It’s time for round two of our legislative deadwood competition, in which you, the HA faithful, get to tell the incumbent members of Seattle’s legislative delegation which of them is most deserving of a serious intra-party challenge. (We used to call them “primary challenges” back when we still had primaries that meant anything.)
Unlike the recently concluded state representative qualifying round, in which you were encouraged to vote for as many incumbents as you wanted out of a primary field of twelve, this poll pits Seattle’s four Democratic incumbent state senators up for reelection in 2010 against each other in a final, loser-takes-all, sudden death competition. Criteria to consider in making your choice should include ideology, effectiveness and vulnerability… essentially, if the Seattle progressive community were to target one incumbent senator in 2010, which challenge would have the best chance of improving our delegation?
The poll is now live at the top of HA’s home page. You get a single vote, so make it count.
MY BAD:
Man is my face red. I’d originally put together the poll by pasting in the list of senators who last ran in 2006, which included Erik Poulsen in the 34th, but who since has been replaced by Joe McDermott. I’d caught the error, and thought I’d fixed it in PollDaddy, but apparently forgot to click the update button or something, so when the poll went live it included Poulsen’s name, not McDermott’s. So we’ll subtract two votes from McDermott’s total at the end.
DOUBLE BAD:
As N points out in the comment thread, Sen. Ed Murray is up for reelection too. Not sure how I missed that. Seltzer intoxication, perhaps? Anyway, I’ve added him in rather than starting over, as the poll isn’t exactly scientific, but if he comes anywhere near the top I guess we’ll just have to have a runoff.
In a top-two runoff system, challenges will generally elect someone less progressive than the incumbent in any of Seattle’s progressive legislative districts.
Well-placed challenges in conservative districts elsewhere would have the opposite effect.
Erik Poulsen?
Poor Erik Poulsen hasn’t been the Senator in the 34th for quite a while, yet, curiously, he has gotten one vote as needing to be ousted.
You might want to check your list of incumbents again, Goldy.
I suppose the fact that Erik garnered a vote (so far) demonstrates the basic flaw with this particular methodology. Obviously at least one person doesn’t even know who their state Senator is, much less have a well formed opinion about that Senator’s performance.
Makes it very easy for these incumbents to arbitrarily dismiss whatever “message” such a poll might hope to convey.
Here’s a better idea:
go to your fucking LD meeting and put your name on the list to address the meeting. Get up and make a statement specifically challenging the incumbent Senator on the merits. Invite any of the attendees who agree with you to meet with you afterward to exchange contact information. Form a committee to work on recruiting a qualified challenger from the district and begin raising money immediately.
You wanna make an impression on these folks?
That’s what they will respond to.
A blog or a website is a nice place to get the general conversation started. But we aren’t likely to see much of anything change until the members of the delegation see one of their own taken on in a serious manner. Worked for the SEIU.
Hmm…
Anybody know what district Cary Moon lives in? We should draft her for a run for State Senate.
Need to put Joe McDermott in there in place of Poulsen.
It might be putting the car before the horse to come up with who needs challenged before you have an idea of who you’d want to challenge them.
So… Who are the non-elected movers and shakers in Seattle that would do a good job in Oly?
Cary Moon, Dan Savage???
Jacobsen has got to go. He’s an embarrassment.
Puzzled @2,
Oops. I thought I’d fixed that before the poll went live, but the update doesn’t seem to be coming through from PollDaddy. Of course its Joe McDermott.
Makes me look pretty damn stupid though.
(Just checked PollDaddy. Guess I hadn’t clicked update or something as it still has Poulsen’s name in there.)
Woof! Woof! No Jacobsen is our friend!
Goldy
I suspect yourpoll will be weirdly irrelevant. Weird because HA has to many trolls, irrelevant because to most of, including me, these folks are less visible than the president of the Captal Hill Community Council.
Could uou use the poll to provoke some discussion on the winners and losers?
I love Adam Kline’s politics. But damn, he never gets ANYTHING passed!
Speaking of embarrassments, it is an embarrassment that Kohl-Welles is leading this poll when she is the hardest working and most effective out of any of our senators other than Ed Murray. Kline and Jacobsen are both jokes and I think McDermott will continue to get better with age.
Speaking of even more embarrassments, reading what George@12 had to say, I realized that Goldy’s poll missed another Seattle incumbent Senator who’s up again in 2010 … Ed Murray.
Not that I think he needs to be primaried. George is absolutely right that Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Ed Murray are (by far) Seattle’s most effective Senators. With all due respect to my own Senator, and disagreeing with George, I’d put Jeanne a bit ahead of Ed, but they’re both excellent.
My poll vote went to the guy who deserves to be the clear leader in should-be-primaried, Ken Jacobsen.
I guess Margarita Prentice is not up for re-election in 2010. I’d love to see her ousted. Old, tired, in thrall to payday loansharks and sports team owners.
This is pretty much tilting at windmills as you don’t have the challenged by who question answered. Shouldn’t every single seat get a primary challenger if there’s someone that can do the job better than the person that currently holds it?
I’d really like to see a list of 20 or 30 people in Seattle that could have a chance at winning a seat and would do a better job than who’s in there now.
I’m not defending current office holders. I’m not from Seattle and don’t have a clue about most of the people on the list.
What I am saying is that community in Seattle underdeveloped and lacking in leadership. And of course, that you can’t come up with a reasonable list of names to fill the slots you want challenged.
Show me the names, Goldy!
From Seattle’s “best” @3 describing Seattle’s best:
Next to NutsTooTight earlier the next funniest comment of Wednesday.
@16
I think this whole thing is a laugh riot as they have no idea who they’d rather have in office.
@4
Heck I’m thinking of pushing Cary to run for Congress when McDermott retires.
In all seriousness I don’t know her desire to run for public office but I’d love to see her on the Seattle City Council, County Council, or in the Legislature.
We’d like to see Jacobsen move up to Congress where he can work on national legislation to allow woofers in bars!
He’s also gotten a law passed to say the state poet gets a firkin of beer every year.
We like to lap up firkens, too! Woof, woof!
@18
LOL…
Score one for the guy from Gig Harbor that can name all of 5 or six public figures public figures from Seattle!
I like the “draft Cary Moon” idea — Goldy, can you use those exceptional investigative journalism skills to find out where she lives?