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Gregoire: “Republicans refuse to take on climate change”

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Gov. Chris Gregoire has another post up on Daily Kos:  “Republicans refuse to take on climate change.”

Another Republican failure of leadership on renewable energy and climate change happened yesterday in the U.S. Senate. The “drill first and ask questions later” policy of Big Oil and Republicans has not served citizens paying at the pump and won’t in the future. We need to think bigger. What’s wrong with investing some of those wind-fall profits into renewable energy? Energy independence and a cleaner environment sound like things we should be trying to achieve.

[…]

My Republican opponent’s environmental record shows his commitment to fighting climate change is simply political lip service. John McCain came to our state touting the need to fight global warming, but George Bush Republicans like my opponent and those in the U.S. Senate killed the climate change bill and killed a bill today to make Big Oil invest in renewable energy.

While fighting climate change should be a nonpartisan issue, Republicans in Washington have shown us that if we really want to fight climate change, we need to elect Democrats in November.

We are a nation of innovators, and we are in a crisis. I am confident that with a Democratic partner in the other Washington, we can work together to develop the next generation of clean technology and put policies in place that will move us to a greener tomorrow.

Gov. Gregoire makes a blunt point that too many in our media refuse to acknowledge:  in the current political climate, if you care about climate change, if you care about the environment, then you can’t trust the Republicans to get the job done.  On this, as on many other progressive issues, and with few exceptions, the most important thing you need to know about a candidate is the little “D” or “R” next to their name on the ballot.  (You know, except here in WA where our bullshit top-two primary doesn’t even give voters that important piece of information.)

Help Gov. Gregoire get her message out to a wider audience, and recommend her post on Daily Kos.

So who’s out of touch with their district?

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According McCain campaign internal polling, the Iraq war remains the number one issue for northwest voters:

Davis says that campaign polling shows that nationwide, the economy is the top issue voters are concerned about, with the Iraq war No. 2, and energy and gas costs in third place. But in the northwest, the war is the top issue. That’s true in only a few regions in the country, according to the McCain campaign. Here, the economy is second and gas prices are third.

One of the taunts routinely launched at Darcy Burner and her Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq, is that she’s still running the last campaign, foolishly focusing on a war that most voters really don’t care all that much about anymore.  But Darcy has never stopped talking with voters since narrowly losing in 2006, and she’ll be the first to tell you that this is the issue voters most often bring up when talking with her.

Huh.  Turns out, they’re telling the same thing to McCain’s pollsters.  Who’d a thunk?

Press continues to give Reichert a pass on earmarks

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From the Bellingham Herald:

Less than a week after he swore off earmarks, U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert visited the new 911 dispatch center for eastern King County, where he was publicly thanked by local officials for helping secure $1.7 million in earmarks for the center.

The Washington state Republican announced in March that he wouldn’t seek any earmarks this year, because the system was out of control and in need of serious overhaul. But he says that doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to take credit for the $27 million in earmarks he secured last year.

“You’re doggone right I was there,” said the two-term congressman, who faces what’s expected to be a tough re-election campaign. “I am not ashamed to take credit for something we worked hard on. Shoot, I’d be stupid not to.”

So let me get this right… Dave Reichert takes credit for swearing off earmarks, and securing them, at the same time… and nobody laughs in his face? No journalist asks him to explain why, if earmarks are so valuable and justifiable, he’d deny them to his district for the sake of a rhetorical gesture; or if earmarks are such a waste of taxpayer money as to warrant his pledge, why he’s not a tiny bit ashamed to take credit for them?

And Kate Riley accuses Darcy Burner of a “lack of authenticity” …? Dollars to donuts when Riley writes the second in her series of viciously dishonest Reichert endorsements, she’ll cite his bullshit earmark pledge in lauding him for his fiscal responsibility. But then, what do you expect from the amen editorialists at the Seattle Times?

John McCain’s pursuit of happiness

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It takes the UK’s Daily Mail to report on the presidential campaign story the US media refuses to cover:

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier … In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

And so McCain did what any honorable, loving, family man would do: he immediately started cheating on his faithful wife before eventually dumping her to marry a beautiful heiress 18 years his junior.

For her part, Carol McCain sounds philosophical:

“My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens…it just does.”

But former friends and acquaintances are not so forgiving….

They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

Of course this is America, where everyone has the right to pursue happiness, and if McCain couldn’t be happy married to a woman who wasn’t tall, beautiful and wealthy, then perhaps it was best for him, Carol and their children to end the marriage. But really… enough of this family values character crap for a man who abandoned his crippled wife when she needed him most. One can assume the only reason he’s remained married to Cindy this long is that she’s managed to retain her height, looks, wealth and bladder.

In the words of Ross Perot (who paid Carol’s extensive medical bills while her husband was a prisoner of war):

“McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

“After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.”

A history most Americans will never learn.

Will Barack Obama say amen to Adam Smith?

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BlueNC (via Postman) picks Rep. Adam Smith as the winner of the longshot category in the Democratic VP sweepstakes:

An early Obama backer and effective surrogate he’s shown he can handle himself well with the media.

Really? Postman should know better than to repeat speculation like this without reporting the fatal biographical detail that absolutely removes Rep. Smith for consideration for the VP slot: he’s authored a couple posts here on HA.

And as everybody knows, foul-mouthed amen bloggers like me and Rep. Smith simply cannot be taken seriously.

Amen at work

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As much as I hate to question the judgment of Seattle’s most objective journalist, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by David Postman’s recent post: “Reichert gets Dems help on wilderness bill.”

Postman asserts that by garnering the co-sponsorhip of Jay Inslee and Norm Dicks on his wilderness bill, Dave Reichert has made any attempt to question his green credentials a “tough argument.” Okay. I’ve disagreed with Postman before. No biggie.

But how does Postman, a self-proclaimed champion of fairness and balance, present the tough arguments of those of us who dare to challenge his thesis? With a big, fat, editorial caveat:

But the campaign of Reichert’s Democratic opponent, Darcy Burner, and her amen bloggers have called the bill a cynical attempt at green-washing.

“Amen bloggers” …? Really?

Postman’s got it half right, but what really makes it so tough for us to argue against the Reichert mythology is when media gatekeepers like Postman intentionally undermine our credibility before presenting our rebuttal.

The implication is clear. Postman… he’s a serious blogger. Joel Connelly, whose blog post he cites in support of his thesis… he’s a serious blogger. But amen bloggers like me and Dan Kirkdorffer and our colleagues, well… we’re just goddamn partisans whose work you can pretty much dismiss without consideration… no matter how well reasoned or how well supported by the facts.

Obviously, I find Postman’s brushoff a tad irritating, but not having benefited from a proper J-school education myself, perhaps I don’t fully understand the finer nuances of his profession? So I’m hoping Postman can explain to me, in the abstract, from his journalistic perspective, what exactly the difference is between an opinion expressed by a columnist like Joel (or an editorial writer like Kate Riley) and that of a lowly blogger like me?

I mean, an opinion is an opinion, right? Is a newspaper columnist inherently more credible because he’s paid to write his opinions, while I just spew mine for free? If I were paid $90,000 a year to write my opinions, would I suddenly be harder to dismiss? Or do I have to be paid by the right people, say some corporate media conglomerate, or perhaps a fifth-generation newspaper family that claims gravitas as a birthright, like some Lamarckian adaptation?

Surely it can’t be the fact that we express opinions that makes us amen bloggers so unreliable, as Postman himself cited Joel’s opinion as definitive support of his thesis. Neither can it be the mere medium that is in question, print vs. online, as in this particular instance all three of us are peddling our work via blogs. So is Postman implying that it is our proud partisanship that costs us our credibility, while it is his and Joel’s vaunted impartiality that secures their own?

Such an implication would leave me even more confused, because doesn’t the mere act of having an opinion imply some sort of bias or partisan leaning? Isn’t the explicit role of the columnist to express his opinions, freely informed by personal bias as well as the facts? Indeed, Joel describes himself as an environmentalist; doesn’t that make him a partisan too? And while I understand that reporters like Postman jealously guard their appearance of impartiality, wasn’t his elitist dismissal of other bloggers as “amen” an act of editorializing that reveals a personal bias of his own?

And finally, you can’t get much more partisan than the candidates themselves, and yet reporters routinely regurgitate their pronouncements and public statements without prepending a cynical asterisk.

So if it’s not our opinions, it’s not our medium, and it’s not our partisanship that automatically undermines our credibility, I can only assume that Postman’s obvious disdain for us amen bloggers comes from the quality of our work itself. In which case I’d argue that he owes it to us (not to mention his readers) to critique and refute our work before dismissively brushing it off as unworthy of serious consideration, because when Postman implies that Joel is credible but we automatically are not, or that Reichert’s motives should be taken at face value while ours most definitely shouldn’t, well I can’t help but take that as a personal slight especially in the absence of any serious effort on his part to back up his assertions… you know, apart from the occasional characterization of me as a drunkard, a hypocrite or a knee-jerk lackey.

The other bloggers are fully capable of defending themselves, but my question for Postman is, what is it that I have written to earn such disrespect? When I accused Reichert of bragging about bringing home earmarks in one piece of franked mail, while bragging about opposing them in another… was I wrong? When I attacked Reichert for promising to cut Medicare when speaking before fellow Republicans, but promising to defend it when franking his constituents… did I mislead my readers, deliberately or otherwise? I’m asking, because if I’m so wrong so much of the time you’d think a simple refutation would come as easily as a dismissive wave of the hand.

Have I proven to be dishonest or dishonorable? Have I been a poor political analyst? Have you found the quality of my prose to be incoherent, unintelligent, uninformed or otherwise wanting when compared to the standard we’ve come to expect from our city’s two dailies? Because if so, the least you could do is show me the courtesy of critiquing my writing and refuting my arguments before blithely dismissing me as just an “amen blogger.”

Come on David, cite a few examples. Show what liars we are. Prove to the world why we cannot be trusted. I betcha you can’t, because while opinions and interpretations can be partisan, facts cannot, and as Dan has proven, my god do we bloggers labor over getting our facts straight.

Which is why, I guess, so many of us found your characterization of us as “amen bloggers” so frustrating, if not downright offensive. Like the lazy trolls who, incapable of actually refuting my arguments, point to my occasional use of foul language as reason alone to dismiss me, you have seized upon our outspoken partisanship as an opportunity to be equally curt and scornful. But if we are relevant enough to be publicly dissed, aren’t we relevant enough to be told the reasons why? Is our work really that lacking, or is there some other, more personal reason that causes you to show us so little respect?

Which brings us back to Joel Connelly, who on this issue I have no compunction in saying is flat-out wrong. Joel pines for a romanticized past in which the Republican Party truly embraced environmentalism, and in which the mantle of bipartisanship was more than just a last ditch rhetorical refuge for the electorally impaired. Reichert’s green credentials don’t pass the laugh test, and I’ve told Joel this to his face in no uncertain words. He thinks my unforgiving partisanship is dangerous, mean spirited and counterproductive. I think his desperate longing for bipartisanship is naive. And yet Joel frequents Drinking Liberally, engages us in debate and joins us on our podcasts because despite our differences we like and respect each other.

Likewise, I have repeatedly professed my respect for Postman and his work… a respect that clearly is not reciprocated. No, he was so concerned with dissing us bloggers that I wonder if he even bothered reading his own post?

Why would someone with such sterling environmental credentials like Inslee, or a congressman who has no worry about re-election, like Dicks, agree to co-sponsor something if they thought it was designed only to help Reichert’s re-election prospects?

Duh… um… because they genuinely support expanding the wilderness area, regardless of Reichert’s motives? You gotta admit, it’s a possibility. (Do they teach that in J-school… objectively establishing one’s thesis by asking rhetorical questions?)

Reichert had been frustrated that he wasn’t getting any co-sponsors from the delegation.

You don’t just “get” co-sponsors, you do the hard work of actively seeking them out. Which I guess explains why seven months later, Inslee was the first co-sponsor to sign on. Hell, Reichert hasn’t even bothered to get the support of a single Republican colleague. (Or is evaluating Reichert’s competence as a legislator off-limits during an election year?)

See how much I respect you David? Enough to actually bother to critique your work, instead of just insulting it. Think of it as tough love.

Yeah, I know… it’s an awfully long post in response to a single word, but I’m just plain tired of tiptoeing around the fragile egos of Postman and a handful of his peers who insist on taking every critique of them or their institutions as a personal insult. Do they have any idea how sensitive they come off? Do they know how many times I’ve been embargoed on a story with the specific instruction not to post until Postman or some other journalist publishes first, out of concern that if I break the story on HA, the “real” journalists will willfully ignore it?

That’s what we’ve come to, a point where media pettiness has led some in the progressive community to seriously question whether they’ll face retaliation from reporters and editors for openly allying with bloggers like me. And that, by the way David, is why I tend to relentlessly focus on stories like Reichert’s abusive and dishonest franking practices… because nobody else will! You don’t think the Burner campaign and the state party don’t shop around their stories before eventually sending them my way? We’re not an amen chorus, we’re the media outlet of last resort for progressive campaigns and causes that can’t get the time of day from a press corps obsessed with sex scandals and horse races.

Unlike some bloggers on the right who ridiculously claim to be “small ‘l’ libertarians” while maintaining an active role in their local Republican Party, I have always worn my bias on my sleeve, and I have always urged my audience to read me in that context and make up their minds for themselves. My comment threads have always remained open, and for the most part unmoderated, subjecting my work to the most brutal form of public vetting you will find anywhere on the web.

Yes, I aggressively support Darcy Burner because she is damn smart and a damn hard worker, and because I believe the phrase “Congressman Dave Reichert” is an insult to anybody with an IQ above 110. Yes, I am proudly partisan, but my work has always been based on facts, and I challenge anybody—even Postman—to prove that my facts don’t stand on their own.

And with that I say… amen.

The Piñata Policy

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George Friedman at Stratfor, a publication by current and retired intelligence officials, lays out the stark reality of what’s happening in Mexico right now, warning of that country’s potential to become a failed state. The root of the crisis is the growing influence of the cartels who operate an approximately $40 billion a year industry in illegal drugs, nearly all of which is consumed in the United States. Friedman sees a possibility that the cartels, who already dominate most of northern Mexico, could soon become powerful enough to usurp the power of the elected government in Mexico City as well.

The recent violence from Mexico has been staggering. Over a thousand people, including hundreds of police, have already been killed this year in fighting between federal officials and the cartels. The cartels operate with such impunity in parts of the country that they’re able to publicly advertise for recruits. Some Mexican police officers in the border region are even attempting to flee to the United States.

Friedman makes the appropriate comparison to 1920s alcohol prohibition, reminding us that during that time, the city of Chicago had a failed government. And had Al Capone and his men become powerful enough to defeat the federal agents, America could have become a failed state. Thankfully, America only allowed its doomed experiment in alcohol prohibition to last for just over a decade. Our current prohibition, however, has been going on for several decades now and has turned all of Mexico into an even more extreme version of 1920s Chicago with modern weapons.

Occasionally, we see some intelligent discussion of this growing problem in the traditional media (like this column from Neal Peirce in the Seattle Times last week). But in the political realm, there are no solutions on the horizon. The only thing being proposed is the Merida Initiative, a laughable effort to provide Mexico with $1.4 billion that the Mexican government might even turn down because of the strings attached.

I’m sure that much will be made over the disagreements between the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress over the Merida Initiative, but neither party has the political courage to do what Friedman explains is the only realistic solution:

One way to deal with the problem would be ending the artificial price of drugs by legalizing them. This would rapidly lower the price of drugs and vastly reduce the money to be made in smuggling them. Nothing hurt the American cartels more than the repeal of Prohibition, and nothing helped them more than Prohibition itself. Nevertheless, from an objective point of view, drug legalization isn’t going to happen. There is no visible political coalition of substantial size advocating this solution. Therefore, U.S. drug policy will continue to raise the price of drugs artificially, effective interdiction will be impossible, and the Mexican cartels will prosper and make war on each other and on the Mexican state.

I’ve been asked recently why I focus so much on the topic of drug policy when most of the country still considers it a political minefield. It’s because even though it’s a political minefield, that doesn’t mean it’s any less urgent to fix. Our current approach to dealing with the drug trade in Mexico is piñata policy, put on a blindfold and swing a big stick hoping that you hit something and a bunch of candy falls out. Many people think that we can do this forever, just pretending that it’s the best way while allowing us to keep from breaking free from the drug war mindset. They’re wrong. And the damage in Mexico (not to mention Afghanistan, Colombia, and in our inner cities) is the proof that they’re wrong. The millions of refugees from this war who have already fled to the United States from Mexico should be a good indication of that.

This country needs to develop a viable constituency that demands from the next American administration that we start dismantling the international drug war and to deal with the problem of drug addiction in a way that doesn’t bring a country of 100 million people to the verge of becoming a failed state. Yeah, I talk about the drug war a lot. I do it because we can’t afford not to any more.

[h/t to Transform for the link]

Inspired Governor

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Gov. Christine Gregoire comments on Obama’s apparent victory:

We have just witnessed an historic primary season where ideas and ideals rose to the forefront of the debate in our country. The candidates and voters should all be commended. Now it’s time we all stand together and unite behind our Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.

Many years ago, I was inspired by a man who offered a similar message of hope and belief as Barack Obama does today. Then, it was John F. Kennedy, a man whose words and actions led to my career in public service. Today, I feel similarly toward Sen. Obama. He offers this country a vision of positive change and leadership we can stand behind.

Our country is about its people, and for the last eight years we’ve been divided and moving in the wrong direction at home and abroad. It’s time to stand proud and take back this country. Sen. Barack Obama is the right person to lead us.

We need a partner in the other Washington that believes it is our responsibility to provide healthcare to children, fund a world-class education system and fight global climate change. While we’ve gotten results for families in our state over the last four years, imagine even greater possibilities with the barriers down and a partner in place in our nation’s capitol.

It’s time to renew our country’s economy. It’s time our nation recommits to every working man and woman. It’s time for good quality, affordable, accessible health care. It’s time that we tell every child to dream as big as they possibly can, and that dreams really can come true. It’s time to eliminate hopelessness and poverty and give the great people of this nation a vision worth believing in.

Indeed…to me, this vision is like a breath of fresh air—a beam of sunlight breaking through—after 7.5 years under a cloud of incompetence, immorality, deception, and scandal in the White House.

WSRP’s newest political guest worker toes anti-immigration line

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Unsaid in my critique of the Washington State Republican Party platform and its call to repeal the birthright citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment, is that their xenophobic, anti-immigration rhetoric is actually right in line with that of their national party leadership. Which I suppose explains why the RNC has named a charmer like Chris Gulugian-Taylor to head Washington State’s “Victory 2008” committee, the organization responsible for spending national party money on the statewide GOTV effort.

Guligian-Taylor was Rudy Giuliani’s regional political director for Western states (um… Giuliani had a Western states campaign?) and was the executive director of the Nevada Republican Party in 2006… before resigning his position in the midst of a mini-scandal, a month before election day.

It seems Chris Gulugian-Taylor sent out the announcement of a Minuteman rally (subject line: “Help stop the illegal invasion”) to the GOP’s e-mail list, complete with nasty little digs like this:

“If you are tired of seeing illegals catered to, then join us to send these Un-American corporations a message.

“We’ll not allow these illegals destroy our country. We’ll not permit corporations like Chicago Title, Wells Fargo Bank, and Miller Brewing promote [sic] and financially support the take over [sic] of America by the Illegal Invaders.

“Your voice is needed to let these Un-American companies know we will not tolerate them supporting illegals over law abiding citizens.”

Ouch, baby. That’s got to hurt, especially if your party is trying to appeal to Latino voters and not alienate them.

[…] Look, we don’t want to be dicks about this, but are you really surprised? Hell, we’re talking about the party that wanted to make felons out of illegal immigrants, and to declare (in contravention of the U.S. Constitution) that children born to illegal immigrants should not be U.S. citizens…

Yup, it sounds like the WSRP’s newest political guest worker is going to fit right in with the locals.

Another WA superdelegate endorses Obama

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WA superdelegate David McDonald has endorsed Barack Obama. The end is nigh tomorrow.

UPDATE:
Here’s McDonald’s statement:

As you know, I serve on the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee.  Many months ago I made a personal choice to stay neutral as a super-delegate in the presidential nominating contest until the RBC had resolved all significant issues likely to come before it.  On Saturday the RBC resolved the last of those issues.  After a day of sightseeing in Washington DC, a long, cell-phone free plane ride home and some sleep, I have decided to cast my vote as a member of the Democratic National Committee for Senator Barack Obama.

The Democratic Party has been blessed this year with a century’s worth of great candidates for President.  This was not an easy choice.  Both of the candidates who remain in contention are capable of winning the general election and would likely do so if selected as the nominee.  The policy differences between them are relatively minor compared to the gulf between the Bush-McCain Republican team and the needs of the American people.  I cannot stress enough how proud I am to be associated with a political party that has brought to the forefront this incredible pair of final contenders.

It has been apparent to me over the months, however, that Senator Obama’s candidacy has brought astounding new energy and hope to the Democratic Party nationwide.  He has shown a remarkable ability to organize and mobilize Democratic voters and focus their efforts on the key task of persuading independent voters around the country to join us in changing the White House agenda.  His leadership provides, I believe, a unique opportunity to continue to expand this party, to continue our long term agenda of contesting—and converting—the “red” areas of the country, and to continue our task of making conditions better for Americans everywhere.  It is an opportunity that I want to help turn into a reality.

I couldn’t agree with him more.

Are Democrats helped or harmed by the “primary from hell”?

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Has the agonizing, prolonged battle between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama helped or harmed the Democratic brand name? This has become a hot topic of debate at dinner tables, in bars, and in car pool across the nation. But mostly the debate has been fueled by a seemingly endless parade of political pundits.

One side—the pessimists—argue that irreparable harm has been caused by elevated rancor and even the use of Rovian tactics by the campaigns. The other side—the optimists—argue that the media attention, fanaticism, and fevered pace of campaigning ultimately benefits the Democrats.

I fall in the optimist camp, but I am always more comfortable having empirical verification of my opinion. And empirical evidence there is.

Every month, Rasmussen Reports releases a new partisan trends report based on monthly interviews of a huge number of people:

…the Democrats now have the largest partisan advantage over the Republicans since Rasmussen Reports began tracking this data on a monthly basis nearly six years ago.

During the month of April, 41.4% of Americans considered themselves to be Democrats. Just 31.4% said they were Republicans and 27.2% were not affiliated with either major party.

April was the third straight month that the number of Democrats topped 41%. Prior to February of this year, neither party had ever reached the 39% level of support.
[…]

The partisan gap now shows the Democrats with a 10.0 percentage point advantage over the Republicans. That’s the largest advantage ever recorded by either party. In fact, before these past three months, the previous high was a 6.9 point percentage point edge for the Democrats in December 2006.

Here is a graph showing how the trend in party affiliation has changed over time for the U.S.:

US Party Identity -- May 2008

Republicans reached their peak numbers of 37.3% in September of 2004, and have been on a slow decline since.

Until about six months ago, the Democrats were holding steady at about 37% Democratic voter identity. The rise since December has been nothing short of stunning. Democrats had 36.3% identity in December and shot up to 41.5% in February—just about the time that the race started heating up.

The data don’t tell us what this increase is all about. (Although…the correlations among the groups suggest that a shift from “Other” identity to Democratic identity explains about 2/3 of the recent variation). No doubt non-primary things like ongoing Republican scandals, a tanking economy, a dragged-out occupation of Iraq, soaring fuel prices, and the fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney call themselves Republicans have helped swell the ranks of Democrats.

A cautious statement would be that any damage done by the primary contest is minor at worst, as the damage has been more than offset by the Republican collapse, resulting in a net gain for Democrats.

An alternative explanation is that the primary-from-hell really has been a good thing for Democrats.

Riffing on Reichert

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I’ve already thoroughly deconstructed Rep. Dave Reichert’s childish “joke” about Hillary Clinton falling to her death from an airplane, but I’ve got a couple more observations that I think are worth discussing, the first of which was first raised in a press release from Darcy Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik:

“When Congressman Reichert goes before non-partisan audiences he likes to bemoan the loss of civility and lack of bipartisanship in Washington, D.C. Apparently he does not really mean it, because when he gets before his fellow Republicans he takes a very different tone — this is just the latest unfortunate example of that.”

Of course Reichert’s civility campaign is total bullshit, and if editorialists and other opinion makers don’t see this, it is because they choose not to. Remember, this is the same guy who compared Democrats to the Green River Killer:

“And in America how hard is it to put my arm around a Democrat if I can put my arm around Gary Ridgeway.”

That’s civility? That’s bipartisanship? That’s conscience-driven independence?

Like Mike McGavick before him, Reichert’s emphasis on civility and bipartisanship is little more than a strategy to avoid talking about actual issues, an honest debate of which would overwhelmingly favor Burner. It is also implicitly (and hypocritically) a negative attack on his opponent, as one cannot accept Reichert’s civility meme without inferring that Burner is not sufficiently civil herself.

The other observation I’d like to make refers back to my original post, and my assertion that at least part of the humorous impact of the the “joke” comes from playing off of a popular perception of the object of ridicule as stupid:

Deserved or not, this works well with President Bush in the lead role (as it would for Dave Reichert himself), but whatever you think of Hillary Clinton, she certainly doesn’t have a reputation for being dumb, and as such, the joke comes off more mean spirited than funny. It’s just a poor vehicle for ridiculing her.

What is curious is that Reichert should apparently believe that Clinton in any way fits the stereotype on which the punchline is at least partially predicated. It is ironic that a man with a two-year degree from an obscure Christian college, and an undistinguished career in Congress, would impugn the intelligence of an accomplished woman who graduated from one of the top colleges and top law schools in the nation. But it is not without precedent.

This has always been the Reichert camp’s most consistent critique of Darcy Burner—that she is “ditzy” and a “lightweight”—a critique that comprised the main theme of what was perhaps Reichert’s most offensive (and effective) ad of the 2006 season. And as with his characterization of Clinton, it is equally ironic when applied to a woman like Burner, who graduated Harvard University with a B.A. in computer science and economics, and who went on to become a high-level manager at Microsoft. Apparently, Reichert and his most vocal supporters need little more evidence to snidely dismiss the intelligence of a woman than her gender.

I won’t hazard a guess as to how else Reichert objectifies women (though his staunch opposition to reproductive rights is highly suggestive), but clearly, when it comes to the political arena, he views them as objects of ridicule.

All charges dropped against Rep. Simpson

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As reported by Postman, all charges have been dropped against state Rep. Geoff Simpson, stemming from his arrest after an incident with his ex-wife. From the court order dismissing the charges:

Based on all of the information obtained in the present matter, the City no longer believes it has a sufficient evidence to go forward with the charges herein.  In regards to Count one, Assault in the Fourth Degree — DV, the City does not believe that there is sufficient evidence to prove that the conduct of the defendant was not legally justifiable.  Without the predicate domestic violence offense, the City is likewise unable to go forward with Count Two, Interfering with the Reporting of Domestic Violence.  In addition, based on the alleged victim’s stated intentions for calling 911 at the time of the incident, there is no evidence that the alleged victim was calling 911 to specifically report a domestic violence incident or that the defendant would have reason to believe that she was calling to report domestic violence.

Interestingly, Simpson tells Postman that despite his arrest and night in jail, he still supports the domestic violence laws that left police with little discretion but to detain and charge him:

“I’ve thought a lot about this the past several weeks. I don’t like what happened to me and I didn’t like going to jail with all the unpleasantness associated with that. But I think that’s better than the alternative.”

The alternative might be a victim denying abuse out of fear, only to be seriously injured or murdered after the police leave the scene. It is a complicated issue that certainly deserves more thought, but the current law is certainly better than the more hands-off approach to domestic disputes that used to prevail.

As for the political fallout, Simpson wrote in an email to supporters:

I am certain the Republican machine is gearing up with negative attacks, but the voters have rejected personal attack campaigns against me before and will see through them again.

No doubt. And I do think that in the absence of charges, such attacks might have been more effective had the GOP not used them in the previous campaign. Without a court case to keep this issue fresh, most voters will likely view the attack ads and mailers as old news. And that’s good news for Simpson.

Podcasting Liberally — May 27th Edition

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In this week’s podcast, Goldy and panel lament the departure of Robert Mak and simmer over the end of local political TV. The heat is turned-up with a discussion over Sen. Hillary Clinton and the never-ending Democratic nomination process. Things come to a full boil during a discussion of assisted suicide. (No pundits were harmed in the production of this podcast.)

Goldy was joined by our Seattle Drinking Liberally co-host Chris Mitchell, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, HorsesAss & EFFin’ Unsound’s Carl Ballard and HorsesAss, EFFin’ Unsound, & Blog Reload’s Lee.

The show is 40:49, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_may_27_2008.mp3]

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

Cast out the moneychangers, Dino

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Niki Sullivan follows up on her blog post revealing Dino Rossi’s illegal funder, this time using her J-school sanctioned grownup voice in the print edition of the TNT: “Did group violate campaign rules at Rossi visit?”

The answer, of course, is yes:

But the prohibition is clear, according to Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a Chicago-based nonprofit that acts as a watchdog of other nonprofit organizations.

“They’re not allowed to be involved in partisan political activity, particularly involved in influencing an election. It sounds as if that’s what’s happening,” Borochoff said.

The nonprofit’s intent has no bearing, he said, adding that if a candidate is speaking, that constitutes political involvement.

Borochoff said the Christian group could be at risk of losing its nonprofit status – and the tax exemption it provides.

I suppose as a Christian organization the CBMC feels more obligated to follow the laws of God than the laws of man, but if so, they might want to reread the Ninth Commandment.

[Dwight] Mason, the local CBMC president who gave the prayer, initially told The News Tribune on Thursday that “no funds were solicited.” He also denied seeing any hints of fundraising.

“If there were envelopes there, they weren’t anything I had anything to do with,” he said.

But that was before Sullivan obtained an audio recording of the event in which Mason can be heard leading the group in prayer:

“Father, we are thankful of your care for us and thankful for this opportunity to hear Dino’s story and pray for him and his campaign…”

After the prayer, Mason told the crowd, “OK, at your table, this is not a fundraiser, although Dino did leave with us a couple envelopes there, and I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”

Oops. That’s not just a blatant violation of IRS rules, it’s what I think the Bible refers to as “bearing false witness.”

I don’t think Rossi faces any potential legal sanctions himself for his part in the illegal fundraiser, but as a candidate for governor it is fair to expect him to adhere to a higher standard in terms of respect for the law. 501(c)3 restrictions are Campaign Finance 101—Rossi and his staff must have known that they were treading on dangerous ground by soliciting funds from a religious organization, thus if he wants to live up to the ideals he professes, it is time for him to confess his sins and seek penance.

Cast out the CBMC moneychangers Dino, and return their ill-gotten donations. That is the only path toward redemption.

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