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The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM onward at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. I won’t be there, but come on by and watch the convention coverage on the big screen; I’ll be sitting underneath the Washington sign on the convention floor.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s thirteen Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

It turns out, McCain doesn’t know what kind of car he drives either:

In our News interview, he was asked what kind of car he drove. As with Politico’s question about home ownership, he didn’t know and had to ask a nearby aide. “A Cadillac CTS,” she told him.

But then again, he is 72, so cut him some slack.

In the Washington Post, Michael Dobbs writes about the recent outbreak of hostilities in Georgia. Dobbs has a good amount of experience in the region, and he explains how Georgia played a big role in provoking this crisis, possibly at the encouragement of the Bush Administration. Russia’s response was overly aggressive, but despite our promises to Georgian president Saakashvili, there’s little to nothing we can do militarily to stop what’s happening.

John McCain’s electoral hopes are pinned on his abililty to breathe life into the dying myth that Republicans are “tougher” on foreign policy, and he certainly sees this crisis as a way to do so. He decided to send the Larry and Curly to his Moe out to Tbilisi to do whatever it is that they do when they travel closer to the countries they’re terrified of. But beneath the surface, this conflict brings out some of the glaring weaknesses in the Bush-McCain foreign policy playbook. It may sound like toughness, but in the end, our allies get kneecapped and fewer people around the world trust us.

Publius from Obsidian Wings reiterates the central failure of McCain’s foreign policy approach:

David Kirkpatrick’s piece on McCain’s response to 9/11 and the “McCain Doctrine” should have been titled “McCain Repeatedly, Horribly Wrong on Virtually Everything About Iraq.” Kirkpatrick lays out several damning facts, but — frustratingly — makes the reader draw the most important conclusions.

Anyway, what’s frightening about McCain’s response to 9/11 is that it was basely entirely on false assumptions and the knee-jerk use of military force. But it’s more than simply that McCain was wrong about Iraq — lots of people were wrong about Iraq. What’s particularly troubling about McCain’s reaction is that his wrongness stemmed directly from the assumptions of his manichean worldview — assumptions he would bring with him to the White House.

In short, his is a world of good versus evil, where threatening and using force is always necessary, and where wildly diverse countries are lumped together as evil “autocracies.” No matter the country (Serbia, Iraq, Georgia), no matter the circumstances — the problem is always the same (evil), the solution always the same (threaten or use force).

The past decade has shown us how the dangers of this thinking – our belief that we must boil every issue and every conflict that arises in the world into a bi-polar good-vs-evil struggle and use force to combat that “evil” – has stretched our military to the breaking point and left us unable to address real threats. When you become locked in this mindset, and you and your allies are always the “good” in that equation, your view of the world becomes incredibly distorted. In the end, you begin to sound like a confused madman, chastising others for doing the exact same things that you’ve been doing yourself. But in your mind, it’s always justified because you are the “good” in the struggle against “evil.”

Over the past decade, the world has come to see this growing emptiness in our supposed moral authority, even if many Americans never question it. But one can’t cover their eyes with their hands and expect the entire world to become invisible. The Bush Administration has made America weak, and what we’ve been seeing in Georgia this month was Russia’s ability to exploit that weakness with ease.

But while endorsing another 4 years of this failed foreign policy mindset is bad enough, I’m not sure we’re thinking about how dangerous this is when the people in charge feel that the “evil” they’re fighting is lurking domestically as well. Speaking in front of the Urban League recently, John McCain said the following:

Answering a question about his approach to combatting crime, John McCain suggested that military strategies currently employed by US troops in Iraq could be applied to high crime neighborhoods here in the US. McCain called them tactics ‘somewhat like we use in the military…You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement.’ The way he described it, his approach sounded an awful lot like the surge.

Every large myth is supported by a series of smaller myths, and the myth of Republican foreign policy superiority is certainly no exception. The myth that the Surge was some magical tactic that single-handedly ended violence in Iraq is still around. For those who haven’t been keeping score, the drop in violence in Iraq started happening before the Surge, some of the most prominent reductions in violence happened in places where coalition troops left, and Baghdad is now a city of walls rather than a newly pacified urban area.

After everyone with the means to do so fled Baghdad for places like Syria and Jordan, the Iraqi capital city was turned into a series of ethnic prison enclaves in order to dampen the violence. I sure as hell hope this isn’t John McCain’s vision for solving inner city crime. But as Publius explained, for John McCain every problem is an “evil”, and every solution is to threaten or use force. Short of genocide, there’s no greater indication of an intent to use force than trying to turn the place where the “evil” resides into a giant prison, caging it inside.

America’s crime problem is certainly growing again. Mexico’s crime problem is a national crisis. And the amount of illegal immigration that occurs from Mexico is certainly fueled by the latter. While illegal immigrants, on the whole, commit less crime than legal immigrants or American citizens, the sensationalizing about their massive presence overshadows this and quickly drowns out the facts. And the presence of so many people in this country working and living outside the system will undoubtedly start to have serious societal repercussions if nothing is done.

There are two ways to attack these problems. One way involves understanding the roots of why these phenomena are happening, addressing those issues, and beginning to undermine the criminal gangs by going after how they make the money they need to survive. The other way involves seeing drug trafficking and illegal immigration as an amorphous evil that we must combat through brute force. For years we’ve tried the latter, and for years, we’ve watched these problems get worse and worse. In the end, many people have just thrown up their hands and said, “just build a wall,” but while that might work for a while in a city like Baghdad, it won’t work at all across a 2000 mile border. At some point, we need to get smarter, and that’s obviously not going to happen if we put John McCain in the White House.

When it comes to our attempts to keep the peace in Iraq, we’ve seen the use of private security contractors grow. But it’s not just in Iraq that companies like Blackwater win government contracts. Blackwater personnel were on the ground during Katrina, and they’re also conducting anti-terrorism training at a new facility along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In Southern California recently, one of the DEA agents carrying out a raid on a medical marijuana dispensary was seen wearing a Blackwater T-shirt. The picture was then removed from the L.A. Times website. No one knows why this agent was wearing it. Hell, he may have ordered the thing online. But the image reminded us that having a private security agency with little or no oversight like Blackwater enforcing the drug war, or enforcing our immigration laws, is a line no thicker than many of the other lines that the Republican Administration currently in power has crossed.

The growth of paramilitary police tactics throughout America is one of the scariest developments of this era. When someone like John McCain stands in front of us and says that he wants to “clamp down” on the violence in our cities and towns, too many of us still just assume that we won’t get caught in its grips. But tell that to someone like Berwyn Heights, Maryland mayor Cheye Calvo, who had a SWAT team raid his home, terrorize his wife and mother-in-law, and shoot his two dogs for no reason, all because someone randomly addressed a package of marijuana to his house as part of a drug trafficking scheme. Tell that to people like Cory Maye and Ryan Frederick, two young men with no criminal records who awoke to the sound of people breaking into their house at night, reacted by shooting at the intruders, only to realize they’d killed police officers and might have to spend the rest of their lives in jail.

Whether it’s halfway across the world, or in our own backyard, the idea that our power and authority does not come with any form of accountability or responsibility – simply because we are “good” fighting against “evil” – is rapidly eroding the trust in that power and authority. The Bush Administration’s hypocrisy between the Kosovo and the South Ossetia situations shares a common denominator with the hypocrisies over how America fights crime domestically. It starts with a belief that a desire for autonomy can be a dangerous thing if it’s viewed as running counter to that larger struggle.

But the battle for autonomy is the larger struggle. There’s no greater representation of democracy than having the ability to express your desires freely. George Bush and John McCain often say they understand this, and that they’re “spreading democracy,” but by their actions, it’s very clear that they don’t, and they aren’t. And the most dangerous thing we can do right now is to take another 4 years to learn how the failed approach of our foreign policy also fails when applied right here on our own streets.

So much to drink, so little time tonight, as I try to split my evening between two locations.  The Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM onward at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E., and I’ll be stopping by a little early to chat with the regulars and watch the initial returns.  Then I’ll be heading East to join Darcy Burner at The Mustard Seed, 5608 119th Ave SE, Bellevue, for her election night party… and you’re all invited to join us in cheering her on to November.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s thirteen Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

There are rumors that Rob McKenna is a Podcasting Liberally aficionado. Go figure!

The rumors have come to light following a smear campaign against Democratic Secretary of State candidate Jason Osgood, who is running against Sam Reed. The tale is long and somewhat convoluted, but I have an unimpeachable source for the rumor: me. And the source of the smear campaign? Well…as the producer of Podcasting Liberally that rumor traces it back to…me. Or, stated more concisely, the smear originated from Rob McKenna’s misunderstanding of a podcast I produced, which McKenna is rumored (by me) to regularly enjoy.

Allow me to explain.

Last Friday, Washblog front-paged a diary by jeffuppy that traces the origins of the smear, so we begin our rumor/smear adventure last Wednesday at, of all places, a meeting of the 34th District Democrats:

Part of the night’s agenda included approval of proposals to donate money to Democratic candidates for statewide office.

…I stood and introduced a motion to contribute to Democratic Secretary of State candidate Jason Osgood. I expected little or no opposition….However, to my surprise, King County Council Member Dow Constantine stood to speak in opposition. Constantine was clearly upset with Osgood, and proceeded to trash him before the group. His anger was focused on public statements he claimed Osgood has recently been making to the effect that King County uses bar-codes on ballots which allow votes to be tracked back to voters. King County uses no such system….
[…]

…Jason Osgood has never said any of the things about King County ballots that he was accused of saying. In fact, Osgood has consistently and publicly said the exact opposite – that King County does not use bar-codes and that this is a good thing.

The donation motion did not pass, likely on account of the information rumor that Constantine had been so helpful in sharing spreading.

Afterward Jeffuppy asked Constantine about the rumor, and he produced an email to the King County Council from Sherril Huff, the King County Director of Elections:

…misinformation has been shared at local public meetings as well as editorial boards regarding how timing marks on ballots are used in King County. Unfortunately a candidate running for office publicly misstated that King County ballots can be traced back to the voter using a bar code on the ballot.

Not fully satisfied by this email that was all spiced-up in bureaucrateese, Jeffuppy asked Huff for a plain-language translation including when and where she had heard Osgood make these statements. But she had not actually heard the statements. Rather, Nick Handy, State Director of Elections (an office that under the Secretary of State’s office), had shared this information with her.

So Jeffuppy asked Handy the same “when and where” question. Remarkably, Handy didn’t have firsthand knowledge either.

He had simply been told about them, he said, by Attorney General Rob McKenna and by Eastside State Representative Fred Jarret. They had in turn been told about them by unnamed citizens.

That adds two more generations to the rumor.

Chad Shue writing at the Seattle Examiner summarizes the chain rumor thusly:

So there you have it. Based on unchecked statements by “unnamed citizens” allegedly passed on by Republican office holders to the chief deputy of the incumbent Republican candidate for the office that oversees state elections, the Director of Elections for King County has (hopefully unwittingly) aided in the effort to undermine the credibility of the Democratic candidate for that office.

Or, more succinctly: it was a “he said that she said that he said that they said that people said that Jason Osgood said…” chain rumor.

Last June 10th, just as his campaign was starting up, we had had Jason Osgood on the weekly Podcasting Liberally panel. If he was going to make a misstatement on the record, this early appearance would be the place. I’ve pulled out the relevant segment where Jason discusses King County and the bar code controversy (which is really about San Juan county):

[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/secretballot2.mp3]

Osgood does mention King and San Juan counties in the same breath. I can see how someone might mistakenly think that Jason was flagging King county as one of the problem counties…particularly, if that someone is a closeted Podcasting Liberally buff secretly listening to the podcast in the privacy of men’s room stall in one ear while maintaining vigilance with the other ear. (As an aside, the “men’s room” stuff isn’t officially part of the rumor…I just threw that in as a hypothetical.)

Such an interpretation of Osgood’s words would be mistaken, as is clear from the transcript:

You know, I have studied King County the most, and Washington to a lesser extent. And nationally, I’m not very interested in Florida, New Mexico. I know that there are problems, but we are looking at King County. We’re looking a San Juan county and the issues that we’re facing here.

We have a constitutional right to a secret ballot. That means no one can determine how we vote—should not be able to determine—not possible. And in San Juan county and other counties using the same system, they have a unique bar code that is linked to your voter ID which is tracked—your mail ballot is tracked—all the way through to tabulation.

Jason mentions King county in passing but only before he raises the secret ballot issue, after which he only mentions San Juan county.

As long as politicians blissfully pass along unverified, fifth-generation rumors that tangibly cost a candidate money and support, I’d like to get in on the game. So, based on a simple plausibility argument (i.e. with no violations of the laws of physics), I offer a new rumor that sheds shocking new light on the fifth generation rumor about Osgood. My rumor is that Rob McKenna is a huge fan of Podcasting Liberally. That explains everything, because he obviously listened to our podcast, and simply misunderstood what Osgood was saying. McKenna started the Osgood rumor chain by passing his misunderstanding on to Handy and Huff.

Yeah, sure…I’ve got no real proof that Rob McKenna really enjoys the podcast—perhaps that is a stretch. By the standards of our esteemed politicians, however, spreading a rumor that McKenna enjoys the podcast is pretty tame stuff. And let me say, it is a real honor to have Rob as a fan of the podcast…I appreciate the patronage, even if it occasionally catalyzes a false rumor.

Oh…and Rob McKenna is a Muslim.

Bradley Marshall is an attorney, sports agent and adjunct law professor. He is also a pussy. A vain, effete, caterwauling pussy.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. My entirely non-libelous, constitutionally protected, personal opinion. But I think you’ll agree with me that it is pretty damn well supported by the facts.

So what makes Marshall such an incredible pussy? This cease and desist letter to fellow blogger Michael Hood:

Over the course of the last several years you have published the “Blatherwatch,” a conservative political blog site.

Approximately two years ago, you published a defamatory and slanderous blog of the undersigned in connection with a story of the famed talk show host, Mike Webb. […] The story you published concerning me was inaccurate, denigrating, and placed me in a false light. The purpose of this writing is to formally request that you remove the article from the BlatherWatch website and cease any further negative reporting concerning the undersigned.

[…] It is not my desire to seek redress through the courts, but I will do so if you and I are unable to reach an amicable resolution.

As Darryl has previously pointed out over at Hominid Views, A) a defamatory post would be libel not slander; and B) there is absolutely nothing defamatory about a post that reports facts, no matter how unflattering or how secondhand. Hell, Michael would have a better chance of suing Marshall for libel for his clearly false and defamatory claim that blatherWatch is “conservative”… though I guess Marshall could always fall back on the defense that he was merely expressing an opinion… you know… like my characterization of him as a dainty, dickless pussy. (It would be worth the lawsuit just to see Marshall definitively prove in a court of law that he does indeed have a dick.)

The December 27, 2005 blatherWatch post that Marshall is attempting to bully Michael into removing (and which I have appended in toto at the end of this post) is titled “mike webb’s attorney no stranger to ‘dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation’,” a factual claim I haven’t bothered to independently verify, because under US law, I don’t have to. I am merely reporting that Michael reported it, an inherently non-libelous act within the context of covering a threatened libel suit, regardless of the accuracy of the original statement. (Think about it… one could never report on libel suits if repeating the charges is an act of libel itself.)

Likewise, Michael’s headline was merely quoting the conclusions of the Washington State Bar Association from a Disciplinary Notice he blockquotes in its entirety. In correspondence with Michael, Marshall disputes the WSBA’s findings, but as a legal argument that’s neither here nor there, for Michael has every right to report on the WSBA’s Disciplinary Notice, again, regardless of its accuracy. The WSBA found Marshall to be in violation of its Rules for Personal Conduct (RPC), including the subsection that prohibits “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation”… an undisputed fact (the finding itself) that Michael duly reported. It is also a fact that Michael reported it, and I could not possibly report on the dispute between Michael and Marshall without reporting this particularly fact as such.

See, this isn’t Canada where litigious pussies like Marshall can attempt to bully the press and citizen journalists alike with harassing libel suits that place the burden of proof on the shoulders of the defendant. This is the United States of America, where the First Amendment protects freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and where the courts have firmly placed the burden on the back of the plaintiff… a burden of proof, by the way, that Marshall already failed to meet when the WA State Supreme Court handed down an 18 month suspension of his license as punishment for the exact same RPC violations he is now threatening to sue Michael for reporting.

What a pussy.

And what an idiot, for if his goal was to rid the Internet of an unflattering blog post that ranks near the top of Google searches on his name, Bradley Marshall has achieved the exact opposite, not only attracting subsequent posts by Michael and a highly ranked post by Darryl that only further elaborate on their subject’s reported ethical failings, but now a post by me, one that will surely settle near the top of Google’s rankings, where it will forever inform potential clients that Marshall is a frivolous, conscienceless, unscrupulous pussy. (At least, in my opinion.)

As it so happens, today is the day the pussy has set as a deadline for Michael to pull his post:

I am prepared to execute a settlement agreement, wherein I will release you personally, Blatherwatch and its writers from all liability. This proposal may be accepted on or before August 15, 2008. Thereafter, I will file the lawsuit against you personally, any writer who contributed to any slanderous story about me, Blatherwatch, the Seattle Magazine and any other publications you may have been affiliated with during the time the subject storie(s) were written.

See Brad, I mention this because I wanted to make it clear that I got my post in under the deadline, and that I have no intention of pulling this post or any other, short of a court order… and possibly not even then. So if you really intend to file a lawsuit that you have no possibility of winning, under the bizarre belief that this will somehow clear your reputation as a lawyer, you better sue me too.

Some may find my bravado stupid or irrational, but Marshall’s whole attempt to intimidate Michael was based on the expectation that he would do the rational thing, and quietly pull a two-year-old post rather than risk the expense and hassle of even a clearly frivolous lawsuit. The problem is, once bloggers start caving in to litigious pussies like Marshall, we’ll find ourselves inundated with cease-and-desist letters from every litigious pussy who has ever been the subject of an unflattering post, and who happens to have access to a lawyer or a law license (suspended or not).

So sue me, Brad. Sue Michael. Sue Darryl. And sue the dozens of other bloggers, local and national, who will surely follow up on our posts should you choose to follow through on your pussy threats. Turn us into netroots heroes and I can all but guarantee that “Bradley Marshall” will become the equivalent of a Google bomb for the words “dishonesty,” “fraud,” “deceit,” “misrepresentation” and “pussy.” Or, you can do the rational thing, accept the fact that we called your bluff, and walk away from this dispute before you sully your own reputation to the point where you become legally libel-proof.

It’s not about me, Brad. It’s not about you. It’s not about Michael. It’s about the integrity of our medium. And damn if I’m going to allow a pussy like you to turn bloggers like me into pussies too.

APPENDIX:
Following is the original blatherWatch post that prompted Marshall’s bullying tactics, reproduced in its entirety. (Nice job expunging any record of your ethical lapses from the Internet, Brad. Let this be a lesson to anyone else who thinks they can use bullshit cease and desist letters to chill online discourse.)

[Read more…]

It was Michelle Malkin who shot and killed Arkansas Democratic Party chairman Bill Gwatney yesterday. At least, according to Michelle Malkin.

Yes, just hours after the shooting, before Gwatney even died from his wounds, Malkin responds to the tragedy with a defensive post attempting to immunize herself from potential accusations that her right-wing hate-mongering might have played any role in provoking this senseless act of violence. Jesus… talk about a guilty conscience.

And talk about a narcissistic personalty that borders on solipsism. A man had just been mortally wounded, shot three times in the chest, clearly the target of an assassin’s bullets… and Malkin can only think about herself and her own victimhood as the potential target of a character assassination. Could she be any more insensitive to Gwatney, his family and his friends?

Oh, but she’d already received an email, Malkin cries, telling her that she should be “held accountable” for hate-talk that “turns people to murder.” A lone email, for chrissakes? That’s her justification for this mind-numbingly inappropriate post? A single fucking email?

Shorter Michelle Malkin:

Somebody sent me an email blaming my so-called ‘hate’ for this horrible act of violence against a Democrat Party liberal. Here is that person’s full name and unredacted email address.

And while I’m sure as hell not one to judge a blogger by their comment threads, Malkin is, and in her own heavily vetted thread it is apparently calm, rational, non-hateful discourse to accuse Bill and Hillary Clinton of assassinating Gwatney as a message to Barack Obama that he’ll be next if he doesn’t fall in line.

But you know, we foul-mouthed liberals, we’re the crazies… we’re the dangerous lunatic fringe.

While Gwatney was clearly the victim of a targeted attack, we don’t yet know the motive. We don’t yet know if his assassination was an ideological hate crime like last month’s Knoxville shootings, or just the kind of everyday tragedy in which sick, personal grudges sometimes (and inevitably) manifest themselves in our heavily armed society.

But if she’s come to the point where she feels the need to preemptively issue a denial of culpability each time news breaks of another Democrat or other such perceived liberal being assaulted or murdered, perhaps Malkin should listen to her guilty conscience the next time she’s tempted to resort to the sort of violent, eliminationist rhetoric that has made her famous. That is, assuming, Malkin still has a conscience.

The Stranger’s Dan Savage finds some not-so-hidden meaning in “G.O.P. party” candidate Dino Rossi’s “too big, too hard” ad.

So he asks The Stranger’s Kelly O for something of a “truth in advertising” make-over:

Not that I’m keeping score or anything, but the Seattle Times has started publishing their editorial endorsements, and with the addition today of top-two fellatrix Sam Reed for Secretary of State and licensed mortician Allan Martin for State Treasurer, so far it is Republicans 4, Democrats 0. Or maybe it’s 3-1… I can never keep my Justice Johnsons straight.

Yeah, sure, the Supreme Court is technically nonpartisan, but as in all nonpartisan races we all know who the Democrats and the Republicans really are (unless they’re named “Johnson”). For example, Justice Mary Fairhurst, let’s be honest, she’s a Democrat, and perhaps the most liberal member of the court. Which is exactly why the Times endorsed her opponent, Michael Bond.

Perhaps Bond really is qualified to serve… I’m no lawyer, so I dunno. But every other paper in the state thus far—including those from such liberal strongholds as Yakima, Tri-Cities and Walla Walla—have endorsed Fairhurst. So despite the Times’ tortured effort to explain away their endorsement, the truth is that they oppose Fairhurst for the exact same partisan reasons that I support her. The difference is, I’m honest about my bias.

Earlier this week, Postman wrote again about Dino Rossi’s Forward Washington organization and the corresponding “Idea Bank.”

The foundation didn’t accomplish much. There was the Idea Bank that Rossi heralded as a bipartisan effort to solicit and vet ideas from citizens on how to improve state government. (The Democrat who made the project “bipartisan” thinks FDR was a Socialist and still complains “that traitorous scamp, Jane Fonda” caused America to lose the Vietnam War.)

That “Democrat” was Lou Guzzo. At EffU, I’ve posted up a challenge to see if you can distinguish between things recently written by Dino Rossi’s “Idea Man,” and things recently written by Stranger Public Editor and OSHA Board of Governors Member A. Birch Steen. Good luck.

The discussion opens on the Big Indictment of Alaska’s Senator “for life,” Ted Stevens, and what might happen in the Alaksa senatorial race. Naturally, that raises the question of whether Alaska is in play for Obama. Goldy wonders if Obama will visit Washington state, and why didn’t Obama show up at Netroots Nation, anyway? Is McCain too old, mean, and angry to be President? Or is it his technological ineptitude that should rule him out? In three years, will anyone even remember free plastic bags? Finally, the panel makes their predictions about whether the transit measure will pass in November.

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist and Strange Bedfellow senior contributor Joel Connelly, Washington state Communications Director for Obama for America Josh Field, Cogitamus contributor Nick Beaudrot, and The Stranger’s and Slog’s Eli Sanders.

The show is 50:59, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_july_29_2008.mp3]

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

Strategic Vision has released a July poll that includes the Washington state gubernatorial contest. The poll shows Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) leading challenger Dino Rossi (GOP-Party) 47% to 45%, with 8% “undecided”. The poll of 800 people was taken from July 25th to July 27th, and has a margin of error of 3.5%

This is the fourth July poll in this race. Here are the results from the four polls:

Poll	Start	End	# Polled	MOE	% Gregoire	% Rossi
Strategic Vision	25-Jul	27-Jul	800	3.5	47.0	45.0
SurveyUSA	13-Jul	15-Jul	666	3.9	49.0	46.0
Moore Information	09-Jul	10-Jul	400	5.0	45.0	45.0
Rasmussen	09-Jul	09-Jul	500	4.5	49.0	43.0

Rossi last led in this race thirteen polls ago, back in late February.

I’ll do two Monte Carlo analyses. First is an analysis of the poll numbers in the new Strategic Vision poll in order to estimate the probability that Gregoire (and Rossi) would win an election held right now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 800 voters each, where each voter had a 47% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 45% chance of voting for Rossi and a 8% chance of voting for neither.

Result 1: Gregoire won 716,473 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 271,349 times. This suggests that, in an election now, Gregoire would have a 72.5% probability of winning and Rossi would have a 27.5% probability of winning. A statistician would point out that Gregoire’s lead in this poll is within the margin of error (i.e. her probability of winning is less than 95%).

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections (blue bars are wins for Gregoire and red bars are Rossi wins):

The second analysis combines the polls from all four polls in the Table, to give a July score for this race.

The combined polls yield a pool of 1127 (47.6%) votes for Gregoire, 1061 (44.9%) votes for Rossi, and 177 (7.5%) who voted for neither. Again, I simulate 1,000,000 elections.

Result 2: Gregoire won 919,335 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 77,493 times. The results suggest that, if a July election were held, Gregoire would have won with an 92.2% probability, and Rossi would have won with a 7.8% probability.

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

Strategic Vision also polled for the presidential election in Washington state. Sen. Barack Obama (D) leads Sen. John McCain (R) by a +11% margin, 48% to 37%. Obama’s lead is well outside the margin of error for this poll.

The story of a Vancouver couple, Frank and Karen Wastradowski, who had racist graffiti keyed into their car after placing a Barack Obama yard sign in their yard, has drawn a full article from The Columbian.

The graffiti has generated an outcry among several community leaders, who set up a fund this week to defray Wastradowski’s cleanup expenses. Several officials, including Tim Probst, a candidate for representative for the 17th District, have pledged monetary support.

“If someone scratches ‘white power’ on a car, it’s important that we send a message as a whole that our community doesn’t accept racism,” Probst said.

Chris Bassett, the former vice chairman of the Clark County Democratic Party, started the fund after reading media reports on the incident. Outraged, he decided to do something. So he sent e-mails to other political activists, including Probst, seeking contributions.

Bassett said the fund isn’t intended to be a partisan statement (although all those involved are Democrats), but a stance against those who threaten freedom of speech and perpetuate racism.

“Obviously, there is an element in Clark County that feels it’s OK to do these things,” Bassett said. “(The Wastradowskis) were just expressing themselves,” and the vandals were trying to intimidate them into silence. “And that’s very troubling.”

It’s easy to be cynical in this day and age, and I’m probably as cynical as one can get, but the response that has been formulated to this cowardly little bit of vandalism is motivated by a sincere desire to show that normal people don’t find this sort of stuff acceptable. Plus there’s no good reason this couple should bear the financial cost of removing hate graffiti from their sedan for supporting the nominee of a major party, or any candidate for that matter.

I don’t want to invade the Wastradowski’s privacy any more than it has been already, but I’ve heard from several people, including a couple of elected officials, that they are well-respected members of the community. (And let’s remember, before anyone starts claiming that the response to this is motivated only by partisanship, that Frank Wastradowski used to be the campaign treasurer for former state Sen. Don Carlson, R-Vancouver.)

Normal people consider it their Constitutional right to pick and choose whom to support, and they really shouldn’t have to worry about costly repairs to their property for simply putting a placard in their yard.

An account called the “Victims of Racial Vandalism Fund” has been set up at IQ Credit Union in Clark County. You can find their locations here. At this writing we are waiting for the Pay Pal account to go live, and I will update as soon as I receive word it’s working.

UPDATE– Click on the Pay Pal button below if you wish to donate to the “Victims of Racial Vandalism Fund.” Be sure to hit “update total” at Pay Pal if you are paying by credit card (rather than logging in) so that you don’t have to keep re-doing it, like I did. The Pay Pal account’s email address is called “ccagainstvandalism” as I guess it had to be a shorter name.

And I know a lot of folks might be kind of tapped out because it’s an election year (not to mention the tough economy) so rest assured small donations very much matter in this case. It will show how many folks want to register their disgust with this kind of petty and hateful action. Wouldn’t it be great if 50 or 100 people threw in five or ten bucks?

Our plan at this point is any funds that might be raised in excess of that needed to help get the Wastradowski’s on the road without a racism-mobile will be kept in the fund until after the election and then donated to a charity agreed to by the Wastradowski’s. This is an ad-hoc group, so it’s not like we’re having board meetings or anything.

Here’s the Pay Pal button:

It’s a Drinking Liberally double header for me tonight as the Columbia City chapter meets from 6PM to 8PM at the Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier AVE S. (next door to Tutta Bella’s), followed by the Seattle chapter which meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM onward at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Stop on by for some hoppy beer and hopped up conversation.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s thirteen Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.