I got a chance to debate Tim Eyman on I-892 before the Federal Way Chamber of Commerce today. While we’ve sparred a few times on the radio, it was the first time I’ve had the chance to go at him in person.

Before starting, Tim made a comment to the audience that this was going to be fun. It was. But not for him.

Perhaps he just thinks of me as an irreverent, name calling, prankster… but I’ve got a better grasp of his own initiative than he does. And, I’m so familiar with his rhetoric that I could routinely preempt his rebuttals in my own initial statements. He seemed annoyed at my ability to point out his lies and distortions, and tried to cover it up with his trademark shit-eating-grin.

Afterwards I received many positive comments from this pro-business audience, including several people who said they were reconsidering their support of I-892.

It’s amazing, how when armed with the facts, voters tend to make the right decisions at the polls.

The battle over I-892 is simple: it is the most massive expansion of gambling in state history, putting 18,255 slot machines into over 2000 neighborhood bars, restaurants, and bowling alleys scattered through nearly every community in the state… dramatically increasing access to the most addictive form of gambling ever devised.

If voters understand that, I-892 will lose.