this is one a candidate should never violate.

Reichert has embarrassed himself. He has embarrassed the Times. And I fully expect the Times to demand that he pull or fix the ad.

And come election day, I hope voters remember what Reichert says at the end of the ad: “I’m Dave Reichert, and I approve this message.”

UPDATE:
The Times‘ David Postman reports that Reichert will fix his ad. He quotes Reichert campaign spokesperson Kimberly Cadena:

The Reichert campaign made a mistake with the punctuation in its ad. We are fixing the punctuation to accurately describe what was in the Seattle Times article.

Oh… it was just a punctuation mistake. So, I suppose that means they’re just going to pull the quotation marks off the larger, fictional quote, and put them around the word “inaccuracies,” thus transforming a total fabrication into something that’s merely intentionally misleading.

I mean, let’s get real. Single word quotations are the stuff that ad copy for bad movies are made of. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty apt analogy for Dave Reichert.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

Of course, the much awaited Burner/Reichert debate is also taking place this evening, so I’m guessing we’ll have some latecomers with first hand reports from the battlefield.

Not in Seattle? Washington liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities and Vancouver. Here’s a full run down of WA’s ten Drinking Liberally chapters:

	Where:	When:	Next Meeting:
Burien:	Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub, 435 SW 152nd St	Fourth Wednesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	October 25
Kirkland:	Valhalla Bar & Grill, 8544 122nd Ave NE	Every Thursday, 7:00 pm onward	October 12
Monroe:	Eddie’s Trackside Bar and Grill, 214 N Lewis St	Second Wednesday of each month, 7:00 PM onward	October 11
Olympia:	The Tumwater Valley Bar and Grill, 4611 Tumwater Valley Drive South	First and third Monday of each month, 7:00-9:00 pm	October 16
Seattle:	Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Ave E	Every Tuesday, 8:00 pm onward	October 10
Spokane:	Red Lion BBQ & Pub, 126 N Division St	Every Wednesday, 7:00 pm	October 11
Tacoma:	Meconi’s Pub, 709 Pacific Ave	Every Wednesday, 8:00 pm onward	on hiatus
Tri-Cities:	Atomic Ale, 1015 Lee Blvd, Richland	Every Tuesday, 7:00 pm onward	October 10
Vancouver:	Hazel Dell Brew Pub, 8513 NE Highway 99	Second and fourth Tuesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	October 10
Walla Walla:	The Green Lantern, 1606 E Isaacs Ave	First Friday of each month, 8:00 pm onward	November 3

Really… can any of our state’s newspapers be trusted to report objectively on I-920, the initiative to repeal WA’s estate tax, now that it has been revealed that our state’s newspaper industry is one of the primary movers and shakers behind the campaign?

Recently it was revealed that the Columbian, the Skagit Valley Herald and the Ellensburg Record had all made substantial financial contributions to the Yes campaign, and todays latest PDC filings show a $25,000 contribution from the Wenatchee World. And despite the fact that Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen made a show of swearing off a financial role, it was recently revealed that Jill Mackie, the Times‘ VP of External Affairs, and Blethen’s full-time lobbyist for estate tax repeal, has been making in-kind contributions to the campaign.

A lot of questions remain to be asked, and our state’s reporters simply aren’t asking them. Would you want to ask these questions if you knew the guy who signs your paycheck is so heavily invested in this issue?

As it turns out, firefighters aren’t the only people opposed to Initiative 933. So is Gov. Christine Gregoire and all six of Washington’s living former governors: Gary Locke, Mike Lowry, Booth Gardner, John Spellman, Dan Evans and Albert Rosellini.

The governors criticized the initiative as a legal mess waiting to happen, saying Washington’s land-use regulations aren’t easy to simply disregard.

Proponents of the legislation say it was drafted to protect farmland, and Gregoire said she isn’t denying that current regulations can make it difficult for farmers to operate.

“We have to keep land in farming,” she said. “This initiative will not do that.”

Evans added that the initiative could do exactly the opposite by increasing pressure to sell farmland to developers, who would have the same advantages as farmers under the proposal.

I suppose in defense of the initiative, one could argue that all seven governors — Democrats and Republicans alike — dedicated much of their lives to public service specifically for the purpose of screwing property owners. But then, one would have to be a lunatic.

Yesterday I abused the Yakima School District for canceling a student production of The Laramie Project, a play that explores the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, WY, and the impact the ensuing controversy had on the community. Like the media reports at the time, the play largely portrays the murder as a hate crime… a vicious, premeditated attack on the openly gay Shepard.

District administrators halted the production out of concern that some in the community might perceive the play as promoting homosexuality… you know, in the same way a recent broadcast of the movie Mississippi Burning caused so many of Yakima’s youth to suddenly turn black.

Well apparently, (un)Sound Politics contributor Matt Rosenberg agrees with the district’s decision. Rosenberg suggests that such a “pro-tolerance” play might be inappropriate subject matter for a high school production, stating that “there is a legitimate question of whether we want public schools instead of families teaching tolerance.” Yeah, because we wouldn’t want to offend the values of those anti-tolerance families, I guess.

But Rosenberg’s biggest complaint is that the details of the incident as portrayed in the play — which was based on over 200 interviews conducted in the immediate aftermath of Shepard’s 1998 murder — differs from those presented in a 2004 segment of ABC TV’s 20/20. Rosenberg writes:

The reasons for his killing are highly disputed, in fact. There is no certitude to it whatever. True, the play’s script echoes dubious claims by the killer’s girlfriend and the killer himself that his rage about a purported gay come-on from Shepard led to the fatal attack. However, an in-depth report on ABC-TV’s “20-20” casts that claim as likely manufactured to aid the killer’s defense and pegs drug-money robbery and a methamphetamine-induced rage as the likely motivations in the killing.

Uh-huh.

Okay. Let’s just forget for a moment that the play’s hate-crime premise — a premise based on extensive, year-long interviews starting just 5-weeks after the murder, on contemporary news accounts, and, oh yeah… on the courtroom testimony of both the killer and his girlfriend — is so dismissively rejected by Rosenberg simply because it is contradicted by a single TV newsmagazine segment produced six years after the fact. Forget all that. It’s entirely besides the point.

The point is, Matt… it’s a fucking play!

It’s not a documentary. It’s not a history book. It’s not even a Wikipedia entry. It’s a play. A work of art. It’s theater.

The Sound of Music by comparison is a grossly inaccurate portrayal of the real von Trapp family, yet high school productions run nationwide without protest. The Miracle Worker? An historically iffy stage adaptation of an autobiography of a deaf and blind girl, for chrisakes. Amadeus? A complete and utter load of bullshit. And Shakespeare’s much lionized histories? Each and every one a work of fiction.

If Rosenberg had bothered to see the The Laramie Project before criticizing it he might understand that it doesn’t matter what the primary motivation of the killers really was, for the play isn’t about Shepard or his death, it’s about the people who survived him. The play is about the Laramie community coming to grips with the possibility that two of their own committed a brutal hate crime, and about how this experience changed their lives. The play is about how intolerance can tear communities apart, and about how unspeakable tragedy can sometimes bring communities together.

And whatever the truth about Shepard’s murder, the undisputed fact is that hate crimes do occur, and that in America — like all over the world — people are indeed discriminated against, ostracized, brutalized, even killed because of their race, their religion, their politics and their sexual orientation. Thus in its heart, The Laramie Project would be a truthful play, even if it were a total work of fiction. If you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand art.

So when I read a piece like the one Rosenberg posted to (un)Sound Politics yesterday, I have to ask myself: what the fuck is wrong with these people? Why would they go so far out of their way to trivialize a play that does nothing more than dramatize the tragic consequences of intolerance? What are they defending?

If the students of the Davis High School drama department had elected to perform The Diary of Anne Frank, and the production was halted out of concerns that some in the community might perceive the play as promoting Judaism, would Rosenberg jump to the defense of district administrators? Would he criticize the play for its historical inaccuracies? If 20/20’s Elizabeth Vargas were to deny the Holocaust, would Rosenberg insist that any staging must include a post-production discussion forum to fully air the differences between Frank’s diary and that of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf?

An absurd analogy?

Rosenberg closes by writing about “the Leftist meme of ‘politically constructed realities,'” a hefty turn of phrase intended to dismiss the very notion of hate crimes as some sort of lefty political construct. Whatever. I suppose I understand the legal arguments of those who insist that hate crime laws are unnecessary. But I simply can’t comprehend how a fellow Jew like Rosenberg could deny that hate crimes exist at all. Still… I’ll try to be tolerant.

UPDATE:
It turns out that David Neiwert over at Orcinus thoroughly debunked the 20/20 segment, way back around the time it first aired. Neiwert also debunks Rosenberg’s apparent opposition to hate crime laws in general:

This myth arises from one of the realities about hate-crime laws: they only exist on the books as laws dealing with a special category of crimes with which we already are well familiar (murder, assault, threatening, intimidation, vandalism, etc.) — that is, a hate crime always has a well-established “parallel” crime underlying it, upon which is added the layer of motivation by bias (racial, ethnic, etc.). Thus, opponents argue, the laws for those parallel crimes should be adequate for punishing perpetrators. (If this argument sounds familiar, it is; the identical points were raised in the 1920s and ’30s by opponents of the anti-lynching legislation that was the NAACP’s raison d’etre during its early years.)

Are hate crimes truly different from their parallel crimes? Quantifiably and qualitatively, the answer is yes.

The first and most clear aspect of this difference lies in the breadth of the crimes’ effects. Hate crimes attack not only the immediate victim, but the target community — Jews, blacks, gays

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From Katherine Harris’s web site:

TAMPA, FL- Congresswoman Katherine Harris, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate, soundly defeated Bill Nelson this evening by a 54% to 45% margin in the straw poll conducted at the Lakeland Bi-Annual Politics in the Park. The Harris campaign continues to build momentum, engendering tremendous grassroots support throughout the state with a pro-growth, pro-family message that resonates across the political spectrum.

Congresswoman Harris commented, “I appreciate the strong support of a majority of voters who are disillusioned with Bill Nelson’s lack of leadership and his record of voting against Florida’s best interests. I will fight for Florida in the United States Senate.”

The Lakeland Bi-Annual Politics in the Park straw poll illustrates the widespread support that exists for Harris’ consistent message of cutting taxes, eliminating wasteful spending, protecting the institution of marriage and opposing amnesty for illegal citizens. Congresswoman Katherine Harris is the only candidate with a demonstrated record of leadership who will fight for Florida’s values in the U.S. Senate.

See, this is what they mean by “Katherine Harris Crazy.” You can’t make this shit up.

UPDATE:

Really… you can’t make this shit up.

The new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll suggests an ass-kicking in the making:

Four weeks before congressional elections, a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows Democrats hold a 23-point lead over GOP candidates. That’s double the lead Republicans had a month before they seized control of Congress in 1994.

President Bush’s approval rating was 37%, down from 44% in a Sept. 15-17 poll. The approval rating for Congress was 24%, down 5 points from last month.

[…]

On the question of which party’s candidate would receive their vote if the election were held today, Democrats held a 23-point lead over Republicans among every type of person questioned

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I was dragged to a production of The Laramie Project a couple months ago at Shoreline Community College. I say “dragged” because while I love theater — I spent the middle twenty years of my life immersed in it — I am an exceptionally tough critic, and find bad theater to be extraordinarily painful. I especially hate maudlin, poorly-acted, amateur productions of artsy-fartsy experimental bullshit. But I had a nephew in the cast, and so there I was.

And it was great.

The acting was actually pretty damn good (though due to the family connection, I’d pretty much have to say that even if it wasn’t.) But the play itself was surprisingly gripping and moving, the surprise stemming not from the subject matter — the murder of Matthew Shephard and the community’s reaction in the aftermath — but from the unusual process in which it was written and the dramatic device it relies on. But quite simply, it’s a great play.

And so I was disappointed (but not shocked) to read that Davis High School in Yakima has canceled its production of The Laramie Project, apparently because some members of the community find it too controversial.

Let’s be clear. This play is not about homosexuality. It’s about prejudice, and it actually treats the Laramie community quite evenhandedly. It is also entirely appropriate for a high school audience.

No doubt it is a challenging play that may make some audience members feel a bit uncomfortable about their own prejudices. But if the Yakima community finds it controversial for high school students to stage a production of a play that laments the brutal murder of young gay man, then I’d say the community needs to be challenged.