Search Results for: vote seattle weekly

Today’s Seattle P-I covers the candidate filings for this year’s elections. And, once again, HA commenter and political troublemaker, Richard Pope’s name comes up:

Serial candidate and municipal gadfly Richard Pope filed against Councilwoman Jane Hague, R-Kirkland. Although he has run as a Republican in several past races, Pope is a Democrat this time.

Municipal gadfly? What is that supposed to mean? I mean, the papers refer to people as “gadflys” all the time, but municipal gadfly? The term aptly describes Will Baker who has been called that “Tacoma gadfly” (News Tribune, 10 Jun 2004, pg. B06), “[Tacoma’s] most vocal political gadfly” (Seattle P-I, June 5, 2004, pg. B3), and a Tacoma “council gadfly” (News Tribune, 26 Aug 2003, pg. B06).

And then there is Glenn Baldwin who earned the headline “Vancouver Council Gadfly Tosses His Hat in the Ring” in The Columbian (August 03, 1995, pg. A8):

Vancouver City Council candidate Glenn Baldwin says his attendance at council meetings is better than that of the incumbent he’s challenging.
[…]

Once a milk man in Vancouver, Baldwin spent most of his career driving delivery trucks for Blue Bell Potato Chips in Portland. He retired in 1992 and planned to complete several repairs to his house. Instead, he became a City Council gadfly, attending meetings and writing to the council and The Columbian.

The Seattle Weekly once ran an article about dangerous dogs (March 1, 2001, Pg. 16) and mentioned another municipal gadfly:

Mitzi Leibst, a former Army intelligence officer and longtime city gadfly, whose concerns actually extend well beyond last summer’s code changes. “For years and years and years,” she charges, “the city’s gotten away with this kind of fascist mentality on dog bites. Seattle is one of the few jurisdictions in the state that doesn’t allow you to have a dangerous dog. That’s just crazy.”

Crazy, indeed…all we really need is concealed canine permits. Leibst died before a series of high-profile pit bull attacks; she left a sizable sum to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

Now those are examples of municipal gadflies.

(Apparently other governmental bodies can have their own fly problem, like former port commissioner Jim Wright, who was called “a port gadfly” by the Seattle Times [12 Sep 1993, pg. B1].)

Richard is an eastsider, and his gadflightery isn’t limited to any municipality, level of government, or even political party. He is more of a generalized political gadfly (and a perennial candidate).

For example, Richard has recently won the love and adoration of State Republicans (like former truck mechanic and failed King County Executive candidate David Irons Jr. and Benton County Republican Party Chair Patrick McBurney) over his PDC complaints about GOP campaign reporting violations. Ever the multi-partisan, Pope has also filed an unsuccessful PDC complaint against the state Democrats, and an ethics complaint against Gov. Gregoire last fall over a dinner date.

And last year, in a move that Ralph Nader could be proud of, Pope threw the election for King County Judge; his candidacy knocked out incumbent Mary Ann Ottinger in the primary and resulted in a victory for Frank V. LaSalata.

Pope is more like his brother-in-perennial-candidacy Michael Shanks, a.k.a., Mike the Mover. Before becoming a perennial candidate, Mr. Mover fought tirelessly (and did some jail time) to get rid of licensing for movers. It earned him his own Seattle P-I (15 Sep 2004) headline calling him a “political gadfly.” The Spokesman Review (15 Sep 2004, A1) referred to him as “perennial political gadfly Mike the Mover.” Most recently Mr. Mover ran against Cantwell for the Senate.

Maybe Pope is more akin to Dale Washam, described as “an unsuccessful office-seeker and political gadfly” by the Columbian (05 Sep 1996, pg. A3). Washam is, perhaps, most famous for suing Newt Gingrich for stealing his ideas when Newt created the “Contract with America.”

Washam, 58, a former Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for the Puyallup School Board in 1991, Pierce County executive in 1992 and Pierce County auditor in 1993.

When Washam won the Republican nomination for auditor, the county GOP chairman said he was voting for the Democratic incumbent.

In each election, Washam filed a notarized “political employment contract” containing campaign promises and a pledge to resign if requested in petitions bearing the names of at least 51 percent of the voters in the last general election. Citizens who felt he violated his campaign promises also could try to oust him with a breach-of-contract suit, he said.

In a complaint, Washam said Gingrich, Eikenberry and the state GOP “plagiarized as their own the plaintiff’s Political Employment Contract idea, concept and contents when drafting their 1994 ‘Republican Contract with Washington State,’ the ‘Contract with America’ and the defendants’ book ‘Contract with America.’ ”

In any case, look for a highly parsimonious campaign from perpetual political gadfly and perennial candidate Richard Pope. Richard is always proud to point out his very high ratio of votes to campaign dollar invested.

1967:

On April 24, 1967, a group of college friends join together to form “Choose an Effective City Council” (CHECC) to reform Seattle City Government. CHECC members believe that incumbent Council members had been in office too long and had failed to effectively solve city problems. Besides city government reform, CHECC members were interested in inspiring like-minded younger people “with energy and vigor” to run for Seattle City Council positions. The citizen group would elect numerous City Council members through 1973, but its influence faded and it disbanded in 1977.

2007:

Might a slate be a good idea? Seattle politics were transformed by such an approach in 1967-77, when Choose an Effective City Council (CHECC) adopted such an approach, endorsing one Democrat and one Republican in each race and fairly quickly transforming and dramatically improving the council.

[…]

The advantages of a slate are that it induces better people to run for office (they can be more effective since there are supporting votes), provides a screening that produces better candidates, rewards working together, and gives greater consistency to policy over the years.

David Brewster has been around along time. He started the Seattle Weekly, which I’m told used to be better than The Stranger. He was also a big backer of Paul Schell for years and years. He currently publishes the online “newspaper” Crosscut and is also advocating for a big remodel at the Seattle Center.

But his “slate” idea is a relic of the past, and it ought to be killed off before somebody tries it again. Besides, the slate Brewster wants seems to be the one already on the job.

If there is any broad-based civic reform that ought to happen, it’s this one. Seattle Districts is supported by rightwing bloggers (Stefan!) and lefties too (like me!). Just like the old CHECC days when Republicans and Democrats worked together… But instead of electing different councilmembers, we’ll be electing councilmembers differently.

CHECC is so 1966.

For those who missed this week’s “The David Goldstein Show” (Newsradio 710-KIRO, Sunday nights from 7PM to 10PM,) the commercial-free podcasts are now available for your offline listening pleasure.

Hour 1: Are we on the brink of an historic military defeat in Iraq? Philip Gold is a former Senior Fellow in National Security Affairs at the conservative Seattle-based think tank the Discovery Institute. He predicted a Jihadist terrorist attack on US soil months before 9/11, and was one of the first prominent conservatives to warn that an Iraq invasion would lead to disaster. Now he fears that our current foreign policy could lead to our biggest ground defeat since the loss of the Philippines in 1942. Tune in and find out why this “former lifelong Republican” will be voting a straight Democratic ticket.

Hour 2: Q&A with Darcy and Peter. Two of the hottest House races in the nation are right here in Washington state, and both Democratic challengers, Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark, joined me to talk about the election and their legislative agenda.

Hour 3: Do you believe what you read in the papers? Well, maybe the comics. Former Seattle Weekly columnist Geov Parrish came into the studio to give his kiss-and-tell account of the alt-weekly’s recent political purge, and to join me in ragging on the local media in general. Believe it or not, we had some harsh things to say about the Seattle Times editorial board. Go figure.

We will soon make full archives available online at PodcastingLiberally.com, where you can always find my weekly podcast for the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally.

Both the Seahawks and the Eagles lost (a 61-yard field goal, dammit… what’s the chance of that?) so sit back and drown your sorrows in the intoxicating conversation on tonight’s “The David Goldstein Show” on Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM.

7PM: Are we on the brink of an historic military defeat in Iraq? I’ll be joined by Philip Gold, a former Senior Fellow in National Security Affairs at the conservative Seattle-based think tank the Discovery Institute. In the spring of 2002, Gold became one of the nation’s first prominent conservatives to oppose the upcoming Iraq war and the Bush/neocon agenda, and has since seen his dire predictions come true. In July of 2001 Gold predicted that Jihadist terrorist attacks were imminent. After 9/11 he warned that an Iraq invasion would lead to disaster. Tune in and find out why this lifelong Republican is voting a straight Democratic ticket in November’s election.

8PM: Q&A with Darcy and Peter. Two of the hottest congressional races in the nation are being waged right here in Washington state, and control of the House could lie in the balance. At 8PM, 8th Congressional District Democratic challenger Darcy Burner joins me for a campaign update, and to take your questions. At 8:30 we’ll be calling out East to the 5th Congressional District, where Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark is giving Republican incumbent Cathy McMorris fits. This is your chance to ask your future representatives about their legislative priorities in the new, Democratic controlled House.

9PM: Do you believe what you read in the papers? Former Seattle Weekly columnist Geov Parrish joins me for a tell-all about his old employer, and a blunt discussion about the state of the region’s print media. How much will we miss the Seattle P-I should Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen succeed in pushing it into its grave, and how damaged is the Times credibility from its relentless, self-serving shilling for estate tax repeal? Do you even bother to read the Times endorsements anymore, now that the only issue candidates are judged on is the estate tax?

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

UPDATE:
Darcy and Peter need your help! Click here to learn how and why, or simply give a few bucks directly through my Act Blue page.

I think it is fair to say that as a blogger, I cut my teeth and made my reputation covering the 2004 gubernatorial election contest. In fact I probably spent more time researching, analyzing and covering Borders v King County than the lawyers arguing the case. And so it was with some amusement that I read an email from my friend Richard Pope (a man for whom I do indeed hold an odd affection) about the outcome of the race for Republican Precinct Committee Officer in Seattle’s 43rd Legislative District Precinct 2064.

It turns out that Timothy Borders, the namesake for the Republican plaintiffs in the election contest lawsuit, narrowly lost his bid to become SEA 43-2064’s Republican PCO. To add insult to injury, he lost by only a single vote. His own.

52 ballots were cast in last month’s SEA 43-2064 primary — 47 with a Democratic preference, four without party preference and only one Republican. And of that single Republican ballot, Borders received exactly zero votes.

According to King County rules, a PCO must receive at least 10 percent of the total votes cast for the precinct’s top vote-getter in his or her party’s primary. And since there was only one Republican ballot cast, a single vote for Borders would have gotten him the job.

Or should I say, a single vote from Borders, since apparently Borders either didn’t vote, chose a Democratic ballot, or cast the sole GOP ballot in the precinct… but declined to vote for himself.

Hey Tim, if you decide to contest this election too, I promise I’ll be all over it.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its much anticipated “Kentucky River Decision” today, and it pretty much went exactly as expected. Voting along party lines, the Republican dominated NLRB gutted long-time federal labor laws by allowing employers to reclassify up to 8 million workers as “supervisors,” thus prohibiting them from forming unions.

That’s right, millions of American workers have just lost their fundamental right to organize. Lost it. Completely. It will now be illegal for them to join unions.

I could spend pages wonkishly boring you with the legal details, but why bother reinventing the wheel when Stephen Colbert has already done such a fine job of summarizing the larger issue?

The labor movement is directly responsible for winning American workers the rights and standards we all enjoy today… you know, little things like a living wage (well, some of us,) workplace safety, the 40-hour work week, um… the weekend. In fact, many historians would argue that the labor movement played a pivotal role in saving our nation from the threat of Communism during the 1930’s — certainly, many Communist historians might argue this, seeing as one of the first thing totalitarian regimes do is ban independent labor unions. (Remember how Solidarity helped bring down the Polish government, and led the way for the rest of the Eastern Block? That’s what they’re afraid of.)

No wonder then that Human Rights Watch lists the US alongside many Third World nations as a violator of basic human rights, due to the degree to which we restrict the freedom of association and the freedom to form unions.

Each year thousands of workers in the United States are spied on, harassed, pressured, threatened, suspended, fired, deported or otherwise victimized by employers in reprisal for their exercise of the right to freedom of association. In the 1950’s, victims numbered in the hundreds each year. In 1969, the number was more than 6,000. By the 1990’s, more than 20,000 workers each year were dismissed or otherwise victims of discrimination serious enough for the government-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to issue a reinstatement and “back-pay” or other remedial order…

Loophole-ridden laws, paralyzing delays, and feeble enforcement have created a culture of impunity in many areas of U.S. labor law and practice. Employers intent on resisting workers’ self-organization can drag out legal proceedings for years, fearing little more than an order to post a written notice in the workplace promising not to repeat unlawful conduct.

Human Rights Watch found that millions of workers, including farm workers, household domestic workers, and low-level supervisors, were expressly excluded from protection under the law guaranteeing the right of workers to organize. In Washington and North Carolina, Human Rights Watch found evidence of campaigns of intimidation against migrant workers.

Other findings included: one-sided rules for union organizing that unfairly favor employers over workers, allowing such tactics as “captive-audience meetings” where managers predict workplace closures if workers vote for union representation; workers being caught up in a web of labor contracting and subcontracting that effectively denied them the right to organize and bargain with the employers holding the real power over their jobs and working conditions; employers having the legal power to permanently replace workers who exercise the right to strike; and harsh rules against “secondary boycotts” that frustrate worker solidarity efforts.

The Kentucky River Decision is a direct assault on the right to organize that will have an immediate impact on workers nationwide, and will likely lead to disruptive, wildcat strikes. Locally, Virginia Mason has already announced plans to reclassify its 600 registered nurses as “supervisors,” effectively busting the state nurses union. Nationally, as many as 300,000 nurses face a similar fate.

While this is what surely comes from the Republicans’ relentless efforts to permanently tilt the playing field to the advantage of their corporatist sponsors, their primary motivation is actually much simpler.

Democrats, already at a distinct fundraising disadvantage, heavily rely on Labor money to support their issues and candidates. Destroy labor and you defund the Democratic Party. Defund the Democratic Party and you effectively buy yourself a one-party state. To the Republicans on the NLRB, Kentucky River isn’t about workers’ rights, it’s about political domination.

Majorities matter.

Way back in May I skewered GOP senate wannabe Mike?™ McGavick for being a foreign policy lightweight. Given the opportunity to pen a major foreign policy op-ed for the national publication The Weekly Standard, McGavick devoted a thousand words to arguing that the best means towards confronting Iran’s nuclear ambitions was to ban its soccer team from World Cup competition.

No… really.

I criticized McGavick’s proposal as simplistic, ill-informed, and contrary to the very ideal of international competition. McGavick cited similar sanctions against South Africa’s rugby team during the 1970’s, but those were aimed at the white, minority electorate who held political control, whereas I argued that McGavick’s World Cup ban would have targeted the Iranian people, only feeding into anti-American sentiment.

But nearly five months later I am now ashamed to admit that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agrees with me. Ouch.

As the Seattle Times’ David Postman points out over on his blog, Condi gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal editorial board yesterday in which she disses the soccer ban proposal during a discussion on embargoes:

“One of the problems that we have is if indeed you would like not to have a situation in which you reinforce the leadership’s desire to make their people feel that America is anti-Iranian people, then you want to stay away from things that have a bad effect on the Iranian people to the degree that you can. You know, we’ve talked

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Today is a day full of accomplishments for Goldy. The only problem is, he is largely unplugged and off in the boondocks somewhere trying to vacation or something.

First, he has the distinction of appearing in two pieces in the Seattle Weekly today. The Weekly came out with their Best of Seattle issue, and it looks like, once again, HorsesAss has been voted the Best Local Blog.

David Goldstein’s HORSESASS.ORG blog is the one you like best, presumably because it is reliably liberal, ruthless, and funny. Goldstein also helps host and promote the local Drinking Liberally club gatherings at the Montlake Alehouse, where pols and wonks make regular appearances. Those events are recorded and disseminated via podcast. And this year, Goldstein expanded his liberal empire to the airwaves of KIRO-AM (710), where he holds forth Sunday evenings.

“Liberal empire.” Cool!

Last year, Goldy ran something of a campaign to win the honor. This year, however, I didn’t hear a peep out of Mr. Goldstein about it.

I noticed that Tim Eyman was voted Best Fish Market this year. Oh…wait… that was Best activist/hell-raiser. WTF? I guess voting took place before the I-917 debacle. Feel the love:

TIM EYMAN? You voted for Tim Eyman? The washed-up, citizens-initiative-addicted watch salesman whose obsession with monkey-wrenching worthy public spending knows no bounds? The guy who recently delivered petitions in Olympia wearing a Buzz Lightyear costume? This is some sort of counterintuitive subliminal message you’re sending, right?

Given his spectacular string of failures lately, I suspect this will be Tim’s last “activist award” for awhile. Well…unless he uses The Force….

Speaking of Hell Raisers! Goldy also made the front page of the Weekly online edition for another reason:

Democratic activist, blogger, and KIRO-AM radio host David Goldstein confirms that he played a role in the lawsuit filed on Tues., Aug. 1, against Republican U.S. Senate candidate and former Safeco CEO Mike McGavick. KING-5’s Robert Mak first reported that Goldstein had provided a crucial nexus in the lawsuit.

Wow…Goldy is now a “crucial nexus!”

David Postman at the Seattle Times follows the story up with some incredible journalism!

(Speaking of Postman, he was awarded the Weekly’s Critics’ Pick for Best Mainstream-Media Blog. Congratulations!)

Back to Goldy. If all that isn’t enough, I noticed today that sometime within the last 24 hours, HorsesAss had its millionth visitor (937,000 tallied visitors plus an estimated 63,000 before Sitemeter was installed).

Man…you guys really do like Goldy!

“There’s no such thing as bad press. That’s just the reality.”
— Tim Eyman, June 5, Spokane Spokesman-Review

“I know that government can sometimes screw up, but I know that you can sometimes screw up. And I know that government can sometimes be dishonest, but I know you can sometimes be dishonest.”
— KVI host John Carlson to Tim Eyman, 07/24/06

Professional initiative sponsor Tim Eyman had lied to reporters once again, and man were they pissed off.

It was June 5, just one day before the deadline to turn in signatures for R-65, a referendum that would have put a repeal of our state’s gay civil rights statute on the November ballot. Tim had announced he would be dropping off petitions at the Secretary of State’s office, implying that a last minute push had gathered the requisite signatures. I suppose that would have been big news, so a sizable crowd of print, radio and TV reporters showed up for the event, many driving all the way from Seattle to Olympia that morning, cameras in tow.

But it was classic bait and switch. There were no R-65 petitions to be dropped off that morning (or ever.) Instead, ridiculously garbed in a rented Darth Vader costume, Tim mocked the assembled throng of journalists, refusing to answer questions about R-65 in favor of plugging I-917, his anti-Sound Transit initiative.

“Feel like you’ve been duped?” Eyman associate Mike Fagan asked reporters. “Well, you have.”

This wasn’t the first time Eyman had blatantly lied to the media — hell, it wasn’t even the first time he’d called a press conference under false pretenses. But while the journalists that day were openly hostile, Tim was unapologetic. To Tim, any stunt, any lie, is worth it if it gets his name in print or his face in front of the cameras. “There’s no such thing as bad press,” Tim told reporters that day, repeating a maxim that has defined his career. “That’s just the reality.”

Uh-huh.

The problem is, Tim and reality have been on tenuous terms for quite some time. It is one thing to spout simplistic, absolutist talking points when promoting a ballot measure, but it’s another thing entirely to actually start believing them. In fact, there is such a thing as bad press, and this week Tim has been receiving it in spades. And from some unlikely sources.

When Eyman turned in the petitions for I-917 he claimed to have collected over 300,000 signatures, more than enough cushion to virtually guarantee qualifying for the November ballot. Yet as I reported last week, Secretary of State Sam Reed’s office counted only 266,000… a number that puts the initiative on the bubble. Well, on Monday, Timmy held an early morning press conference to essentially accuse Reed — a fellow Republican — of losing or stealing 35,000 signatures.

And… well… apparently, nobody believes him. (Tim, that is.)

And I mean nobody. As the Seattle Times’ David Postman pointedly observed, even the reliably knee-jerk pages of (un)Sound Politics dumped on Tim, with the alliteratively named Eric Earling gently calling attention to Eyman’s “problems with the truth” while our good friend Stefan could only muster a meek rebuttal by accusing his co-blogger of inheriting an establishment position on transportation issues, but ignoring Earling’s critique of Tim’s honesty.

But it was in his formerly safe refuge of conservative talk radio where Timmy suffered the most abuse from hosts and callers alike. My 710-KIRO colleague Dori Monson, who is normally pretty quick to blame government incompetency and dishonesty for everything from moral decline to his morning halitosis, clearly wasn’t buying Timmy’s explanation that it was Reed who screwed up. And KVI’s John Carlson, who has worked with Eyman on past initiatives, all but accused Tim of lying. No wait… he did accuse Tim of lying.

I was particularly amused to hear Eyman talk about his own “meticulous record keeping” as evidence that it is his signature count that we should blindly trust rather than that of the SOS… incredible hubris coming from the guy who infamously couldn’t keep his personal finances separate from his campaign finances. But even funnier still is the fact that Eyman’s claims of “weekly reports” and “meticulous record keeping” is directly contradicted by his own statements in regard to R-65.

He wasn’t turning in any petitions. In fact, he said he didn’t know how many signatures had been gathered so far.

“Frankly, we have no idea,” Eyman said, standing there in his knee boots, cape and plastic codpiece. He then launched into a public appeal for supporters to bring their petitions to Olympia.

“Frankly, we have no idea.” And that was the day before the June 6 signature deadline. Yeah… talk about meticulous record keeping.

So either Tim is lying about his meticulous recording keeping now, or he was lying about not having meticulous record keeping then. Either way, he’s a liar. Which I suppose explains why those who know Tim best — you know, people like John Carlson — simply don’t believe him.

All this makes Eyman’s sugar daddy, Michael Dunmire look particularly naive, paranoid and foolish.

Naive? Dunmire, who says he’s preparing to write another $100,000 check to Eyman’s personal compensation fund, told Postman that he’s absolutely confident of the weekly signature reports he saw.

“They keep track. They live and die by them. They’re not wrong.”

Paranoid? What explains the 35,000 signature discrepancy?

“There are a lot of entities that don’t want I-917. They have their own techniques. They send out goon squads to intimidate petitioners. That never gets covered. We play it straight up.”

Foolish? When asked how much money he’d given Eyman this year, Dunmire wasn’t sure:

“Haven’t a clue. When I get a compulsion and think that’s a good place to make a contribution, I write a check. And I don’t keep track.”

He doesn’t keep track? How the fuck did this guy get to be a multi-millionaire?

So here we have an admitted liar who claims he has “no idea” how many signatures he has the day before they’re due, financed by some clueless rich guy who doesn’t “keep track” of the checks he writes… and he acts surprised when we take the word of Secretary of State Sam Reed over his?

The only question I have is not if Eyman is lying about the signature count, but when he started lying about it… and I can’t help but suspect that he knew he was shorting the SOS the day he turned in the petitions. For one of the more bizarre elements of this story is the small piece of notebook paper, date stamped by an SOS clerk, on which Tim hand wrote the number “300,353”… a document Tim calls a “receipt” that verifies his count.

Yeah, right. As if we’re all a bunch of idiots.

I’ve watched Tim turn in petitions for past initiatives, and I’ve never seen him provide or ask for a signature count “receipt” like this before. In fact, I asked Election Director Nick Handy if to his recollection this was standard practice for Eyman or any other initiative sponsor. Handy wrote back:

We are not familiar with Tim Eyman requesting a stamp on a document like this in the past, nor are we familiar with any other sponsors requesting this.

I understand that he was requesting the receptionist at Secretary of State’s Office in the Capitol Building to stamp this while he knew our staff was actually counting the pages at the Elections Office a few blocks away. So, he knew at the time that our office did not know how many signatures were being submitted.

So, um… if Eyman had never asked for a receipt like this before, and he knew that the Elections Office didn’t yet know the number of signatures… why did he bother having this document date stamped?

Because he thinks we’re all a bunch of idiots, that’s why. Because he knew he was short, and he knew he needed something to wave in front of reporters so that he could claim that he was being cheated. Because he thinks the press and the public are as dumb as his patron Michael Dunmire, some rich guy with the gall to think he knows best how to balance a state budget when he doesn’t even bother to balance his own checkbook.

In the end it’s not the lying that’s earning Tim all the bad press — reporters have long known he’s a liar. No, what’s pissing off journalists is that Tim is deliberately wasting their time, disrespecting their profession and insulting their intelligence.

Few people know more about what it takes to qualify an initiative for the ballot than John Carlson — indeed, it was John who saved Tim’s ass on I-200. And yet Tim had the nerve to go on John’s show and wave that scrap of paper around like it was meaningful? Tim had the gall to challenge John when asked why he didn’t photocopy his petitions… like every other experienced initiative sponsor does? Tim treated John and his audience like idiots, and they took him to the mat.

I have been criticized for vilifying Tim Eyman the man while his initiatives have continued to prove popular at the polls (though I should point out that in the three elections since I’ve come on the scene, Tim has only passed a single measure, the largely superfluous I-900.) And while it is true that most voters don’t cast their ballots based on who the initiative sponsor is, this critique misses the role of the press in promoting Eyman and his initiatives, particularly the inexplicable generosity our state’s newspapers have shown in granting him celebrity-status access to their op/ed pages.

Tim has repeatedly lied on his petitions, lied to voters, lied to his own contributors, and unapologetically lied to the press. It begs the question: at what point will Eyman’s credibility be so tarnished — so utterly destroyed — that op/ed editors finally start rejecting his frequent guest column submissions the way they do those of nearly every other crank and political crackpot?

Perhaps, that point has been reached now?

Tune in tonight on 710-KIRO from 7 to 10PM, for the Puget Sound region’s only unabashedly liberal talk radio show:

7PM: The Stranger’s Eli Sanders is back from Vegas where he witnessed the blogger revolution at Yearly Kos. He’ll fill us in on the details, and maybe give us a first hand account of Tim Eyman’s failure in Olympia this week.

8PM: Chris Van Dyk from Citizens for More Important Things will join us to talk the Sonics, Key Arena, and his group’s Initiative 91 to prohibit public subsidies of professional sports stadiums. Are the Sonics worth $200 million in taxpayer money? How about the Storm? Or do we have other priorities? (You know, things like schools.)

9PM: Was the 2004 Presidential election stolen? The Seattle Weekly’s Geov Parrish joins me to talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stunning expose on Rolling Stone, and why the traditional media won’t cover it. What does this mean for WA state and our move to all vote-by-mail?

Tune in or stream live and join the debate tonight from 7 to 10PM. Call me at 877-710-KIRO (5476) or leave a comment here, and I promise I’ll actually try to read the thread.

It was a special, bipartisan edition of Drinking Liberally last night, as we welcomed King County Journal reporter and self-described righty Don Ward to the podcast. Don comments as "Reporterward" (get it?) on HorsesAss.org and (un)Sound Politics, and happily reports that none of us liberals smell. Well… except for Will.

Joining me, Don and Will in our weekly game of "Left, Right and Joel" were Mollie, Carl, and Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, who has lost his designation as a "special guest" by pretty much becoming a regular. Topics of discussion included Bush’s plan to demilitarize our borders by sending troops there, what’s the matter with Spokane, vote-by-mail, and the blog wars.

The show is 58:20, and is available here as a 36.7 MB MP3. Please visit PodcastingLiberally.com for complete archives and RSS feeds.

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for producing the show.]

Geov Parrish has a piece in the current issue of the Seattle Weekly on Green Party senate candidate Aaron Dixon, and while I disagree with Geov’s broad condemnation of Sen. Maria Cantwell’s voting record, I know from our conversations that we share a lot of common ground… like our mutual criticism of the Greens’ failure to do the hard work necessary to build itself into a real party.

For example, if I were advising Dixon, I think maybe my first recommendation would be to, gee… I dunno… register to vote?

Yeah, that’s right… apparently the man so disgusted with Cantwell and the Dems that he’s willing to pour his energies into giving voters a third choice, isn’t even an active voter himself!

Go look it up in our good friend Stefan’s voter registration database, and you’ll find an Aaron L. Dixon, born Jan. 2, 1949, who registered to vote in 1998 at an address on the 500 block of 29th AVE S. But he’s listed as “inactive,” and there’s no record that he’s ever been credited with voting.

I suppose Stefan’s data could be wrong (it’s been known to happen) so I’ve made repeated inquiries with Dixon’s media contact (his wife Farah), and so far she has been unable to confirm or deny his voter registration status. She said she thought he voted in the last election, but King County’s voter database clearly doesn’t credit him with casting a ballot. And to further cloud his registration status is the fact that while he claims to live in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, the address on his inactive registration is smack dab in the Central District.

Perhaps there’s a reasonable explanation, and if so, I’ll print a retraction. (And if there is an explanation, then they need to get their media shit together, because I gave them every opportunity to refute this.) But it sure doesn’t look like during the past few years, Dixon has been much of an active voter.

So why the hell is he running for the US Senate?

Now I don’t want to get all high and mighty on him, but in my book, you don’t have much right to criticize the electoral process if you don’t participate. And if anybody should understand the importance of minority communities exercising their voting rights, it’s a longtime activist and former Black Panther Party leader like Aaron Dixon.

I mean, really… who the hell is Dixon to talk about “all the people fed up with the current political system” if he doesn’t vote?

One couldn’t help but wonder if the Greens’ recruitment of Dixon was demographically cynical considering his prior lack of history with the party, but an active voter registration is a technical prerequisite of candidacy, so you’d think they would have at least inquired about that one, basic qualification for office, huh? And it doesn’t say much about their GOTV potential when they can’t even get the top of their ticket to reliably turn out at the polls.

I personally sympathize with the Green agenda, but am endlessly disappointed by their half-assed and counterproductive strategy and execution. And as Geov points out, I’m not the only one giving a hostile welcome to Dixon’s largely fictional candidacy:

So far, the reaction to Dixon’s campaign among many progressive Democratic activists has been negative. In Seattle, Dixon’s home base, progressive bloggers mostly ignored or excoriated his campaign. Not one speaker on a panel of six of the most prominent local progressive bloggers, including myself, at last week’s “Podcasting Liberally” (www.podcastingliberally.com) defended Dixon’s campaign. Most, while professing sympathy for green ideals, savaged it and the Greens. What’s wrong?

“Aaron Dixon started out the campaign with two lies,” says David Goldstein of HorsesAss.org, Seattle’s best-known progressive blogger and a fierce critic of Dixon. “The first one being, ‘I can win’; the second one being, ‘There’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats.'”

Though in all fairness, I suppose when it comes to the vote you don’t cast, there really is no difference between which party doesn’t get it.

The other day I pleaded with my fellow progressives to get real and accept the fact that our choice this November is between Cantwell and McGavick, and that sometimes, life forces us to compromise. I don’t expect the race to be nearly as close as it was in 2000, but if it is, even a pathetic showing by Dixon could be enough to give President Bush another rubber stamp in the Senate. And the political ramifications could be much broader.

Goldstein also points not only to the infamous “spoiler” factor but to the impact of Dixon’s presence on the ballot if the race between Cantwell and Republican challenger Mike McGavick changes from a comfortable Democratic win to a closer race of, say, 5 percent.

The loser, Goldstein says, will be Darcy Burner, whose challenge of U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert in the 8th Congressional District east of Lake Washington is the state’s second-biggest race this year. If Cantwell’s race is close, the theory goes, it costs Burner both campaign money and media exposure that will flow to the Senate race instead. That, Goldstein says, would hurt the chance to elect a progressive to Congress in a winnable race, all for Dixon’s quixotic bid.

Of course, Dixon disagrees… but then, what does he know about electoral politics? He doesn’t even vote.

A couple tidbits from AP state political writer Dave Ammons’ weekly column, that puts the Cantwell-McGavick race in perspective:

–DUELING POLLS. Last week’s report mentioned a Republican poll that showed Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., with just an eight point lead over her likely GOP challenger, Mike McGavick. Big trouble? Now independent pollster Stuart Elway reports Cantwell with a runaway 30-point lead – 55 percent definitely voting for her or inclined to do so, versus 25 percent inclined or definitely voting McGavick’s way. Elway interviewed 405 voters by phone Feb. 6-9; margin of error plus or minus five percentage points.

-BUSH DRAG. Elway said his polls show Cantwell’s popularity gaining over the past five years and that the state is “darker blue” this year. Referring to President Bush’s dismal numbers here, Elway says “Cantwell will try in this campaign to make McGavick’s middle initial `W.'” Thus far, McGavick hasn’t shown voters a compelling reason to dump Cantwell, he says.

A 30-point lead amongst firm voters… and this is before the dirt starts flying against former insurance industry CEO and lobbyist McGavick. (And as one of the state’s leading muckrakers, I promise you, dirt will fly.) Cantwell’s base, as reflected in the Elway Poll, also doesn’t likely include support from many disenchanted members of the left wing of the Democratic Party, who would prefer a more uniformly liberal nominee, but most of whom will eventually cast their votes for Cantwell.

Sen. Cantwell is a proven leader on environmental, energy, and port security issues, and as Elway points out, her popularity continues to grow. Not only is McGavick faced with the daunting task of providing a compelling reason to dump Cantwell, the reason must be so compelling as to convince independents (and even some moderate Republicans) that it’s worth the risk of handing the Bush administration the 60-vote majority needed to shut down all Democratic filibusters… like the one Sen. Cantwell successfully led to block oil drilling in the sensitive Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

As if there aren’t enough real sex offenders in WA, the state GOP is apparently fictionalizing new ones.

Yesterday I did a quick hit on the state GOP’s vile “sex offender” mailing, not realizing that the image I used came from VanBlog, the new blog from Vancouver, WA’s Vanguard weekly newspaper. This oversight on my part is doubly disappointing, because I’ve been meaning to plug VanBlog and writer Jon DeVore, whose now defunct (and much missed) Columbian Watch was one of my favorite WA state blogs.

Jon is working on a piece about the scandal for Vanguard, and has provided updated information in my comment threads. And yes… I think it appropriate to start calling this disgusting misinformation campaign a “scandal.”

In my original post I said the Republican hit piece was “based on a lie,” an assertion perennial HA reader/GOP candidate Richard Pope objected, I had not backed up with facts. However, the lie to which I referred was the general lie of this whole campaign of lies… that the Democrats’ rejection of a procedural stunt on the first day of session was in any way a rejection of a particular policy or objective. I had actually assumed that the “sex offender” shown on the post card was an actual “sex offender” who actually lived in Rep. Deb Wallace’s 17th district. I mean… the Republicans wouldn’t be so stupid as to mock up a fake sex offender, would they?

Well… apparently… they might.

Jon explains in my comment thread that he has been trying to match the man pictured to known sex offenders, without any luck:

I did have someone sit down and go through ALL of the Clark County Level II and Level III sex offenders (the ones there are pictures for) on the state web site. (http://ml.waspc.org/) He found NOBODY that even remotely resembles the person in the mailer in Clark County.

I personally went through every photo of someone listed for “rape of a child” in Clark County myself today, with no matches.

And the usually staunchly partisan Richard reports similar results from his own research, eventually concluding:

Looks like the GOP mailing will backfire and generate a bunch of negative publicity. I can’t believe they were so stupid as to make up an alleged offender out of whole cloth. I wonder whether any of the 62 REAL Level III sex offenders listed for Clark County are quite as bad of character as the fictional fellow’s history portrays him to be.

Unfortunately, lost in the Republican’s cruel, insensitive, and stunningly stupid misinformation campaign — what Seattle P-I columnist Thomas Shapley calls “a cheap and shameful political stunt” — is a rational public debate over our sex offender laws, and what can be done to strengthen them.

For example, one of the most controversial provisions of our current law offers shorter sentences to offenders who abuse family members, as opposed to strangers… what our friend Richard cynically denigrates as a “Friends and Family discount.” But as Shapley points out, there’s actually a rationale behind this provision.

Coursing though all those debates is the understanding that the toughest prison sentence can be irrelevant without a conviction. Especially when family members are accused, there are demonstrable links between the severity of the potential sentence and the child victim’s willingness to testify or even report the sexual abuse. Do you really want to send Daddy or Uncle Harry to prison? It’s just another facet in the victimization of the child, of course, but it is a factor.

The true predators take smarmy advantage of this conundrum, using their position of trust and affection to prey on children, only to have the relationship they have perverted to their own gratification serve as a shield against prosecution or as a get-out-of-jail-free card into deferred prosecution and treatment.

“What’s a little child sexual abuse between friends and family?” … one might assume that’s the Democratic platform according to the vile, Republican rhetoric we’ve been hearing. But in fact, our current law was crafted the way it is at the urging of prosecutors. It may make for good political demagoguery to call for harsher sentences, but if the result is that fewer offenders are convicted, we’ll only be putting young victims at even greater risk.

And that, of course, is the larger risk of exploiting emotional issues like this to vilify your opponents: it short-circuits an informed public debate, raising the potential of bad policy and unintended consequences.

The truth is, this postcard was never about urging Rep. Wallace to protect children, it was about defeating her in the November election. So instead of conjuring up a fictional child molester, why not just cut to the chase, and paste Rep. Wallace’s photo onto the postcard? After all, that’s the message Republican strategists are really trying to send to voters.

UPDATE:
Further evidence of the GOP’s fake “sex offender” comes from a diary on Daily Kos that shows the exact same postcard, but this time addressed to voters in Rep. Bill Grant’s 16th District.

The postcards boldly warn voters “This violent sex predator lives in your community.” I hadn’t realized that the GOP’s sense of community was so broad that it spanned multiple legislative districts.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
Collect them all! We now have images of postcards from the 16th and 17th districts. If anybody has a postcard from another district, please send me an image.

I suppose I should have posted my endorsements before most people voted… but then I’ve never claimed to be as responsible, forward thinking and independent conservative as say… the Seattle Times editorial board. (Tip to future candidates: the secret to gaining the Times’ endorsement is to rail against the estate tax and shoot a few dogs.)

Anyway… for what it’s worth, here are my choices in a handful of contested races. Ignore them if you choose… just get out there and vote.

King County Council District 1: Carolyn Edmunds

I know I probably should like Bob Ferguson, what with all his grassroots, door-belling, bus riding, status quo stomping, gosh darn hard-workin’-guy style of politics… but I don’t. Where others see a refreshing independent voice, I see a calculating, ambitious politician, carefully cultivating his contrarian reputation.

Carolyn Edmunds, on the other hand, is a Democrat, with an established record and strong connections to community groups throughout her district. The way I look at it, outside of District 1 there’s going to be four Democrats and four Republicans on the council. Elect Edmunds and you give the D’s a reliable 5-4 majority. Elect Ferguson and he becomes an unpredictable swing vote.

For my peace of mind, vote for Edmunds.

King County Council District 9: Steve Hammond

Devout Democrat as I am, if I lived in District 9 I’d be grabbing a Republican ballot and casting my vote for Steve Hammond. Not that I like Hammond’s politics… he’s an arch-Conservative Christian preacher with an overbearing, holier-than-thou demeanor and a complete and utter lack of political nuance. But he is what he is, and pretty honestly represents his district.

On the other hand, who the hell knows who Raymond Shaw Reagan Dunn really is? He’s been running like an arch-Conservative Christian preacher with an overbearing, holier-than-thou demeanor and a complete and utter lack of political nuance… but it just comes across as so much grandstanding. I think he made a miscalculation running towards the right, as first impressions count. Republicans need to run towards the middle to win broadly in King County and WA state, and while he likely has the money, the consultants, and the name to overcome these early missteps, I think we’ll all be better off if this GOP golden boy learns a few lessons from stumbling early.

Clearly, a mere council seat is beneath a man of such lofty political pedigree, so we might as well give it to a candidate who genuinely sees the council as an opportunity to serve his community (however misguided his politics), rather than just as a springboard to higher office. Vote for Steve Hammond.

Seattle City Council, Position 2: Richard Conlin

I dunno… I’m just not feeling that “throw the bum out” spirit this year. Conlin’s not given me any reason to dump him, and his opponents haven’t given me any reason to give them a try… and then the Times sealed the deal by endorsing Paige Miller. Vote for Richard Conlin.

Seattle City Council, Position 4: Linda Averill

Fuck The Stranger! I mean really… fuck them! I was so absolutely sure that I would be the only person to the right of Trotsky’s ghost endorsing Linda Averill… and then those cirrhotic fuckers at The Stranger steal my thunder. Well fuck them.

Why Averill? Well mostly I just wanted to piss off my righty trolls by endorsing the only Freedom Socialist Party candidate on the ballot. And… well… The Stranger actually makes some good points in her defense. (But fuck them anyway.) But if you really can’t bring yourself to vote for Averill, I’d just like to remind you that Casey Corr was once an editorial writer for the Times. Need I say more?

Seattle City Council, Position 8: Dwight Pelz

I know I said I don’t have that “throw the bum out” spirit, and I really don’t want to throw out Richard McIver… but damn it, the Council needs an asshole like Dwight Pelz to get in Greg Nickels’ face from time to time. (And Dwight… I mean “asshole” in the best sense of the word.) Truth is, I really haven’t made up my mind on this race yet, and just want to see Pelz and McIver face off in the general election. So whatever you do, don’t vote for Robert Rosencrantz.

Port of Seattle: Molloy, Hara and Pope

No surprise on my first endorsement. Lawrence Molloy is every liberal’s favorite incumbent in this year’s Port Commission elections. The Weekly endorsed him. The Stranger endorsed him. The P-I endorsed him. The Times didn’t. Need I say more? (Plus, I met him last night at the Red Cross fundraiser, and not only is he articulate and knowledgeable, he came across as a nice guy.) Vote for Molloy for Position 1.

Position 3 was a tough one for me. I really, really wanted to endorse Peter Coates, a reform candidate with strong Labor backing… but the pragmatic, good-government Dukakis-Democrat in me thought, gee, I dunno… maybe the Port could use a former City Treasurer and County Auditor like Lloyd Hara. And then the Times ruins everything for me, by endorsing Hara too. Well… screw the Times… I’m voting for Hara anyway.

For Position 4, I’m standing by my man: perennial candidate and HA regular Richard Pope. Sure, Richard’s a little nutty, and he’s probably unqualified for the job, but he’s got a couple good points to make about the Port being a drain on taxpayers, and what the hell… he doesn’t stand a chance of winning anyway. If you really don’t want to throw away your vote, Jack Jolley’s your man… but I’m voting for Richard.

Seattle Popular Monorail Authority: Stockmeyer and Goldberg

The Monorail looks so dead right now, it’s really hard to get too excited over these races, but whoever wins, I think their first act should be to remove the word “Popular” from the authority’s name.

Cleve Stockmeyer is an easy choice for Position 9. Yeah… he wants to build the Monorail, but he’s a pragmatist, a principled good-government activist, and an all around good guy. In the proudest tradition of representative democracy, I trust Cleve to make an informed decision on my behalf.

I’m not so enthusiastic about Beth Goldberg, who is clearly running to kill the Monorail, whatever the circumstances or final proposal. Yet she grudgingly earns my reluctant endorsement because, as her opponent Cindi Laws knows, all us Jews stick together… so I really don’t have a choice. Mazel tov on my endorsement, Beth.