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Throughout the Republican debate season, former front-runner Mitt Romney has been long on platitudes, but less specific on his positions within the Republican weltanschauung. Romney has tended to verbalize adopted positions with near universal acceptance within the G.O.P. and then contrast himself with President Obama.

Now with Newt Gingrich surging in multiple G.O.P. primary polls, the Mitt Romney campaign is being forced to take concrete stances—offer some ideological nuance—in order to differentiate himself from Newt. Will Mitt tack to the left? Will he cut back to the right?

Apparently, it is that latter. Today, during the daily Romney for President press conference call, Mitt went right-wing extreme. Sen. Jim Talent and Gov. John Sununu took up the case for Mitt, spinning his previously wishy-washy stance on the Ryan plan for Medicare into something concrete.

The Ryan plan would eliminate Medicare as it exists now and replace it with a voucher system. The plan would, more or less, privatize Medicare.

Gov. Sununu starts out criticizing Newt:

For Newt Gingrich, in an effort of self-aggrandizement, to come out and throw a clever phrase that has no other purpose than to make him sound a little smarter than the conservative Republican leadership, to undercut Paul Ryan, is the most self-serving, anti-conservative thing one can imagine happening. He gave the liberals and the Democrats the ammunition they needed to moot, if you will, at least for the time being, Paul Ryan’s presentation.

He then asserts Mitt’s support for the plan:

Mitt Romney supports what Paul Ryan did. He endorsed what Paul Ryan did. Mitt Romney had his own package of entitlement reform, which Paul Ryan has praised. They both meshed together. They are both based on really understanding entitlement reform.

and later on:

Paul Ryan’s plan which Mitt Romney supported is the solid basis for moving forward on entitlement reform. And Newt Gingrich not only rejected it then, but he rejected repeatedly by saying I was right what I said that it was wrong and the fact is that Newt Gingrich to this day still continues to undermine Paul Ryan.

Okay…Mitt Romney, 8 Dec 2011, is pro-Ryan plan. That is, Mitt supports eliminating Medicare and replacing it with a voucher system.

Remember this, folks, because if Mitt wins the nomination, he’s got some major Mitt-flopping to do. The public overwhelmingly rejects this radical plan. Mitt owns it now.

I believe you can envision the simple modifications needed for this ad:

I hate to write about this non-local thing, but if men don’t, it becomes women’s work to point out that this is a terrible policy.

I’m talking, of course, about today’s news that Obama’s health and human services secretary Kathleen Sebelius has overruled the recommendation of her own experts at the Food and Drug Administration, killing a rule change that would have made Plan B emergency contraception available to teenagers and adults over the counter. Emergency contraception works by preventing the ovaries from releasing eggs, and is 89 percent effective at preventing pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

We quite rightly criticized Bush for being anti-sex and anti-science, so it seems fair to say that this is disappointing. Sebelius should have let the rule go into effect.

I don’t know if this was a policy or a political decision, but either way it stinks. The forced pregnancy movement in this country isn’t going to support Obama, no mater what. And the need for emergency contraception isn’t going to go away.

Goldy highlights this gem from Frank Luntz.

“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,” Luntz said. “They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”

While I think the Occupy movement in general and Occupy Wall Street in particular changed the discussion and have had a positive impact, a much larger driver is that the economy has turned many people against capitalism (or at least the brand of capitalism in the United States). It’s the housing bubble and the myriad foreclosed houses it’s left since it burst. It’s the high unemployment rate, and what it does to people who can’t find work or to people who are afraid to ask for a raise or who aren’t able to take that vacation any more or who aren’t getting as many tips as they did a few years ago. It’s the high price of gas. It’s the degradation of government services.

No, if you want to make people think positive things about capitalism, build a capitalism that works for them. Make capitalism more democratic, and more fair. Make it a vehicle for building a strong middle class accessible to anyone who works hard.

Six months after derailing a very well-crafted medical marijuana bill, Governor Gregoire joins Governor Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island to ask the DEA to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule II drug. Leaving aside the argument that marijuana probably shouldn’t be a Schedule II drug either (the same as cocaine and certain forms of methamphetamine), this is clearly the most progressive position on marijuana we’ve seen from the Governor. But I also agree with the Drug Policy Alliance’s Ethan Nadelmann here:

“The governors’ call for rescheduling marijuana so that it can be prescribed for medical purposes is an important step forward in challenging the federal government’s intransigence in this area,” said Nadelmann. “But their call should not serve as an excuse for these two governors to fail to move forward on responsible regulation of medical marijuana in their own states. Governors in states ranging from New Jersey and Vermont to Colorado and New Mexico have not allowed the federal government’s ban on medical marijuana to prevent them from approving and implementing statewide regulation of medical marijuana. Govs. Gregoire and Chafee should do likewise.”

As the federal pressure on medical marijuana grew over the summer, Gregoire and Chafee were the two governors who balked and scrapped sensible regulations supported by the people of their state and passed by the legislature. This happened even as both Republican Chris Christie (NJ) and Democrat Peter Shumlin (VT) moved forward with their states’ programs despite the threats. It’s good to see Gregoire have the courage to stand up to the DEA (many still won’t), but there’s certainly more she can and should do.

The Columbian has a bold strategy to plug the horrible budget hole without the hassle of raising taxes or cutting programs that people depend on. Magic? No, silly. Reform. But without getting very specific or putting a price tag on it.

This special session was necessitated by a projected $2 billion revenue shortfall. Many lawmakers talk about dealing with this only by various combinations of spending cuts or revenue increases. Again, though, state Sen. Joe Zarelli of Ridgefield, the Republican leader on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, is advocating a third tactic that never seems to draw the attention it deserves: reform.

Oh. Reform. Of course. If we do things better then things will be better.

And Washingtonians have to wonder why reform never carries more clout in these agonizing budget discussions. After all, the concept of reform is largely (though far from totally) nonpartisan. Reform means simply changing the way government does its business, maximizing efficiencies. While conservatives advocate budget cuts and liberals insist on boosting revenue, both sides ought to agree that a bigger bang for the taxpayers’ buck would be a good thing.

It couldn’t be that there isn’t much money in the so-called reforms. That will require the rest of the article to mention some of the ones that will have the most “bang for the taxpayers’ buck” and really delve into them. How they effect the programs, how they effect the workers tasked with implementing them. That sort of thing. Or I guess quote one state senator.

Even with the limited attention given to reform, Zarelli points to steps already taken by legislators in that direction: “more choice for injured workers, a refocusing of the Basic Health Plan and disability lifeline, and clamping down on fraud and abuse involving food and cash assistance to low-income people,” all accomplished with bipartisan support.

You guys, all we have to do is cut the fraud and abuse budgets! Also, if we make Workers’ Comp and Basic Health less effective, it’s not a cut, it’s reform. Anyway, you know what would make this article the best ever? More vague suggestions from the same person without any attempt to see what they would do to state services and state workers let alone how much they might save or cost.

Surely, that cannot be the end of what can be done. In his article for The Herald, Zarelli advocated focusing on “long-term obligations that are huge cost drivers, such as state-worker pensions, health-care services, paying off the state’s debt and efforts to bring our K-12 education system into compliance with court rulings” plus at least having discussions about “services for non-citizens, state liability, non-Indian gaming, state workplace efficiencies such as competitive contracting and defined-contribution pensions, and how the state subsidizes low-income child care.”

Almost all of those things will cost money, or are cuts (except expanding gambling). This article promised something other than “combinations of spending cuts or revenue increases” and yet pay down debt is on the list? How do you expect to pay down debt without raising taxes or cutting spending?* Hopefully the next paragraph will answer some of those questions instead of being a whiny nonsense metaphor.

The reform menu keeps getting longer, doesn’t it? Why, then, are legislators so reluctant to place their orders?

It’s because most of those reforms are bad ideas, cuts by another name, or bland generalities. While some of them may be part of the solution, this article doesn’t make the case for any of them, and certainly doesn’t weigh the pros and cons. The legislature is trying to solve a $2 Billion budget gap, and the Columbian is proposing gimmickry and trickery while demanding we take them more seriously.

[Read more…]

– Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

– I can’t understand why Wenatchee area property owners who benefit from the project can’t pay for their own town center. Also, the 2/3 stuff is a good point. Also, also, Reuven talks a good game, but if I had to put money on it, I say he’ll support bailing it out.

– The stupid party.

– Responding to peaceful protests and other expressions of growing citizenry unrest with brute force is a direct by-product of what we’ve allowed to be done to America’s domestic police forces in the name of the War on Terror (and, before that, in the name of the War on Drugs).

– Who is against giving children good food for lunch?

– David Attenborough was once a young man.

Today wasn’t a good day for me to stay on top of a big news item, so for the latest news on the federal raids that occurred today across the Puget Sound region, check out these links:

Gene Johnson – Police in W. Washington target medical pot shops
Curtis Cartier – DEA Raiding Medical-Marijuana Dispensaries in Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia
Dominic Holden – Why Today’s Pot Raids?
Jonathan Martin – Authorities raid Puget Sound medical-pot shops
Jeremy Pawloski – 17 arrested in raids on five Thurston County pot dispensaries
Russ Belville – DEA Raids Washington Dispensaries In Cities That Often Won’t Prosecute Marijuana Crimes
Stacia Glenn – 18 people arrested in three-county medical pot raids

The Cannabis Defense Coalition has information about the raids here.

UPDATE: Steve Elliott at Toke of the Town has a post up with info about today’s protest in downtown Seattle.

– Repeal Seattle’s jaywalking laws.

– Google street view of Seattle Trails

– You would think that a study analyzing the consumption of fast food by poor people would take into account a massive sea change in the way fast food was consumed by poor people. But then again, I’m not a science-type person.

– How dare you call our hero self-sacrificing?

– Hanson endeavors to drag Cain up by Cain’s bootstraps, and he does so by denigrating women and black people with such ease one suspects that Hanson has never met a stereotype or bias that he didn’t call “science.”

– This Twitter language map is pretty amazing.

In a shock to no one, Bill O’Reilly’s latest book on Abraham Lincoln has a few errors:

On Friday I wrote about the decision of Ford’s Theatre not to offer Bill O’Reilly’s bestsetlling new book on the Lincoln assassination at its bookstore because an expert National Park Service reviewer found the work to be riddled with factual errors.

Now, in a review in a leading Civil War magazine, a second expert has flunked O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln,” calling it “somewhere between an authoritative account and strange fiction.”

The review (which is not online) appears in the November issue of North & South, the official magazine of the Civil War Society.

“The narrative contains numerous errors of people, place, and events,” writes reviewer Edward Steers Jr., author of more than five books on the Lincoln assassination. He goes on to list about 10 errors of fact in “Killing Lincoln,” which O’Reilly co-authored with Martin Dugard and which has been atop bestseller lists for weeks.

I’ve started up a hashtag on Twitter, #oreillyfactsaboutlincoln, for people to add their own creative “facts” about our 16th President…

Joel Connelly has a piece, the last half dealing with the rejection of Prop 1. Here’s the conclusion, and the only part that talks about the future:

The state can hopefully get on with transportation projects, using variable (rush hour) tolls as a constructive carrot-stick approach to relieve congestion.

The Sierra Club will, one hopes, go back to being a player in Northwest conservation rather than an instrument of the McGinn-O’Brien agenda. Bellevue plutocrat Kemper Freeman will, one trusts, think twice before blowing another $1.1 million on an Eyman initiative.

The Seattle City Council should have the sense to bring more cooks into the kitchen, and give its next transportation package a little more time in the oven. Voters don’t like spending hard-earned money on something half-baked.

For someone who has written repeatedly (including in the non-quoted part of this piece) that a big problem with the car tabs was that it was regressive, he seems to have forgotten to make any sort of push to the legislature to give us an MVET or some other progressive means of paying for it (a 1% high earner’s income tax would be even better, although I have no idea how much it raises).

Anyway, the only solutions by government agencies Joel mentions are the legislature should do something transit related and the city should talk to more people. But unless the state allows us to tax ourselves more fairly, the biggest problem will persist (and Olympia isn’t likely to act without people like Joel pushing them).

Finally, not to spend too much time on an aside, but the Sierra Club does a lot of conservation work. The first non-election thing on the Cascade Chapter’s website is logging trails, for instance.

In a unanimous decision issued in NEDC v. Brown, a case involving logging roads on Oregon State lands, the Ninth Circuit ruled that polluted stormwater generated by logging roads is subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The August 2011 decision requires that logging roads meet the standards of the Clean Water Act that would protect our clean water and salmon and steelhead. We are stunned that Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna would join with very conservative states such as Arkansas in urging the Supreme Court to overturn this court decision.

“Mitch McConnell is the one who has had his foot on the neck of this country’s economy….And the polls are now showing that Americans understand that Republicans are willing to sacrifice the health of our economy to have political advantage.”

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA-07) to MSNBC’s Chris Jansing.

Okay…maybe they didn’t strike a blow directly to Rob Mckenna, but by upholding the “individual mandate” in last year’s health care reform bill today, the Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit has struck another serious blow against the multi-state lawsuit.

Today’s ruling makes the third Appeals Court to uphold the law and the controversial individual insurance mandate. (I reviewed the pending lawsuits and decisions through July here.) One court has ruled against the law: the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta ruled 2-1 on August 11th against the insurance mandate provision in the law. This is the Teabagger-inspired lawsuit that Washington state AG Rob McKenna unilaterally joined against the will of the Governor, the Legislature, and the people. Mckenna takes credit for the instigating the lawsuit.

In today’s ruling the majority rejects the the Appellants’ central objection that, “Congress, for the first time, has actually commanded that all Americans purchase a product, health insurance”

We look first to the text of the Constitution. Article I, § 8,cl. 3, states: “The Congress shall have Power . . . To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” (emphasis added). At the time the Constitution was fashioned, to “regulate” meant, as it does now, “[t]o adjust by rule or method,” as well as “[t]o direct.”

To“direct,” in turn, included “[t]o prescribe certain measure[s]; to mark out a certain course,” and “[t]o order; to command.”28 In other words, to “regulate” can mean to require action, and nothing in the definition appears to limit that power only to those already active in relation to an interstate market. Nor was the term “commerce” limited to only existing commerce. There is therefore no textual support for appellants’ argument.

Of course, they then look to previous Supreme Court decisions. The bottom line: the Court rejects McKenna’s bullshit.

And my lunch break is over, so enjoy the rest of the opinion.

I’m going to delve into a bit of poll wonkery here, so if this kind of thing doesn’t trip your trigger, go check your email or something.

There are a lot of polls I’ll not bother to write about.

For example, the Zogby Interactive polls are pretty much bullshit because the samples don’t come close to approximating a random sample of eligible voters. Likewise, I usually ignore polls conducted on behalf of candidates or a party. In that case, the polls may use perfectly fine methods conducted to professional standards. The problem is that the results may be released strategically—that is, released if the findings are favorable to a candidate or party and kept private otherwise. In other words, the poll itself isn’t representative.

Yesterday I came across a new type of poll from SurveyAnalytics . Here are the sampling methods described in the top-lines:

SurveyAnalytics conducted an online survey of 2,001 voters in King County, including the City of Seattle. All of these voters were determined to be likely to vote in the November 2011 General Election. SurveyAnalytics recruited respondents from a voter list purchased from Labels & Lists, which included citizens who had voted in 2, 3 or 4 of the most recent General Elections. Respondents were contacted via e-mail following an e-mail matching process also conducted by Labels & Lists. Voters completed the survey online using SurveyAnalytics’ CityFeedback platform.

Okay…the methods sound interesting, although I don’t know how the “email matching process” works. Older folks are likely underrepresented because many still don’t have email addresses or computers. But traditional land-line polls under-represent young voters, who are more likely to have only a cell phone for a telephone.

SurveyAnalytics compares their sample to a SurveyUSA poll of King County taken in 2009, and they find very similar results for sex and ethnicity, as well as crudely categorized education and income variables. But the SurveyAnalytics sample is, as expected, slightly younger compared to SurveyUSA’s poll. An alternative interpretation is that the SurveyUSA sample—based on robocalling land-lines—was too old!

I cannot vouch for the representativeness of this poll. I do find the methods intriguing. With that…here are some results from their survey of 2,001 King County likely voters (MOE 2.24%) taken from October 29 to November 2:

• Obama 52%, Romney 24%, Neither 13%
• When asked for names of people running for Governor, McKenna’s name was given by 68%, Inslee’s by 57%
• A head-to-head match-up gives McKenna 36%, Inslee 35%
• Cantwell is at 54% to the sum of all other Republicans at 35%
• I-1183 (liquor privatization): 61% yes, 33% no
• I-1125 (Eyman/Freedman anti-tolls/anti-transit): 50% no, 38% yes
• I-1163 (background checks, training on long term care workers): 60% yes, 25% no

Again, keep in mind that these results are for King County only.

Out of curiosity, I’ve compared the SurveyAnalytics poll to the “Puget Sound” sample from the recent Washington Poll. I’m not sure what “Puget Sound” is defined as in the Washington Poll, but keep in mind that the samples in the two polls are not strictly comparable.

Obama does marginally well in King County by this poll at 52%. But the total of all Republican candidate percentages is only 24 36%, with Romney at 24%. The Washington Poll has an Obama—Romney match-up giving Obama 55% to Romney’s 37% in “Puget Sound”. The difference may largely be the number of undecideds, perhaps reflecting how the question was asked.

The most interesting finding is that McKenna and Inslee are practically tied in King County. This isn’t as bad as it looks for Inslee, as McKenna had an extra 10% of people who could say he was running. The Washington Poll found Inslee leading McKenna in “Puget Sound” 45% to 40%. As I mentioned earlier, Inslee probably does better relative to McKenna as more of the undecideds decide. And to win, he’ll have to do much better in King County in November 2012….

The I-1183 findings are more favorable at 62% Yes, 33% No compared to Washington Poll’s 52%, 42% split for “Puget Sound”.

Initiative 1125 loses by a whopping 50% to 38% in King County; the Washington Poll’s Puget Sound sample rejected the initiative by a more modest 43% to 42%.

It will be interesting to compare the actual vote in King County for the initiatives this election to these poll results, if only to assess whether this particular internet-based polling method is any good. And whether future polls of this type are worth our attention.

There were hints, and clues, and even outright claims, but now it’s official.

I mean, if you can believe hack journalist David “Goldy” Goldstein…Darcy Burner is running for Congress in Washington’s 1st congressional district.

For me that’s great news—I live in the 1st CD. Looking at the redistricting proposals, chances are excellent that Darcy Burner will be my next representative.

Darcy joins a somewhat crowded field of Democrats for the 1st CD, including State Rep. Roger Goodman, Former state Rep. Laura Ruderman, and State Rep. Marko Liias. I would be happy to be represented by any of these folks. (Okay…maybe not so much Ruderman, who seems to be great at fundraising, but what else? I simply don’t know.) Darcy, just by entering the race, becomes the front-runner.

This isn’t just my opinion. Remember the poll that Publicola got wind of (and that I mentioned here) a couple days ago? It shows Burner unquestionably in the lead.

If the redistricted 1st CD bears any resemblance to its old self, a Democratic candidate coming out of the primary will almost certainly win the general. Rep. Jay Inslee (who is vacating the seat to run for Governor) has held the district since 1999. The district has voted increasingly Democratic in recent presidential elections: Al Gore won by 53%, John Kerry won by 56%, and Barack Obama won by 62%.

On top of that, the Republicans have no candidates of any note running. Well…James Watkins, the guy who challenged Inslee in 2008, is running again.

I met Darcy during her first congressional run against Rep. Dave Reichert. I have interacted with her, perhaps, a dozen times since then, including doing one interview. My excitement at today’s announcement is genuine…I really want her to represent me! My reasons haven’t changed much from what I wrote back in 2006:

It was clear to me from that first meeting that Ms. Burner was an extraordinary individual—she struck me as smart, well-informed, articulate, disciplined, confident, and full of energy. I had no idea whether these attributes could translate into success in campaigning and politics, but I thought that Darcy exhibited many of the good attributes that I wanted in a political leader, and she didn’t seem afflicted with the negative attributes found in so many political leaders.

I couldn’t vote for Darcy in 2006 or 2008—my house is located a bit north of the 8th CD in the 1st CD. For the 2012 election cycle, I am most pleased to welcome Darcy to the 1st!

(You can contribute to Darcy Burner’s campaign here.)

Herman Cain makes more headlines this week.

Although he has a juicy campaign finance scandal brewing, and a bizarre gaffe about the Palestinian people, what people are really intrigued by is the revelations that Herman was, in the 1990s, accused of sexual harassment by two employees of the National Restaurant Association while Cain was the organization’s CEO.

The story has some potential…comedy potential, as in, “Herman, dude, hasn’t anyone ever told you that nein, nein, nein means NEIN?!?”

Other than that, this story stinks.

First, this is not going to help and might, quite possibly, hurt Cain’s chances at taking the nomination. And I don’t want anything to hurt Cain’s chances of being the Republican nominee for 2012. Seriously…if Obama has to go up against Romney or Cain, I’d much rather he go up against Cain. Besides the fact that Cain is the weaker of the two candidates, I like the gut-knotting turmoil it causes amongst the bigoted faction of Republicans.

It also sucks for a more important reason: because it feeds ugly bigotry, by reinforcing a negative stereotype of black men. “They’re stealing our women!”

And that is simply ugly.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking a stand on whether or not Cain sexually harassed those women. I’m not offering any excuses for sexual harassment, or making excuses for Cain if it turns out he did engage in that behavior. But the legal settlement prevents the women from talking about their complaint or the monetary settlement, so that there will always remain some uncertainty about what really happened. And the bigots will use that uncertainty to feed their ugly habit. Yuck.

As an aside, even Obama isn’t immune from this stereotype.

Remember last year when Newt Gingrich made headlines about Dinesh D’Souza “stunning insight” into Obama?

…the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

“This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,” Gingrich tells us.

What was D’Souza “profound insight” in this article that so inspired Gingrich? The article concludes:

But instead of readying us for the challenge, our President is trapped in his father’s time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father’s dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done.

Ahh, yes…if Obama doesn’t fit the bigot’s stereotype directly, lash him to that post by his genes.

As for Cain, at least the sexual harassment issue will divert people from some other, probably more serious, “issues” of the Cain campaign.