I’m traveling and unable to divine the full gestalt of Tuesday’s vote, but from where I sit it sure appears that the electorate spoke with a much better vocabulary than the eighth-grade level usually assigned it. (I recognize I’m in the minority here but that’s the great thing about this blog, people can disagree. At least, that’s what I’m told. If the Cow of Political Correctness falls off a cliff onto my van, HA readers will know the reason why.)
Back to those astute voters. On Prop 1, they seemed to get that building more highways simply adds more traffic. They knew a Trojan Horse when they saw one — a blank check to the road lobby in the guise of a jolly green transit giant. My feeling is the region is ready for transit, yearns for transit, will vote for transit — but wants to proceed project by project, spur by spur, to keep the process on task and costs accountable. On R-67, who would’ve thunk? With all those ad dollars being spent on how the insurance industry is our friend! I wonder how many voters thought, each time they got hit with one of those commercials, “Gee, if only that money could go toward lowering my health insurance rates!” Or even — d’ya think? — providing coverage their policies say they’re providing.
David Della tried to smear Tim Burgess, but voters ultimately recognized Della as the feckless incumbent without a cause he really was. I’ve sat through entire Council committee meetings supposedly chaired by Della where he barely asked a question, and Jan Drago had to step in and run the thing. Our own little George Bush, an accidental officeholder with no political acumen or even an identifiable constituency, has been blessedly sent back to the private sector. Won’t we all be intrigued to see what it can do with him now.
As for poor Venus, can we please clarify why she lost so miserably? It was not because she was charged with drunk driving. It was how she handled the process and aftermath of being charged with drunk driving. When she said she was not impaired, what stuck in people’s minds was the word “impaired.” As further evidence of her ability to comport herself under pressure, she told reporters after results rolled in, “I am not talking to you tonight.”
Admittedly, my theory of an Enlightened Elector kind of falls apart with the school levy and Eyman measures. Maybe this crowd can see through hype and hypocrisy, but isn’t too good at percentages. Sherman should have won, and Jane Hague should not have been able to beat a garden gnome (maybe her secret was not saying the word “impaired”). Still, what I’m taking from this election is that not all campaigns are about big bucks. It used to be that dollars could deliver at the polls no matter what was right. This time around, people were talking, turning a lot of those paid political announcements into expensive white noise.
I’m not so happy today. Our school funding situation still stinks, we have defeated our last chance to prepare the state’s transportation infrastructure for the future (yes, we need a wider 405 as well as east-west transit), and we handed the keys to our state government to the Eymanusians.
Why? Because no Democrat is willing to articulate simple advocacy for middle class citizens!!!! What do middle class citizens want? They want to send their children to public school with confidence; they want to manage their family, job and their time with their family car; and they want a solvent, responsive state government that can positively impact their lives. By losing on school funding, transit and 960, families have lost on all counts.
Shame on all of us. Our environmental nazis succeeded in subtracting commuting and errand-running minutes from parents’ lives; our governor sent mail after mail about the insurance initiative, but took 960 for granted; and nobody put wood behind the schools initiative.
Shame on all of us.
No, Paul, you are wrong with your assessment of the RTID. Voters did not reject it because they “seemed to get that building more highways simply adds more traffic”, but they rejected it because of the Sound Transit Boondoggle. Voters have been spurned by Light rail since its inception in the 90’s, and are done with it.
Seattle further solidifies itself as the place where dreams go to die. A place where noone seems to want to take up the mantle of leadership. As our arms get tired of patting ourselves on the backs for being a model green city with progressive citizens, we should take a break for a minute to acknowledge that Seattle is right up there with Phoenix, Houston, and Atlanta in per capita miles driven, and the resulting pollution such auto dependancy creates. The average Seattle resident has just as big a carbon footprint as the residents of those sunbelt suburbopolisis we take such glee in disparaging. Lets face the reality, we love to talk about progressive policies, we just can’t bring ourselves to actually implement them. The vast majority of eligible voters are either voting no, or simply not voting at all. They’ve given up waiting for leadership from our political establishment, which seems more focused on maintaining rigid ideological purity than cultivating effective leaders. Seattle is a beautiful place to live, but a terrible place to get politically active in, unless you relish being personally attacked, threatened, and demoralized by the nay sayers. We aren’t the only city with a feckless disfunctional public sector, we’re just one of the few that doesn’t recognize it, or accept the fact that we’re responsible for letting it get that way.
Paul ..
is your last name Yanna?
On Prop 1, they seemed to get that building more highways simply adds more traffic. They knew a Trojan Horse when they saw one — a blank check to the road lobby in the guise of a jolly green transit giant.
So you’re telling me the folks on the Eastside would vote for transit over roads? Sorry, but I think you’re wrong there. They voted this package down because they didn’t like the tax burden, but if you split it out into a roads package and a transit one, I’ll bet the Eastside folks will pass the roads and nix the transit.
Yup, you’re right that voters understood that building our way out of congestion is a fool’s game, especially when they knew that this would make our global warming problems even worse.
You can see this in the King county returns so far. As usual, King Co. voters were pro tax, but they were strikingly, against the taxes in Prop 1:
Prop 1 YES 45%
Medic One YES 81%
Prop 1 YES 45%
I-960 (Eyman) NO 56% (No was the pro-tax vote)
Prop 1 YES 45%
HJR 4204YES 56%
@2 RTID failed because it was badly written and badly promoted. What effin fool (besides me) would vote for the thing when in effect is was based on a “trust me” that somehow the rest would be paid for and that this ostrich was really a sleek race horse?
I voted for the damn thing while holding my nose. I know friends who voted against it BECAUSE of our discussions.
One of the big issues is that no one believed the silly claim that each of us would only be paying taxes on the parts we benefited from. As far as I could see this was made up of rags and old felt. I had one fellow tell me that of the entire 520 bill only 800,000 had anything to do with the bridge. The rest?? It was to go for solving the mess in Montlake .. arguably a Seattle wide issue, AND noice abatement for the wealthy folks in Hunt’s Point!
Where were the demo leaders in this debacle? Was Gregoire on Eynman’s side? How in hell would anybody know?
One politician stands out from all this Ron Sims! The ONLYT Dem leader willing to stand up for his beliefs.
Paul:
I hope you are stuck in traffic, lose your job here, can’t take the train because it doesn’t reach your house and you can’t get to it by car.
I have lost respect for my local Sierra club and
Ron Sims is an idiot.
I ride my damn bike to work when I can but I hate being stuck in traffic when I have to drive. We waste more gas in traffic jams than anything else around here. Note to supposed environmentalists: read the highway versus street mileages on vehicles and weep – we won’t have any highway miles around here for a long time to come.
So much for buying by biodiesel car for Seattle – can’t get anywhere in Seattle in the future anyways. Why bother being environmentally friendly when I can’t even get to work?
The opposition to this lied (check out Dory (raving right wing lunatic) Monson saying it would cost him 50K over 50 years). The haters of sound transit won here. These people and the “supposed” environmentalists have now killed light rail. There will be no other proposals – we all know that.No rail over I-90 and no repairs or new 520 bridge – just the same traffic backing up to never-never land (the place these anti-prop 1 people live. The anti-tax libertarians have found a few allies including the anti-road people (misinformed environmentalists) ganging up with the anti-train people (not with my tax money – I prefer to spend billions in Iraq) to kill any solution. Now we will have deteriorating roads and no way to get around them on the train.
Way to go, you idiots!
Paul, doesn’t Democracy really piss you off? Now you know how I feel every time I’ve had the opportunity to vote against Ron Sims.
Paul, why should Sherman have won? Because he has a “D” next to his name?
I think you’ve got it backwards, Paul. The voters rejected the super-expensive light rail boondoggle, not necessary road fixes. 520, 167, 405, 16th South bridge, freight mobility — these will rise from the ashes. Light rail will not, unless it’s redesigned, built sooner, and at much less cost.
Tim Eyman and Kemper Freeman are now running the state.
Paul, who are you, you make so little sense.
If Eyman is smart he will now mandate a roads package most of which will be outside King County by initiative in 2008 and force Gregoire to the wall.
You think Rossi is your friend? You just helped elect him.
Pit the need for road maintence, new bridges, etc. against the all over the map Seattle fringe who leap at any new idea of the moment and could not even build one mile of the beloved Monorail. All talk, no walk, and we hate Seattle will be a key component of the Rossi message…..
Ron Sims is a witch doctor. Congestion pricing = tolls. All the PR in the world – it come back to that, and in this state tolls are not welcome. State money is. It will go for roads NOT mass transit.
Your rant on Della is puerile. He is Asian, and maybe did a poor campaign, but Brugess is a retired, I hope, hate monger. And many of the most progressive leaders in the city have had real concerns about him. Oh, but not Paul the punk oracle on people of color and why you need all faces on the podium.
Goldy, this guy will destroy your site.
Bill Sherman is a twit – and when people really compared the two – Satterberg was impressive.
He was in the lead from the beginning, and some cash helped.
Voters do not give squat about money and campaigns – they know it takes money for everything, and so does politics.
Sherman tried to make an issue of something that is flat as a pancake to voters.
Another poor campaign from Sherman, go back to Arizona.
Goldy, you tried, thankless task. Just a poor candidate, again.
correctnotright @ 9 says:
“The opposition to this lied (check out Dory (raving right wing lunatic) Monson saying it would cost him 50K over 50 years). The haters of sound transit won here. These people and the “supposed” environmentalists have now killed light rail. There will be no other proposals – we all know that.No rail over I-90 and no repairs or new 520 bridge – just the same traffic backing up to never-never land (the place these anti-prop 1 people live. The anti-tax libertarians have found a few allies including the anti-road people (misinformed environmentalists) ganging up with the anti-train people (not with my tax money – I prefer to spend billions in Iraq) to kill any solution.”
—
That’s the way I see it.
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Zak @ 13 says:
“Ron Sims is a witch doctor. Congestion pricing = tolls. All the PR in the world – it come back to that, and in this state tolls are not welcome. State money is. It will go for roads NOT mass transit.”
—
That’s the way I see it, too.
Cross-base highway. Don’t forget that one. It’s coming. And so’s the rebuilt Viaduct.
And why? Because the Sierra Club, the stupid children at the Stranger, and some political nincompoops who post here killed RTID.
It’s easier to get around Seattle than many people think! Why? Because Seattle drivers are lemmings. They find one way to get somewhere and that’s it. They KEEP using the same route come Hell or High Water, year after pathetic year.
In a place like Denver, if you find a shortcut, within a week EVERYONE will be using it. When you find one in the Seattle area, it remains a clog free artery forever.
Next time you are stuck in traffic, take out a Thomas Guide and figure an alternative route. Most of the roads around here are so underused, it’s ridiculous.
@16, White rose:
What a ridiculous post! I hate traffic jams and I know all the backroutes. The whole damn puget sound basin is one big traffic jam sometimes. I get off a jammed I-5, cut over 99 (and it is jammed getting there and also jammed).
Then there are the bridges – only 3 ways across:
I-90, 520 or go around (find a alternative to that!)
I take 405 to avoid I-5 and it stinks in renton and bellevue because 520 and the valley freeway (167) messes it up.
The whole mess is because of the choke points and bridges (when the heck are they going to fix the ship canal – letting people cut over from 45th to 520 (up a bridge deck)is the problem).
No – there are no good “work-arounds unless you are going east/west (where there are no “fast” roads). At least if there were light rail I could take the train to the airport – oh…the sierra club and ron sims killed that…
Never mind – I’ll just bike it with a 50 lb suitcase.
Screw all of you – it is just more inccentive to move somewhere else – even Portland has light rail. Every other major city in the world has rail. We have those stupid articulated buses that can’t make a turn and block traffic when their dedicated lanes run out.
So, Goldy-what’s the score? Doesn’t Eyman have a 8-7 or better, win over you?