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Erica C. Barnett reports on a new study on gendered disparities in public transit. And while the study didn’t apply to Puget Sound transit orgs, Barnett looks at their conclusions and at Sound Transit, finding them lacking in at least one area.

What are the implications? The Atlantic suggests that if transit agencies take women’s needs into account, they will provide easier boarding and wider aisles (for women with strollers or heavy bags) and more transit service in care-related sites, like parks, daycares, and schools. Additionally, transit agencies could include more women on their boards, the Atlantic suggests. Although Sound Transit, the regional transit agency for the Puget Sound, is led by a woman, Joni Earl, its 16-member board is dominated by men, with just four female members. (It’s all-white, too).

Also, the King County Council Transportation, Economy and Environment Committee that deals with public transportation is 2/3 men (the same makeup as the entire council) and that the chair and vice chair are both men.

– Reproductive Health and Rights Lobby Day

– Darryl noted the state senate passing the marriage equality bill. Andrew has more details including the roll call.

– And a couple bad bills fail to make it to the floor.

– In other states: Do not let the media silence fool you: Hoosiers are making noise.

– Republican Jesus supports Mitt Romney.

– Weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) contend with a number of ant-like spiders that look similar enough to their favored food to avoid detection by the ant guards. They lurk around the ants’ trails, pretending to be ants and grabbing a meal when the opportunity arises.

By “Romney family member,” I mean the Romeny’s former family dog, an Irish Setter named Seamus.

Seamus achieved fame and glory during the 2008 presidential campaign cycle after one of Romney’s sons told a treasured family story:

In June 2007 the Boston Globe reported that in 1983, current Republican presidential hopeful (and former Massachusetts governor) Mitt Romney had placed his Irish setter in a dog carrier on the roof of his station wagon for a 12-hour trip to his parents’ cottage on the Canadian shores of Lake Huron. He’d built a windshield for the carrier to make the ride more comfortable for the dog. He’d also made it clear to his five sons that bathroom breaks would be taken only during predetermined stops to gas up the car.

The dog spoiled this plan by letting loose with a bout of diarrhea during its rooftop sojourn, necessitating an unplanned gas station visit for the purpose of hosing down the pooch, its carrier, and the back of the car.

There are now two competing theories on the fate of Seamus. The orthodox theory is that Seamus was eventually given to Mitt’s sister:

The Romneys eventually dealt with Seamus’s apostasy, and nervous stomach, by fobbing him off on Mitt’s sister, Jane, who lived in California and was said to have space for the dog to roam freely, unfettered by straps, crates or station wagons.

And now we have a competing theory:

Mitt Romney may not have told the whole truth about the scandalous tale of his Irish Setter, Seamus, being strapped to the roof of his car during a 12-hour family road trip to Canada. According to a trusted Politicker tipster, two of Mr. Romney’s sons had an off-record conversation with reporters where they revealed the dog ran away when they reached their destination on that infamous journey in 1983.

That’s right…Seamus became a “draft” dodger by running away in Canada.

The Obama campaign uses the incident to draw a distinction between the two men.

The Darcy Burner campaign has released a second in-house poll for WA-1 (and accompanying memo). And it looks very good for Burner on the Democratic side.

Campaigns normally don’t release internal polls unless there is some advantage to doing so. So we’ll look at the positives, and then read between the lines for the rest.

The good new for Burner is that she leads the Democratic pack:

Among primary voters who vote for one of the Democratic candidates on the initial ballot, Darcy Burner currently leads the pack with a decisive lead. Burner leads with nearly half of the vote (45%), followed by Laura Ruderman (15%), Steve Hobbs (13%), Suzan DelBene (12%), Roger Goodman (10%), and Darshan Rauniyar (5%).

More good:

Moreover, Burner is well-regarded among primary election voters who pick a Democratic candidate in the initial ballot. More than half (54%) of these voters have a favorable opinion of Burner, while 9% have an unfavorable opinion. DelBene is less well known, with 21% of voters having a favorable impression of her. Seventeen percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Ruderman. A majority of these Democratic voters have no impression of Ruderman or DelBene, while most are familiar with Burner.

The findings are consistent with the previous internal poll released by the Burner campaign.

What these numbers tell us is that, contrary to certain media naysayer, Darcy is the front-runner among Democrats in this race.

These results debunk, what I’ll call, the Connelly meme, named after the Darcy Burner naysayer-in-chief, SeattlePI.com’s Joel Connelly. Joel has, of late, has made something of a specialization in portraying Burner as an outside interloper—as some kind of ultra-liberal Daily Kos Manchurian Candidate destined to be an also-ran. The Connelly meme is bullshit.

The new poll results bode well for Darcy Burner in a Democratic primary race.

Unfortunately, Washington state doesn’t have a Democratic primary. Rather, we have this top-two primary. And that brings me to what this poll doesn’t tell us.

Take a look at the poll methods:

These findings are based on 504 telephone interviews with a random sample of likely 2012 primary election voters in Washington’s new 1st Congressional District. Interviews were conducted from January 23-26, 2012. Sampling error is +/- 4.4%.

What we never learn is how many of the 504 interviewees chose to not select one of the Democratic candidates. There were two Republican candidates in the race when the poll was taken (one has since dropped out), yet we don’t see numbers for these candidates, or an “other” category if the pollster made a (dubious) decision to not name Republican candidates as well.

The absence of reporting on the Republican (or “other”) tally in a poll of “likely 2012 primary voters” is telling. It suggests to me that the “votes” for non-Democrats matched or exceeded those for the Democratic candidates. That is, the numbers don’t make Darcy look strong enough in a general election that the campaign was willing to release ’em.

The numbers support the idea that Darcy is the Democratic front-runner, but it leaves me feeling a little bit nervous about the prospects that any Democrat will be taking the district.

I look forward to seeing some independent polling in the race.

– The Florida Primary is today, and in an effort to continuously provide a counterweight to the insightful political prognostication on this website, here’s my prediction:

Mittenz: 39
Ging-rich: 35
Ricky S 14

These are pretty much just pulled outa my ass.

– The most shocking thing to me is the Starbucks.

– accommodating and promoting bicycling isn’t an urban or rural thing, an eastside or westside thing, a red state or blue state thing

– HA alum Goldy truth needles the Truth Needle

– Obama fist bumps.

– General Sherman

– I honestly don’t know what’s stranger, that this was written at all, or that it was written in late January.

– I’m not sure I’m comfortable calling this the Backpage.com bill since it’s hopefully aimed at them and at anyone else who might pop up.

– For people who think life is a gift from the heavens, though, they’re surprisingly cavalier with the lives of people providing reproductive health services

– An Immorality Tale in Three Acts

– OMG, Indiana.

– OMG Jan Brewer

– Damn you Hollywood values.

One of the things we “learned” this week is that gubernatorial hopeful Rob McKenna is against same-sex marriage.

On Wednesday, McKenna told KCPQ-TV (3:47):

I will vote to maintain the current law and the current definition of marriage.

I guess he has given up on the line, “I hold the same views as President Obama.”

Goldy wrote about this under the headline, “McKenna Finally Admits He Opposes Gay Marriage”. But is McKenna only now admitting he opposes same-sex marriage?

I mentioned last June that McKenna has previously taken a stand on the subject:

In 2004, King County Superior Court Judge William Downing issued a controversial ruling that same-sex couples could marry. The Seattle Times, sprung to action to find out where candidates in state-wide races stood:

…King County Councilman Rob McKenna, criticized the ruling’s wording as too broad and said its argument that there is no compelling state interest to deny marriage to two people in a committed relationship could leave marriage open to blood relatives or those practicing polygamy.

“It threatens to destroy all standards we apply to the right of marriage,” he said.

One might argue that McKenna was only criticizing the wording of a ruling, rather than the effect of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Closer scrutiny reveals that as bullshit. I encourage you to read the ruling for yourself—it’s well-written, and includes some amusing word play. Judge Downing:

…concludes that the exclusion of same-sex partners from civil marriage and the privileges attendant thereto is not rationally related to any legitimate or compelling state interest and is certainly not narrowly tailored toward such an interest.

The ruling doesn’t “open up” incestuous or polygamous marriages. To do so, it would have addressed an additional set of state laws that are narrowly targeted to toward protecting compelling state interests in prohibition of incestuous or polygamous marriages. It didn’t touch on those at all.

No…what McKenna was doing was using a bullshit “legal-like” argument to express his opposition to same-sex marriage, while not quite saying so.

– Jay Inslee’s piece on marriage equality in Washington State.

– Mitt’s Income vs. Your Income (h/t)

– It’s time to move from a cop hating anarchist dogma centered occupation to what the actual occupy wall street movement was really about, i.e., love, compassion, understanding, a new way of thinking, ending war, empathy, protecting the environment, truth, economic justice, election reform, HOPE.

– I’ve been really grateful for these pieces by Ta-Nehisi Coates debunking the notion that slaveholders could have been compensated before the civil war to end slavery.

– There’s still some off season left, but next season maybe isn’t looking great for Mariners fans.

– SOPA

Mitt Romney has mostly been the G.O.P. front runner for at least the past year. There are transient exceptions.

Most recently, from early November to mid-December of 2011, Newt Gingrich lead the Republican pack in the national polls. But Americans remembered why they despised Gingrich—an arrogant motherfucker, who is mean, nasty, and corrupt. Mitt re-took the lead as the first polls of 2012 came out.

Yesterday, a Rasmussen poll found Newt in the lead by a remarkable +7. And today, the Gallup tracking poll put Newt up by +3.

Once can be a fluke. But not twice in a row. It appears that Newt taken the lead—perhaps for a few days, or maybe right up to the convention.

One of the implications for me is that I should probably start doing state head-to-head matchups of Obama against both Newt and Mitt. When I started this year’s batch of analyses I wrote:

At this point, I am only doing analyses of an Obama versus Romney general election. As much as I would like to see one of the weaker candidates take the G.O.P. nomination, I’m pretty certain Republicans will, as they did in 2008, act rationally, and chose the candidate that performs best against Obama in head-to-head polling. That is currently Mitt Romney. As the Republican primary circus continues, I’ll reassess. If, say, Santorum trickles on up to the front (eww!) or there is a crazy surge for Ron Paul, or the Mittster takes a tumble after unintentionally tweeting a photo of his underwear, or Rick Perry challenges the rest of ‘em to a duel (and wins), I’ll switch do doing analyses for the new front-runner(s).

Mitt didn’t magically Tweet a bulge in his underwear, but he did release his tax forms. That’s pretty much the same thing. So, while I still believe Republicans will ultimately act rationally and pick the candidate who performs best against Obama, I’ll give you the same analyses for the mean motherfucker who thinks knows he is the smartest man in the world.

I started collecting poll information for Newt last night. Perhaps I’ll have the first Obama—Gingrich analyses out by tomorrow.

– Rick Sntourm thinks being forced to carry a rapist’s child is a gift from God.

– While the title of this piece seems to imply that any gains for women are a loss for men, I think the overall the discussion of electing women in Washington, and across the nation, is worth having.

– That means I knock on one more door, I make that extra phone call, I nag my friends and family members to make sure their asses are registered and know where their polling place is…I volunteer, even though I’m tired…I stuff envelopes, even though I’d rather be [insert any of the many things I set aside during an election year].

– Thomas Friedman is full of shit.

– The Bikery

– The Oscar nominations. Some years I’ve seen none of the nominated movies; this year I saw Moneyball, so I guess I’ll root for that.

– Explains South Carolina as well as anything.

– Family Values

– When a politician declares the end of something, it’s almost always the beginning, not the end.

– Scenes from the class war

– Terrible tee shirts.

– Tumwater Falls

I’ll be live blogging the results. Because I’m blogging here at Horse’s Ass, I’ll probably do it as a mocking of the typical media style. So if a result doesn’t have a link, it’s probably just something I made up. Polls close at 7:00 SC time, but since I and most HA readers are on the West Coast, polls close at 4:00. All updates will be in West Coast time. It should be noted that I don’t have a TV box, so this might skew toward Internet results.

Update 4:02: Still no results in, but Gingrich is projected to win from the exit polls. Here are some sites I’ll be looking at. Kos NPR TPM The SC Election Commission.

Update 4:08: Newt Gingrich needed a win with the GOP’s critical jackass community. It looks like the jackasses pulled through. Still no actual results, but at the very least the jackasses who were willing to talk to exit pollsters liked the way he didn’t ever actually answer questions at the debates and the way he hates gay people. In addition to jackasses, douches, douche bags, and assholes have all broken strongly for Gingrich. Can he unite these disparate groups of Republicans going forward? We’ll see in Florida.

Update 4:17: Given how well Newt did right after revelations about an affair were brought to light, I think the other candidates should seriously consider leaving their wives for younger staffers. Does Santorum have time leave his wife before the Florida primary?

Update 4:24: Still no results, but CBS news has actual exit poll results.

Update 4:31: OK, real results, y’all. So far even though TPM is predicting Newt is the winner, Mittens has the most votes so far:

Mitt Romney…..1,857…….38.1%
Newt Gingrich…1,614…….33.1%
Rick Santorum…639………13.1%
Ron Paul………..454……….9.3%

Update 4:34: The SC Election Commission has even fewer numbers in and has Romney at 47%. You guys, either you shouldn’t trust small numbers from just a few precincts that just start to trickle in, or the exit polls are wrong. I have no way of knowing.

Update 4:54: An hour after the polls close, TPM has Newtron in the lead over Will.I.Ard:

Newt Gingrich…….7,149……36.5%
Mitt Romney………6,628……33.8%
Rick Santorum……2,958…….15.1%
Ron Paul…………..2,097……10.7%

Update 4:58: Among white voters, so far the results are:

Newt Gingrich…….7,149……36.5%
Mitt Romney………6,628……33.8%
Rick Santorum……2,958…….15.1%
Ron Paul…………..2,097……10.7%

I guess they haven’t counted Nikki Haley’s vote yet.

Update 5:03: Romney’s making a speech. He doesn’t like Obama.

Update 5:05: I think Romney thinks Gingrich is too much like Obama. He’s apparently made “a frontal assault on free enterprise” whatever the fuck that means.

Update 5:06: I won’t have the rest of the speech since NPR has cut it off.

Update 5:12: From Michael in the comments on Willard’s speech:

Romney’s clearly mistaken “free enterprise” with half the women in DC.

Update 5:18: With 94,442 votes in, Newtle is still up over Mittenz:

Newt Gingrich…….38,589……40.9%
Mitt Romney………25,525……27.0%
Rick Santorum……16,204……17.2%
Ron Paul…………..12,033……12.7%

Update 5:24: Joe Wilson is on NPR. He just said, “the health care takeover will destroy jobs.” You lie! It’s not a health care takeover and it won’t destroy jobs.

Update 5:37: All the news sources I see say Newter has won 17 delegates. I assume that’s all of them. Does anyone know if there are any delegates up for grabs?

Update 5:45: How many of the 2,353 so far votes for Herman Cain are for Cain and how many for Colbert? I’m going out on a limb and saying all of them are for Colbert. Every single one.

Update 5:52: Apparently Santorum is speaking and he’s still in it, but NPR isn’t breaking to it like they did for part of Romney’s. Here’s my guess: “I hate gay people. Boo women. Race baiting.”

Update 6:01: Looks like “Says You!” on KUOW.

Update 6:07: With 355,360 votes in Oven Mitt is still down to Out with the Old In With The Newt:

Newt Gingrich………….144,242……40.6%
Mitt Romney……………93,628…….26.3%
Rick Santorum…………63,475……17.9%
Ron Paul……………….47,712…….13.4%
Herman “Colbert” Cain…3,477……..1.0%

Update 6:13: I think we can all agree if you want to win an early primary it helps to have been an elected official from a neighboring state. So that bodes well for Newt in Florida.

Update 6:19: Does shutting down the government because you have a sad about seating assignments help you win a primary contest 12 years later? Answer: Maybe?!?

Update 6:22: I just found the NPR live feed and they said that Gingrich won 23 of 25 delegates. I assume Romney won the other 2, but I can’t find it anywhere.

Update 6:25: Newt Gingrich isn’t coming out to speak yet. 3 possibilities for why: 1) He knows coverage will stop after he’s done so he’s dragging it out. 2) He was surprised by the size of the victory and is rewriting his speech. 3) He’s having sex with future wife #4.

Update 6:27: OK, Newt is on stage now.

Update 6:32: Elites are trying to make us stop being American. What?

Update 6:34: The other candidates reflect the openness of the American system. Yes, 3 wealthy white Christian men show how anyone can run for president?

Update 6:35: Newt attacks New York and Washington. People chant “USA USA USA.” Um, New York and Washington are part of the USA.

Update 6:38: He’s making a TelePrompTer joke (as he’s reading off his script).

Update 6:39: Saul Alinsky. What?

Update 6:41: Now he’s talking about “anti-religious bigotry” as he defines opposition to Christian supremacy.

Update 6:44: Oh good, we’re back on food stamp president. Without food stamps a lot of the children of the working poor will starve, asshole. And make them janitors isn’t a fucking answer.

Update 6:45: The NPR feed just cut out the speech. Phew, now I can listen to E.J. Dionne and Matt Continetti. Thanks? NPR.

Update 7:04: OK, most of the votes are in, so this is the last update, probably:

Newt Gingrich……..209,218…….40.4%
Mitt Romney……….139,804…….27.0%
Rick Santorum………89,871…….17.4%
Ron Paul…………….69,360……..13.4%

I assume this means Newt has the lead in the delegate count (even assuming you can make up some guess for the Iowa delegate count). Hmm, I was more serious than I thought I’d be and left a lot of jokes on the table. Surprising given how it wasn’t even that close.

Now on to Florida.

In case you haven’t heard, SOPA and PIPA are dead:

SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said his committee won’t take up the bill as planned next month — and that he’d have to “wait until there is wider agreement on a solution” before moving forward.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, said he was calling off a cloture vote on PIPA he’d scheduled for Tuesday.

…or at least delayed:

Reid tried to put on a brave face, saying in a statement that he was optimistic that progress could be made in the coming weeks.

Memo to Harry Reid:

What the fuck?!?

Here is the Gingrich-affiliated hit-video against Mitt Romney. It is worth a look, but recognize it for what it is: propaganda from wingnuts.

A grenade has been lobbed. What we have here is Republican on Republican violence. It will probably hurt Mitt Romney even going into the general election. Nate Silver gives several cogent reason why.

It is amusing—particularly watching the battles, but is it right? Today the Washington Post Fact Checker gives the video Four Pinocchios:

Romney may have opened the door to this kind of attack with his suspect job-creation claims, but that is no excuse for this highly misleading portrayal of Romney’s years at Bain Capital. Only one of the four case studies directly involves Romney and his decision-making, while at least two are completely off point. The manipulative way the interviews appeared to have been gathered for the UniMac segment alone discredits the entire film.

The Fact Checker documentation seems pretty convincing. But, if you want a second opinion, and you haven’t written off PolitiFact, they promise to take a look. I suspect they will give a similar assessment.

This episode has an amusing lesson. We learn that the Republicans have turned their guns on themselves. The Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 was a powerful weapon for the G.O.P, but they couldn’t manage that power. Are you surprised?

This episode fundamentally reflects the increasing acceptance by Republicans of sacrificing the truth, or ANYTHING, for political power. That alone, is a good starting point for attacking Romney, and the sleazy things he says and will say about Obama.

This is another lesson for Democrats: If you are going to do a hit piece, keep it real. Romney has plenty of negatives—some that might even be related to corporate raiding. So use the truth…. As much as I want Romney’s credibility as a presidential candidate destroyed, I cannot condone Swiftboating.

Washington’s remodeled 1st congressional district is getting pretty damn crowded with congressional candidates.

Today Democrat Susan DelBene announced her run for Congress. She joins a pack of Democrats, including Darcy Burner, Laura Ruderman, state Rep. Roger Goodman, state Sen. Steve Hobbs, and Darshan Rauniyar.

DelBene ran against Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-08) in 2010, narrowly losing. Burner has run for congress twice—2006 and 2008—narrowly losing to Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-08) each time.

The Republicans in the race are John Koster and James Watkins. Koster ran unsuccessfully against Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA-02), losing in 2004 and narrowly losing in 2010. Watkins lost to Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-01) in 2010.

Sometime in the next week, Larry Ismael is expected to formally declare as an independent candidate. Ismael ran as a Republican against Inslee in 2006 and 2008, losing to Inslee by a 3 2:1 margin each time.

It is hard to tell who the front runner is at this point. The closest thing we have to a poll is from the Burner campaign. Late last year, they ran it in the proposed first district in order to test the waters:

The pollster did a favorable/unfavorable on the possible female candidates: former state legislator Laura Ruderman, the top fund raiser in the current field; Darcy Burner; and Suzan DelBene, the Democrat who challenged Reichert in 2008, who has also talked about getting in this time.

Then the poll did a horse race check for all candidates; others include state Reps. Roger Goodman and Marko Liias, state Sen. Steve Hobbs, and Bothell business entrepreneur (and surprise fundraiser) Darshan Rauniyar.

Then there was a horse race question between Burner and James Watkins, the Republican whose going for Inslee’s seat.

The pollster released a highly abbreviated summary of the results:

• Darcy Burner has an overwhelming lead over all other declared Democratic candidates in the proposed new WA-01. In the primary election among Democratic voters, Burner leads with 47% of the Democratic vote, greatly exceeding the 12% the next Democrat receives, and is +7 points higher than the 40% garnered by the entire rest of the field.
• Among all voters in the primary election, Burner also leads all other Democratic candidates by huge margins—27% support Burner while the next closest Democrat draws just 7% of the vote. In fact, Burner draws greater support than all other Democratic candidates COMBINED (27% for Burner vs. 22% for the six other Democratic candidates tested).

• Fully 50% of Democratic voters have a favorable impression of Burner, while just 11% have an unfavorable impression, with 39% unsure. Four out of five (82%) Democratic voters who have an opinion about Burner have a favorable impression of her.
• Burner’s overall name recognition (55%) is much stronger than that of Laura Ruderman (14%).

These results must be tempered by the fact that the new 1st may not look anything at all like the polled “proposed 1st.” Also, the information missing from the polling summary may be missing for a reason.

My feeling is that Burner really is the front-runner, but its almost entirely because of name recognition following two media-intensive campaigns in years when Democrats were tuning into elections. DelBene’s run was more recent, but in a year that didn’t excite Democrats. Name recognition alone won’t translate into a win.

Burner has something else going for her. Publicola points out that she leads other candidates in fundraising^*. DelBene can self-finance her campaign, but a dollar raised by a candidate is far more valuable than a dollar out of a candidate’s pocket, because it builds brand loyalty. Burner’s two month head start over DelBene may turn out to be important.

The Big Problem with so many Democrats (and some very good Democrats at that) in the race, is the possibility that two Republicans come out on top in our goofy top two primary system. With any luck, the field will start shrinking on the Democratic side, but not so much on the Republican and independent side….

^*As Daniel K points out, I misread the fundraising statement in Publicola.

Oops!