I can’t believe I’m talking about 2012, but Bob Ferguson threw his hat in the ring for AG so I guess now is as good a time as any. Mostly, I just want to say that there are going to be Democratic primaries in several races, and that’s a good thing. In a lot of executive positions, at least the governor and AG, we’ll probably have more than one Democrat. These primaries have a tendency to get heated.
And thank goodness. Primary elections are the best way we have to clarify what the party stands for. There may be different ideas or perhaps just different emphasis and style. But we’ll get to have a debate about where we want the party to go and how best to achieve it. And all of us who make phone calls or knock on doors or write blog posts and comments or do any of the thousands of things that regular people do in the course of a campaign can all be a part of it in a meaningful way.
Sure we have a platform to work out where we stand officially on issues. And the platform is important. But the truth is that outside of the platform committees at various levels of the state party, people don’t think of the platform very much. You won’t see a headline, “Democrats still support labor rights according to platform” because it’s hardly news.
But you will read plenty of articles about the various stances of candidates, especially for governor. You’ll get to see them debate on TV.
And that media, especially if there’s a legitimate question about who we’re going to nominate, is worth more than whatever the eventual nominee loses by having a negative campaign against them in the primary. The candidates will have time to craft their message on television, reporters will return their calls much earlier, they’ll do stories on them.
All this is to say, we don’t know everyone who will run for governor (although I can make an educated guess about some), but I hope the Democrats resist the urge to clear the deck and unite behind a candidate. We’ll have time to unite around whoever does win a primary, but let’s let the voters decide first.
And the platform is important.
Were that were so.
I suppose it is fun for some to watch a fist fight but I have not been impressed that the Dem. Party (or the Rep Party either) uses the primary system in this state very well.
Tell you what, find me a credible person to displace Brad Owen and I might take the Dems more seriously. Any party that can’t fix that broken cylinder ought not to be building buggies!
As for AG and Gov, I wish the folks I respect in State Dem politics, eg Murry, would help me by endorsing a good person. Otherwise I expect to see two palookahs swing the usual mud at each other in asinine 15 second commercials.
Carl, your point of view would be much more at home in a state with a closed primary, or even an open primary — but in Washington with our top-two creation, I’m not so sure.
In a wide open race for a down-ballot position, there’s no guarantee at all that one Democrat and one Republican will face off in November. And of course genuine 3rd-party candidates are left out in the cold, a fact deemed inconsequential by the Supreme Court.
@3,
I’ve had 2 Democrats make it through a primary for my LD since we switched, and I wish we had a better primary. But we’ve got the one we’ve got and most of the time it’ll be 1 D and 1 R who get through. So while I share your concern, I think it’s a bad idea for the parties to stack the deck before the voters get a chance.
@4
Your LD?
Are there Republicans in that District?
Does an R get to the final?
Jay Inslee needs to announce what we all know he’s going to do–run for governor. I can’t imagine there would be someone running against him in the primary who I would vote for. Go Jay!
@6, Agreed. And then we’d like to know who’s going to go after Jay’s congressional seat shortly thereafter.
Look at primaries as boot-camp training to prepare our candidates to face Republicans, who as we all know, have no morals or scruples whatsoever.
Unemployment back up to 410,000 new requests..Great job Dems.
At that rate these elections will be a breeze!
Oh what a shame, that SEUI would have to pay into any of their benefit plans…tsk tsk tsk
Watch Wisconsin: SEIU, teachers’ unions attempt state hijacking over cuts
GOP Gov. Scott Walker is walking the fiscal responsibility walk — and those who have lived high on the hog are squealing every step of the way from the trough:
More than 10,000 union supporters flooded the State Capitol on Tuesday to voice their opposition of a bill that seeks to save money by stripping nearly all collective bargaining rights from the majority of public workers.
Under Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal, almost every public employee would have to contribute 5.8 percent toward their pensions, and state workers would pay 12.6 percent of their health insurance premiums. The bill received a legislative hearing on Tuesday amid criticism from public employees across the state, including the Green Bay area.
So much for Roger’s statement that public employees pay the lions share of their own pension plans…Less than 5.8% I presume!
I completely agree. Excellent post!
…9&10 are off topic. Please delete the motherfucker.
# 10: Except that Walker’s “fiscal responsibility” talk is just flatulance coming out the other end.
Walker is hoping to use the Governor’s chair to springboard into a national office. He’s appealing to the Tea Party types by trying to blame the state’s budget woes on public employees. But the “budget woes” are largely of his own creation, he made a big gesture of pandering to the Tea Party by rejecting federal money under the stimulus program, which would have gone a long way towards closing any gap.
He’s trying to repeat Reagan’s 1981-82 playbook, where Reagan forced a confrontation with the air traffic controllers so he could fire them all and kill their union, to the applause of Republicans everywhere who never saw a union they didn’t want to destroy. Walker figures he can get lots of wingnut support that way.
As for the specific cuts & proposals, everything is negotiable. But if he goes into negotiations with the Unions the details of the budget “gap” will be subject to a lot of publicity, which he would rather skip. Better for him if he can eliminate the unions and impose the cuts, so he can take all the credit, than have to share the credit with the unions for a negotiated cut.
This goes into the category of “never letting opportunity posed by a crisis go to waste”, even if the governor has to create the crisis first.
I have to disagree with the original post, to the extent it leaves the decision to the primaries.
Generally, I like the “top two” primary system on an ideological basis. (I might agree to make it a “top three”, but that’s quibling over details). My reasoning is that I don’t think the government’s involvement in preparing the ballot should include the process of deciding who is a party’s nominee. That should be done by the party itself.
The danger is that the candidates of one party might split the vote between themselves to the point where they are completely shut out of the final ballot, even though the differences between those primary candidates are rather small.
Remember that in the 1932 German elections, the Nazis pulled in less than 1/3 of the total vote, and quite a few people voted against the party than voted for it. But because of their solidarity, organization and party discipline, the Nazis emerged as the largest single block in Parliment, which paved the way for Hitler becoming the Chancelor. That was the last free election in Germany, until well after the end of WWII. Of course, Washington State is far removed from 1930’s Germany, but the dangers of fractured government into too many small interest groups who won’t compromise with one another on the big isses are still to be avoided.
I think the Democrats should hold a caucus a couple of months before the primary election and select their nominee, then put all their weight behind him/her in the primary election. That way they ensure that they’ve always got a candidate in a position to win if a strong Republican candidate self-destructs.
Talk about positioning, lets talk about Obama’s 3.7 trillion dollar budget. Its never going to get through and he knows it, it is chalk full of pork and only intention with it is to use side step the massive cuts the American people want him to make. He will fail and be a one term idiot.
…let’s not.
This “ld” is an idiot, a know-nothing asshole and a thread crapper.
@15, Thanks for the obligitory reference to Nazism. Good job. Every thread, every post and every political discussion in America needs one. It has the unconscious and soothing effect of letting us rationalize away and shirking responsibility for the shit that’s here and (fairly) now; Bush v Gore, screwing the 9/11 pooch, the “Patriot Act”, 2004’s what happened in Ohio?, Abu Graib, Iraq, Halliburton, KBR, Guantanamo, extaordinary rendition, the federal AG scandal, Don Siegleman, the financial meltdown, blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum.
Man shall be punished for his own sins and not Adam’s transgressions.
@9 “Unemployment back up to 410,000 new requests..Great job Dems.
At that rate these elections will be a breeze!”
That was obviously written by someone in the bag for those who brought us the Great Republican Recession of 2008-2011.
The S&P is over 1300, twice what it was in March 2009. The rich and everybody else got their tax breaks. Small business got their tax break. America’s corporations are sitting on trillions and not hiring. Republicans take the house and their only priority is to take away women’s rights and bring back corporate death panels. Big money is invested in “emerging growth” – read that as “shit-hole nations and not here in America”. Meanwhile, you’re party is entertaining the thought of nominating a governor who kowtows to Mississippi racists.
I hope that gives you a fucking clue.
Steve,
Please do not hit Id(iot) with facts. He doesn’t do facts and confronting them is likely to cause some mess that someone else will have to clean up.
Why not watch the next time you buy gas or a cotton product (cotton went up 14% in the last 2 days) and tell me what is going to happen to the debt servicing when interest rates inch up?
Silver is up $1.10 and gold almost $10 today alone, can you explain why investors are rushing into these two commodities?
3.7 Trillion dollar budget when they are taking in 2.1 trillion?
If that is not a problem I have some swamp land in the green river valley for you!
So where was this racist moronic asshole when shrubya drove the deficit through the roof starting a fucking illegal war and allowing corporations to quit paying US taxes. I wonder if this brain surgeon knows where the NINE BILLION DOLLARS bush/cheney/rumsfeld LOST (per the GAO) in Iraq. What a disingenuous piece of shit this fuck is.
OK so listen to Geitner? If LD is so wrong on this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdcQGJF_jmY
Fed Tests Banks for Recession, Jobless Rate of 11 Percent
The Federal Reserve ordered the 19 largest U.S. banks to test their capital levels against a scenario of renewed recession with unemployment rising above 11 percent, said two people with knowledge of the review.
http://horsesass.org/?p=32718&.....nt-1065998
Asshole at 23 & 24…
The Rabbit has it right (as usual). “ld” is a really stupid dopey dupe.
Slingshot @ # 18: I almost left the reference to the German 1930’s election out, for the reasons you mentioned. But the principle is still the same, whether you apply it to Democrats or Republicans: certain methods of selecting candidates give too much power to minority but well-organized parties. That’s why I ended up adding the caveat:
“Of course, Washington State is far removed from 1930’s Germany, but the dangers of fractured government into too many small interest groups who won’t compromise with one another on the big isses are still to be avoided.”
Ironically, Israel also has the same problem, in that in a parlimentary system where a lot of fringe parties keep either major party from having a majority by itself, they have to move far to the edges of the political spectrum in order to form a government.
It’s basic political science. You look at the system, and see how it applies in different circumstances. It’s not intended to be name-calling.