Search Results for: Reichert

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show” on Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM:

7PM: Is John Edwards a faggot? That’s what cuddly, conservative pundit Ann Coulter said at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) conference, where she was the featured speaker:

“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot–so….’”

The audience at this preeminent conservative event of the year gave Coulter an enthusiastic ovation. Does Coulter (who has endorsed GOP hopeful Mitt Romney) really represent, as Andrew Sullivan suggests, “the heart and soul of contemporary conservative activism”…? And if so, what does this say about contemporary conservative activism?

8PM: Should Reichert and McMorris give back their terrorist money? 22 Republicans representatives have benefited from money the NRCC raised from indicted terrorist financierAbdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari — including WA’s Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris-Rogers — and yet none have offered to give the money back. Republicans talk tough on terrorism, but I guess even a federal indictment doesn’t make your money not good enough for the NRCC.

9PM: Is it wrong to boo? Apparently.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

James Vesely, the Seattle Times columnist who referred to Darcy Burner as “Miss Bruner” several times during the Reichert-Burner debate he moderated last fall, comes to some odd conclusions in his Sunday column:

Winners: Anti-incumbents; legislators who see Seattle as losing some of its power; Dino Rossi; eager challengers to City Council members; King County Executive Ron Sims, who is working on a surface and tolling plan; and maybe the Port of Seattle by staying out of this mess.

I’m not sure which incumbents Vesely is talking about. David Della, a rebuild supporter, is the biggest target in this fall’s city elections. With every single Democratic legislative district declining to endorse a Viaduct rebuild, Della will have to clam up about his support of a big freeway on the waterfront.

Dino Rossi doesn’t seem to understand the basic parameters of the debate. Why Vesley makes him a winner is astounding. The Seattle Times seems to be going out of it’s way to make the irrelevant former senator relevant again.

Then there’s this:

The most passionate, emotional voice for the tunnel is Peter Steinbrueck’s; the calmest and most logical against a tunnel is Nick Licata’s. Go figure.

That’s weird. I was standing 10 feet away from Peter at a Friends of Seattle event when he bashed the hell out of th tunnel. You see, Peter’s for the “surface plus transit” option.

• The new show meant to compete with “The Daily Show” is awful. I’m not a player-hater: I laugh at Clinton jokes, Kerry jokes, and PJ O’Rourke. But “The 1/2 Hour News Hour” is unwatchable garbage.
• Nick Beaudrot really nails the situation with the Sonics.
• Go skiing with your congressman! Really!
• Rep. Dave Reichert fundamentally misunderstands the war in Iraq:

The Iraqi insurgents aren’t the Wehrmacht, they aren’t Johny Reb and they aren’t the Hessians. Geez, it’s like Reichert deliberately picked every non-relevant example from American history and threw it in a blender. Threw in a reference to Osama bin Laden for good measure.

But he’s soooooo moderate!!

• Remember the four foot tall Labor Secretary? He’s got a blog. Here, he explains why balancing the budget isn’t such a great idea.
• Olbermann: Four! More! Years!
• Here’s a less Seattle-centric Viaduct post. One note: it’s really, really unlikely that we’ll find Native American artifacts. It is likely, however, that we’ll find Doc Maynard’s house keys.

Can someone explain to me why the Mayor of Seattle is proposing gun control legislation that would have done nothing to prevent the recent incidences of gun violence? I’m no gun nut, and I’m for laws that will do some good, and more importantly, I’m in favor of enforcing current gun laws. The difference between an “assault weapon” and a regular weapon can be nothing less than a flash suppressor, a bayonet mount, and a high capacity magazine. I’ve shot an assault weapon; they’re really, really fun to shoot. I don’t understand why my liberal friends want to defend the Bill of Rights, but ignore the second item on the list.

GM’s new hybrid is ugly as sin. Detroit is going to continue to get its ass kicked by Toyota if they build cars like that.

Heheheh… ECB knocks down bullshit from The New Republic’s Ryan Lizza. Expect more to underestimate Pelosi in the coming months.

Jimmy, please please please don’t die!

Senate Democrats are going in for the kill in ’08.

I don’t see Rep. Dave Reichert handling minority status all that well.

Four. Years. Old.

I’d like to say I did my part as well.

From what I remember about this guy, I don’t think he’s going places. I guess we now know it was always about politics.

Before (un)Sound Politics, before the gubernatorial election contest, before he moved to Seattle, our good friend Stefan cut his shark teeth on the Bay area blog NancyWatch, ferociously setting out to destroy the political career of his hated congresswoman, Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

And where’s Nancy today? Speaker of the House.

Hey… congratulations Stefan.

Stefan abandoned his ponytail-in-inkwell-like obsession in May 2003 after moving to Seattle, but he quickly added new names to his enemies list, building (u)SP into a politician-killer that has since toppled the careers of Chris Gregoire, Ron Sims and many other liberal Democrats.

No, wait. They all won their elections. As did a near sweep of Democrats in local legislative and council races over the past couple years. Hmm, pretty much every ballot initiative and referendum has gone the other way too. Come to think of it, except for Dave Reichert’s close victory over come from nowhere Darcy Burner, and a couple of Republican favored candidates in supposedly nonpartisan Port Commission races (how’s that going for you?) Stefan’s pretty much been on the losing side of nearly every race over the past two election seasons.

(Not to mention the much vilified Dean Logan, who left King County for a higher paying job administering elections for Los Angeles, the largest jurisdiction in the nation.)

So here’s a tip to ambitious Democrats everywhere: get on Stefan’s shit list, for it certainly seems to be a surefire path towards higher office. Don’t believe me? Just ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi and future cabinet Secretary Ron Sims.

UPDATE:
As fellow HA blogger Will points out, I shamelessly stole this meme without attribution from a post of his right here on HA. Sorry Will. But considering how infrequently you’ve been posting, you can’t really blame me for forgetting that I have co-bloggers.

I have a career-ending confession to make. During the heat of Washington state’s US senate campaign, a senior Cantwell staffer once bought me a beer. Oh sure, we were both understandably giddy after a successful campaign event. And a little drunk. But nothing can really excuse my stunning lapse of journalistic ethics.

Had I disclosed this compensation at the time, I suppose my credibility might have survived tattered but intact. But now that I’ve made my mea culpa, it’s hard to imagine that my once-loyal readers could ever trust me again. Nor should they.

Or at least, that seems to be the thinking of some of our nation’s “professional” journalists.

Today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer features an editorial chastising bloggers for their “rather surprising ties to specific politicians or parties.”

A New York Times article and chart showed extensive financial links between some prominent national bloggers and politicians across the political spectrum. Most bloggers promptly disclosed roles as campaign advisers and the like, as the article said and offended bloggers emphasized in responses. As at least one poster mentioned, though, disclosures can easily get lost.

[…] There remains a disconnect, however, between bloggers’ image and their increasing ties to the political establishment, whether the pay comes from Republican Sen. John McCain, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton or a host of other figures.

Um… I’m not sure what “image” they’re talking about, but I find it a little offensive that “real” journalists feel that they are entitled to earn a living from their profession, but apparently us bloggers are not. And if there’s a growing disconnect, it’s between the legacy media and the millions of Americans who are now getting their news and commentary from us bloggers. Breaking news guys: our readers aren’t dumb. They know we’re biased. In fact, they expect it.

For example, I once received a small speaking fee from the SEIU for moderating a panel discussion. Should my blogging on labor issues now be discounted as biased, due to this previously undisclosed payment? No, my blogging on labor issues should be discounted as biased because I’m, um, generally biased towards labor. I’ve never claimed to be objective. I don’t think it’s even humanly possible.

Likewise, I provided plenty of advice to the Darcy Burner campaign, solicited and otherwise. Had I been compensated for my valuable political and media consulting, could my coverage of the Reichert/Burner race in WA’s 8th Congressional District have possibly been any more one-sided? I sure hope not. Once I decided that Burner had a shot at winning I was determined to do everything possible to help boost her to victory.

The point is, my readers aren’t idiots. They read me in context.

On both my blog and my weekly radio show I make it absolutely clear that I am unabashedly liberal. I wear my bias on my sleeve. I aggressively advocate for candidates and issues — and should one of these campaigns choose to hire me to do additional work behind the scenes… how is that any less ethical than the publisher of the largest newspaper in Washington state shamelessly using his op-ed pages to shill for an initiative that will save him and his heirs tens of millions of dollars? How is a payment from a candidate you openly believe in and advocate for, any more compromising than a paycheck from a publisher you fear to contradict? No one seriously believes that there is unanimity at the Seattle Times in opposition to the estate tax, and yet on such a high profile issue, of all the editorialists and columnists, only Danny Westneat had the balls to speak out against its repeal; and even then, only briefly. The Seattle Times is a newspaper that claims to objectively serve one of the most liberal, Democratic cities in the nation, and yet it had the unmitigated gall to endorse a slate of Republicans in a Blue Wave election, and suggest that the region’s interests would be better served by a half-wit, two-term minority member of Congress than a Harvard educated member of the incoming Democratic majority?

If some wealthy, Democratic benefactor were to pay me a much-needed stipend to keep me blogging, how could that possibly make HorsesAss.org any less credible than the op-ed section of the Seattle Times given its shameless, self-serving shilling over the past election cycle?

So my question for those who question the propriety of political bloggers seeking political consulting work on the side is: what is it about blogging that makes you think that we must do it for free if we’re to remain genuine and relevant? The vast majority of bloggers can’t possibly garner enough readership to earn a living from online ads — should our voices be silenced because the free market can’t support our efforts? Must the very best of us commit to a life of poverty in order to pursue our vocation full-time, or seek meaningful remuneration only from work outside our area of passion and expertise? Is a corporate paycheck the only legitimate income for an ethical journalist?

The Seattle P-I editorial board fears that we are regressing to the days when newspapers were once as openly biased as, well… us bloggers:

There’s also a back-to-the-future aspect to the one-sided advocacy. American newspapers began as organs dedicated to serving particular political parties. Advocacy is a political right and a fundamental source of U.S. strength. But it’s not the main thrust of journalism. And in the journalism generally practiced in America, accepting pay from politicians — disclosed or not — is about as far off the map as one can go.

But the “journalism generally practiced in America” today is an historical anomaly that grew out of the media consolidation that shuttered the vast majority of dailies early in the twentieth century. “Objectivity” was a necessary sales pitch required to reassure readers that one or two dailies could adequately replace the many different voices to which they had grown accustomed. It is also a wonderful ideal, though unfortunately impossible to achieve in reality, for as Woody Allen astutely observed, even “objectivity is subjective.”

I’m not one of those bloggers who long for the extinction of the legacy media, nor do I think this modern American model of an objective, fair and balanced press will ever perish at the hands of us advocacy journalists. But there’s certainly more than enough room for both models to coexist, and to some extent, converge. Both models can be equally honest and informative, as long as the practitioners remain true to themselves, and to their slightly divergent ethical principles… principles which most definitely include disclosing all relevant financial relationships.

But in the end, how is my openly biased blog really any different from the op-ed section of any major daily? Facts are facts, and when I get them wrong my readers abrasively taunt me in my comment threads. The rest of what I write is nothing but personal spin and opinion, and as long as I remain honest about who I am and what I’m trying to achieve, does it really matter who pays me?

Kent Johnson, the operations director for William Ryan Select, the local distributor of AHA TORO Tequila, was pretty pissed off about my post linking alleged sexual predator Larry Corrigan to his company:

Larry Corrigan did work as an outside consultant for us up until April of this year, however he has not been involved in any way with AHA TORO Tequila or our company since we let him go 8 months ago. We are also not involved with his work with the state on behalf of the Tequila industry. I understand that due to his political connections, he was solicited by larger Tequila companies to work on their behalf with the state. We have 0 connection to this campaign.

We are a small business run by 3 lifelong Seattleites, who are all heavily involved in the local community and numerous philanthropies. What we are is a small business trying to succeed. What we are not is a politically entrenched/motivated/connected company on either side of the aisle.

[…] I hope in the future you will see fit to not recklessly tie a small local business trying to succeed to the alledged gross crimes of a former consultant.

My apologies to Kent and his partners. I never intended to imply any connection between their company and Corrigan’s alleged crime. I did however imply a connection between Corrigan’s work on behalf of AHA TORO and his initiative to liberalize liquor sales. I’ll take Kent’s word that his company is not involved in the initiative campaign at all.

So I stand corrected. In sponsoring his liquor initiative, Corrigan was not working on behalf of William Ryan Select. He was working on behalf of the Tequila industry.

And oh yeah… despite some half-hearted attempts from our good friend Stefan to label Corrigan a Democrat, everybody I’ve talked to describes him as a loyal Republican who often boasted of his party ties, and who was integrally involved in several of Dave Reichert’s campaigns. So there.

Darryl’s already hit the story, but I wanted to come back to it after reading this snippet in the Seattle P-I:

A former longtime employee of the King County Prosecutor’s Office was caught in an Internet sting this week, when police say he arranged to meet someone he thought was a 13-year-old girl for sex.

[…] The Seattle P-I is not publishing the man’s name or details about his work on local political campaigns because he has not been formally charged.

We shall call him “Pervert X.” Although his real name is Larry Corrigan, a GOP operative and former Director of Operations and Budget for King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng. Why the P-I thought it should protect his identity and political affiliations I don’t know, especially after KIRO-TV had already shouted his name all over the airwaves.

The Seattle Times was less discrete. It not only described him as the deputy treasurer for Dave Reichert’s 1997 and 2001 runs for King County sheriff, and as a “supporter without an official role in Reichert’s congressional campaigns,” they also went on to get comments from Reichert and a Maleng spokesman.

So, should Corrigan’s identity have been revealed? It strikes me that either the Times or the P-I must have erred in judgement, and reluctantly, I’m leaning towards the P-I. After all, Corrigan’s political pedigree is the only thing that makes this story rise above the usual din of dirty old men propositioning teenagers, so if it was too soon to reveal his identity, it was certainly too soon to publish the story. But then, who am I to question the journalistic decision making of our local media? I’m just some unschooled blogger.

Now I suppose it’s unfair to use yet another scandal involving yet another GOP mucky-mucky to make some assertion about Republicans in general. So I won’t. Instead I’ll just leave the implication dangling out there without comment.

But it is fair to note that Corrigan wasn’t just some low-level party loyalist. He was incredibly well connected. “Very wired,” I’m told. “Unbelievably so.” And apparently, got along great with folks on both sides of the aisle. I mean, for a Republican.

He was also in the process of using his political connections for personal gain. KIRO reported that Corrigan had left the Prosecutor’s Office two years ago to pursue private business interests… and that business is apparently the local distributorship for Aha Toro Tequila. (Go to the Contact page and you’ll find some other state GOP loyalists. And click on the address for “Kent Johnson” and you’ll find your email addressed to “larry_corrigan”.)

Which explains why Corrigan was also leading the effort to run a statewide initiative in 2007 that would liberalize WA’s liquor laws so as to allow big box and other stores to sell liquor. You know… like Aha Toro tequila.

Of course, we’ve come to expect the character of our initiatives to reflect the character of their sponsors. Here’s hoping this particular initiative is dead.

Andrew at NPI live-blogged this evening’s FCC hearing on media consolidation, and he reports that Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen was the first to speak.

Blethen, who was politely welcomed, used most of his time to complain about consolidation and centralization of media in America, and grumble about “the powerful who co-opt the free press”. Indeed.

How about that. Frank and I agree on something.

All snarkiness aside, Frank and I do agree on this issue, which is rather ironic, because as passionate as Frank is in his opposition to loosening federal restrictions on media consolidation, that didn’t seem to stop him from directing his editorial board to endorse a slate of Republicans who uniformly support these new rules. (Or, in the case of Dave Reichert, had absolutely no idea what the phrase “media consolidation” meant.)

Okay… I guess I couldn’t quite put my snarkiness aside. But Frank and I do agree. In theory.

Anyway, Andrew has more on tonight’s hearing here, here, here, and here.

Hmm. I originally wrote a lede to this post in which I accused the Seattle Times editorial board of flat-out “lying,” but I’ve decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept the possibility that they may have only been inadvertently, but flat-out wrong.

In an editorial today advising state legislators to exercise fiscal restraint — a sentiment with which I don’t necessarily disagree — the Times characterizes our current state budget as the largest increase in spending in over a decade… technically accurate, for whatever it means. But then the Times slips in a totally gratuitous piece of GOPropaganda:

[The budget] followed the 5-percent increase of the previous two years presented by Sen. Dino Rossi.

Yup. There you have it: the Times editorial board echoing the key Rossi campaign talking point that he authored the 2003-2005 budget. Only problem is, this talking point was directly contradicted way back in 2003 by Dino Rossi himself, and in the Times’ own reporting:

The Republican budget has much in common with the all-cuts plan that Democratic Gov. Gary Locke unveiled in December. In fact, Rossi opened a press briefing yesterday with a PowerPoint presentation titled: “Following the Governor’s Lead.”

That’s right, Rossi was only “following the Governor’s lead.” And in fact, according to the Times’ reporters, he actually presented a 1-percent (not 5-percent) increase in spending, which would have been largely achieved by leaving 46,000 children without health coverage.

The myth that Rossi authored the 2003 budget is largely that, and while I suppose its inclusion in the unsigned editorial may have been an honest mistake, the total irrelevance of its inclusion to the subject at hand suggests otherwise. Fresh on the heels of a campaign season in which Times editorialists aggressively and intentionally misled readers about the facts pertaining to the issues and candidates endorsed, the Times seems to be already gearing up for the 2008 season.

Dino Rossi authored the 2003 budget the way, you know… Dave Reichert caught the Green River Killer. But considering how unremarkable Rossi’s legislative career really was, prepare to see the Times repeatedly trumpeting this fictional accomplishment over the next 23 months.

Of course the Times has the right to use their op-ed pages to present their own opinions — opinions with which I often agree — but they do not have the right to present their own “facts.” Even if you buy into the argument that there is a wall between editorial and news that protects the ability of reporters to remain objective, it is a wall that is entirely invisible to the readers. The average reader may understand that editorials represent the opinion of the publisher and the editorial board, but he also expects that the information used to back up these opinions is as factually accurate as that presented in the rest of the paper. Thus when an editorial misleads the readers either through a lie of omission or through a deliberate or accidental misstatement of fact, it diminishes the credibility of the publication as a whole.

Today’s editorial is filled with hard numbers that one assumes have been appropriately fact checked, and then almost as a non sequitur it throws in the factoid that Rossi deserves credit for authoring a fiscally responsible budget… an assertion that is refuted by the Times’ own reporting. It is this type of blatant electioneering that made the Times op/ed page a laughingstock during the 2006 campaign and which threatens to carry our state’s largest paper further down the road towards irrelevance. Eventually, we’ll just come to the point were the only people who bother to read Times editorials are the copywriters putting together Republican political ads.

Daniel Kirkdorffer has the latest on the ballot counting in the Burner/Reichert race, so really… why bother repeating it here?

Though I do have a couple things to add about those bursting ballot bags that have been widely reported. First, these votes will be counted. A similar problem occurred during the primary, and all those ballots were counted.

Second, these ballots absolutely should be counted. Over on (u)SP my beer-buddy Stefan writes: “What would Democrats do without ballots of questionable provenance?” Questionable provenance my ass. Of course, that’s just his fallback in case Darcy wins.

The fact is, these are absentee ballots, sealed in their envelopes, that were dropped off at the polls on election day, and for which there was a chain of custody from the polling place to the cage. It has been suggested that because the seals were broken on these bags, ballots could have been added after the polls closed, but again… these are absentee ballots, sealed within their envelopes, that must have their signatures verified before the ballots are counted.

Besides, the real risk with the broken seals is not ballots being added, but ballots being removed.

Back in June of 2005, before most Washington voters knew his name, Strategic Vision showed Mike McGavick trailing Sen. Maria Cantwell 50% to 36% in their first head to head poll. By August 2005, McGavick had climbed to 38%. Fifteen months and untold millions later, McGavick has finally reached the magic 39% mark.

Hmm. These are Will Baker numbers — barely a few points higher than my dog would get merely by putting an “R” next to her name on the ballot. I mean, damn… even Richard Pope managed to get 44% of the vote this year. (Keep your spirits up Richard, maybe tenth time’s the charm.)

Not that this was much of a surprise, as McGavick never managed to gain any traction. Even when a couple polls briefly showed the margin closing this summer, it was solely due to Cantwell’s numbers coming down, while McGavick continued to bump his head on the low 40’s.

Why? Well yeah, there was that big blue wave thing — but McGavick was always a sucky candidate running a sucky campaign, and a quick scan through my previous posts suggests he never really had a chance, whatever the political climate.

Take a look. I come off as a pretty smart guy:

April 19, 2005, on reports that Mike McGavick, Rick White and Chris Vance were all scrambling to get Karl Rove’s endorsement:

I’m not really concerned which of the three the voters Rove ultimately chooses, as it’s hard to take seriously a field that includes Vance as a viable candidate. I’ll be the first to admit that Cantwell is no Patty Murray, and should be vulnerable… but if these crappy candidates are the best the state GOP Karl Rove can come up with, it’s gonna be a cakewalk.

July 16, 2005:

I just don’t think defeating Cantwell will be as easy as the Republican faithful think it will. Apart from Rossi, all other GOP hopefuls trailed Cantwell by double digits in a recent Republican poll… and after a slow start, the Senator now reports a $3 million head start in her campaign account. And it doesn’t really matter who the GOP throws up against her, if she’s smart, Cantwell herself will all but ignore her opponent, choosing to run against Frist, DeLay, Rove, Bush and the right-wing Republican hegemony in DC.

It is true that Cantwell has not been the most visible of senators… mostly because she is simply a policy wonk, genuinely uncomfortable with shameless self-promotion. She is also a true moderate on most issues, and as such simply can’t generate exciting headlines like some of her more liberal (and, um… media savvy) colleagues. But her moderate politics and understated style work both ways, making her very difficult to attack. As tough as it is for Cantwell to generate real passion within some progressives, it will be equally tough for her opponent to generate passion against her, outside of the core Republican base.

Democrats will rally to Cantwell because they understand what is at stake nationally, and WA’s moderates and independents who gave both Patty Murray and John Kerry decisive victories last November, will need to be given a good reason to dump Cantwell in 2006.

I’m not sure a multimillionaire Safeco CEO can give them that reason.

July 18, 2005:

It’s hard to imagine how the Republicans are going to present a multi-millionaire insurance company executive who proudly advocates shipping jobs overseas, as a “man of the people.” But you know they’re going to try.

I hear some righties snidely claim that they’re going to force Cantwell to run on her record. Well I hate to burst their bubble, but McGavick has a record too, and it ain’t gonna look so pretty by the time November, 2006 comes around.

July 21, 2005:

I continue to wonder if McGavick, a man with a long record as an insurance industry lobbyist and executive is really the right person to run in WA state against Cantwell, a successful executive herself? Do Rove and Dole and the NRSC strategists really understand Washington state? As one Republican consultant suggests, maybe not.

“What people think in the Beltway and what goes on back home are two different things, and there’s a disconnect there.”

Hmm… the same kind of disconnect that labeled the politically diminutive George Nethercutt a “giant killer”…?

December 5, 2005:

The GOP had counted on an unpopular Cantwell being an easy target, but now it seems clear that McGavick is not only going to have to sell himself to WA voters, he’s going to have to make a strong case for tossing out Cantwell as well. And with Bush’s approval ratings in the toilet, and the GOP leadership not far behind, it’s gonna be pretty tough making the argument that we need to give the president one more Republican vote in the Senate.

Perhaps this partially explains why his fellow Republicans aren’t lining up to challenge McGavick for the nomination?

December 15, 2005, on Sen. Cantwell’s rising approval numbers:

There was a time when state R’s expected the national party to pour lavish sums into this race, but it’s beginning to look like that money would be better spent defending Representatives Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris.

December 29, 2005:

The problem for McGavick is that contrary to popular belief, Christian conservative voter turnout can be pretty soft, especially when the Republican candidate gives them little to get excited about. And as much as McGavick needs to draw votes from Dems and independents, he also needs a strong showing from the GOP base.

March 2, 2006, on McGavick’s announcement that “civility” would be a central theme of his campaign:

Today’s event

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King and Pierce counties have now reported their latest results from WA-08. Dave Reichert’s lead over Darcy Burner has expanded slightly to 3120 votes.

However, I am now absolutely confident that the race will narrow substantially over the next few days as King County continues to tabulate over the holiday weekend… and Pierce doesn’t report again until Monday.

(Oh… and I still expect the race to narrow.)

There seems to be a lot of confusion over the vote count in WA-08 — even the utltra-reliable Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo got it wrong — so let’s clarify a few things.

First, WA-08 spans King and Pierce Counties; over the past two elections about 81 percent of the votes have come from King, about 19 percent from Pierce. Currently Darcy Burner is leading in King County by about 0.75 percent, and losing Pierce by about 13 percent. Dave Reichert has been holding about a 2,700 vote lead.

Second, when the King and Pierce County results pages say 100% of precincts have reported, they are only referring to the poll votes, which will account for only around 20 percent of the total votes cast. The vast majority of votes were cast by mail.

Things don’t get any easier from there. Pierce reports that it has 65,000 ballots left to count, and King reports 189,000, but as we learned in 2004, these are only estimates and could even now be off by the tens of thousands, while thousands more ballots are still arriving every day. To further complicate the math, we have no idea how many of the remaining ballots actually fall within the boundaries of WA-08. In 2004 WA-08 accounted for about 30 percent of all King County ballots and about 20 percent of those cast in Pierce — but the absentee ballots are counted in no particular order, so it is quite possible that WA-08 is significantly over or under represented in the current count.

So how many ballots are really left to count? Who knows? If you assume that ballots counted thus far have been evenly distributed geographically, and you go by the ballots left to count reports, there should be about 57,000 WA-08 ballots left to count in King and about 13,000 in Pierce… but that just strikes me as way too low. This would produce a total turnout in WA-08 of about 223,000, compared to 336,499 in 2004 (a presidential election year and an open seat) and 203,335 in 2002 (a year when popular incumbent Jennifer Dunn faced no serious competition.) I find it hard to believe that turnout would be closer to 2002 than to 2004. But who knows?

And then there are the provisional ballots. Probably numbering in excess of 10,000 in King County alone. Just like in recounts, provisionals tend to favor Democrats, because let’s face it… on average, we simply have more trouble voting. These will be the last ballots to be counted, and could produce a several hundred vote surge for Burner at the very end.

So here’s my not very bold guess: only 40 to 60 percent of ballots have already been counted. That leaves plenty of room for Burner to erase a 2,700 vote deficit.

Both King and Pierce Counties updated their returns for WA-08, and while the margins have started to tighten, Dave Reichert continues to maintain about a 2,700 vote lead.

That said, there are many more ballots left to count in King than in Pierce, which historically only accounts for about 19 percent of the district’s total vote, and if this race follows the usual pattern, we should expect to see the margin continue to tighten as the votes come in, with Burner gradually eating away at Reichert’s lead. Whether she gains enough to overtake Reichert, well… that’s where the drama is.

You’ll notice that both campaigns have been pretty quiet today, not wanting to play the expectations game. I’m guessing that’s because neither campaign really knows which way this one’s going. Provisional ballots tend to substantially favor Democrats, and those will be the last to be counted, so don’t be surprised to see a sudden swing of several hundred votes towards Burner during the final days of the count.

I’m smelling a recount.

UPDATE:
Just to clarify: we don’t know exactly, because ballots are still coming in, but we’ve only counted about 60 percent of the ballots thus far, maybe less. So this thing is far from over.