I hope you will all excuse my delay in posting some post-election observations, as I spent the day sitting shiva for our democracy. I will for the moment ignore the national elections, except to once again respectfully ask my fellow Americans… are you out of your fucking minds?!!!
Apparently so.
Anyway…
On to the results from the less-insane Washington, where it turns out my predictions (made without the benefit of polling data) were pretty damn close. “Damn” being the operative word.
In fact, I correctly picked the winning candidate in every race. I think.
The governor’s race is still up in the air, but the absentee ballots look somewhat encouraging for Christine Gregoire. There are slightly more absentee ballots left to count from pro-Rossi counties than from pro-Gregoire King County, but Gregoire’s margin of victory in King is quite substantial, so they should tend to even out. We’ll know a bit more tomorrow afternoon.
Perhaps the best news is that the Democrats will likely control both houses of the Legislature. It could be a week or more before we get the final count, but it looks like the D’s picked up 3 seats in both houses.
The other statewide races went pretty much as expected. Patty Murray trounced political midget George Nethercutt, and the apparently unlikable Deborah Senn lost to the clearly unqualified Rob McKenna for attorney general. If the D’s aren’t careful McKenna will be Governor or a Senator someday.
All the statewide incumbents won.
As to the initiatives and referenda, of course, the big news was the overwhelming failure of I-892. And it was overwhelming… a greater than 60-40 defeat.
Now Eyman has been running on about all the money spent opposing the initiative, but for the most part, the No campaign’s ads were honest… they simply explained to voters that I-892 would put slot machines in our neighborhoods. And voters clearly don’t want slot machines in their neighborhoods.
The gambling industry had hoped that the Eyman brand would masquerade I-892 as a tax cut initiative. It didn’t work.
I’ll talk more about the other initiatives later, but the only real surprise was the margin of defeat for I-884. And the only reason I find it surprising, is that I would have thought its sponsors would have done a better job on focus groups and polling before financing this desperately need measure with a wildly unpopular penny hike in the sales tax.
More comments tomorrow, including some new tidbits on loan shark infested Great Canadian Gaming Corporation.
Let me see if i’m following this right, “Eyman announced Tuesday that he will push for a new initiative in 2005 that would allow the state auditor to conduct performance audits of state and local governments, their agencies, programs and accounts…allow the auditor to determine if tax money is being spent wisely.”
Wait, wait, wait…isn’t this comming from a fellow that is under investatagion for his mis-use of funds? I thought so.
Yes, Eyman always tries to come back. It’s publicity and nothing more.
Oil-for-Food Scandal Draws Scrutiny to U.N.
Monday, September 20, 2004
By David Asman
[…]
Reporter’s Notebook: Saddam’s ‘Killing Field’
Sunday, October 17, 2004
By Greg Palkot
[…]
[NOTE: I’VE EDITED THIS POST, REMOVING CONTENTS OF ARTICLES –GOLDY]
GW… (assuming that’s a real email address)… I apologize, but I’ve edited your comment to remove the articles you embedded.
If you want to cite articles supporting your views, please summarize them, and then provide links so we can check them out. But I’m not going to allow people to post multi-thousand word comments that embed the full text of copyrighted articles… and don’t even tell us what publication they came from.
I welcome debate and alternative views, but please put a little effort into it.
Does anyone have any idea what a state audit costs????? LOOOOTS of bucks. Timmy is on his way out, I hope!
From the AP Wire at (http://www.mlive.com/printer/p.....t=politics) – Eyman says that the defeat of 892, “disproves the view of voters as Pavlovian dogs who say, ‘Ooh, me see tax cuts, grunt, me vote for tax cuts,'” Eyman said. “I think voters really liked half of both the proposals. If we could lower property taxes and increase funding for education, clearly we’d have a major winner.””
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I am still numb from Dumbya losing. Did you know assisted living is getting whacked?
Goldy,
In your next debate, you should ask Timmy if he gets headaches when he thinks.
You’re making the assumption that he actually thinks during a debate.
sorry…I stand corrected!
I was thinking more along the lines of the AP quote posted above. That his comment is so asinine, if its painful to try to disseminate its meaning, does it cause him pain to make the statements? Not to mention the “have our cake and eat it too” mentality. uggg
DmanageD… yeah, I knew what you meant… I was just being snide. Actually, I saw that quote yesterday, and have been meaning to blog on it. I suppose it is possible that Tim was being facetious.
Yeah, well Tim Eyman should be Tim Braggadocio. Look that up at Dictionary.com and you’ll know what I mean…
n. pl. brag·ga·do·ci·os
1. A braggart.
2.
1. Empty or pretentious bragging.
2. A swaggering, cocky manner.
oh, let the mind wonder…
G – who you, snide? NAW!!
I don’t think this is off the original subject, but I believe that the Republican movers and shaker are sly like a fox. First you get your great white leader to propose an amendment to the constitution regarding the definition of marriage–then you get that rejected by Congress–then you get various states that could be on the cutting edge of the election to put state constructional amendments on their ballots, and you’ve got all the votes you need from the folks that would normally stay at home knocking back a couple of beers while watching Jerry Springer. Now, one wonders if the Demos will take a lesson from this voter handbook? What do you suppose would have happened if various crucial states had had initiatives on their ballots allowing for the purchase of drugs from Canada; or an increase in the minimum wage? Would lots of people have turned out and while they were there put a check mark next to Mr. Kerry’s name?
Also it seems to me that the rampant backlash against homosexuals in the US today has a mirror image, and that is an increased backlash against religious sects that are in the far-outer limits. Not that long ago in our nation’s history Mormons were persecuted and hounded to the point that they decided to create their own state. There are snake handling; rock and rolling; wailing; narrow minded religions in our country–plus the churches that say their interpretation of the bible, is the true and only interpretation of the bible. So what would happen if these church goers suddenly found themselves on the other end of the stick and were discriminated against and shunned for their beliefs? I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to think of this as a political tactic–why else would I put my thoughts in writing if I wasn’t contemplating it!!! Really when you look at the numbers these folks are not a huge segment of our population.
I also saw on another blog the statement of a depressed Demo–this person suggested that we not purchase products made in the red states. Well, that’s hard but if you’re interest in boycotts it would be quite easy to do and make a human rights statement at the same time–boycott Wal*Mart and shop Costco. Wal*Mart endorsed Bush – Costco endorsed Kerry.
one thing i would really like to know is how old are you thank you
I’m not sure who that is addressed to, but although I am 42, I hope never to lose touch with the child in me.