Goldy

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan will not seek reelection.

Anybody who thinks the Dems won’t have fewer seats in both houses next year than they have this year is crazy, and anybody who thinks we’ll get a better health care reform bill with fewer Dems than with more, is out of their fucking mind.

It would have been nice if the Senate leadership had the balls to go nuclear and do away with the filibuster, but they don’t and they won’t. So the bill we get out of conference is the bill we get. And if we don’t pass anything, the Democratic loses next November will be even steeper than they otherwise would be.

Time to pass health care reform, claim victory, and then start the arduous process of incrementally improving on it bit by bit.

Folks around these parts sure do love the illusion of nonpartisanship, but as demonstrated by yesterday’s Mercer Island mayoral brouhaha, it is in practice exactly that.

The putatively nonpartisan Mercer Island City Council met yesterday to select a new mayor, and under much pressure, the council split on party lines to elect not-so-secret Democrat Jim Pearman to another term. Everybody knows who the four Democrats and three Republicans are, so the outcome should not have been a surprise, but not-so-secret Democrat Dan Grausz, unhappy with Pearman’s performance in office, had strongly signaled that he was planning to vote for not-so-secret Republican Steve Litzow.

It’s not like the mayor does all that much other than chair city council meetings, so one wouldn’t think such a fit of party line crossing would be such a big deal. But the mayorship has proven a valuable bullet point on one’s political resume, and a reliable steppingstone to higher office. Both state Sen. Fred Jarrett and state Rep. Judy Clibborn are former Mercer Island mayors, as have been other past 41st District legislators. And Litzow clearly has his heart set on higher office.

So the biggest issue before the city council yesterday was not really about who would get to chair the meetings over the next two years, as it was about whether they would give Litzow a big leg up in his campaign this November. Last year, Litzow ran as a Republican against freshman Rep. Marcie Maxwell for her seat, and this year he is widely expected to pursue the open senate seat Jarrett is vacating. However disappointed Grausz was with the way Pearman runs the meetings, did he really want to be responsible for potentially helping Republicans pick up a seat in the state senate?

Apparently not. And as much as some might bemoan the incursion of partisan politics into the deliberations of a nonpartisan council, well, welcome to the real world.

Politics is an adversarial process. Deal with it.

Tell them you’re taking them to the Fun Forest at the Seattle Center to go on the rides, only to show up and find that it’s gone.

They’ll look back and laugh, someday.

Let’s see… so the Seattle Times consistently opposes spending tax dollars to build a light rail system approved by a popular vote of the people, yet it supports spending tax dollars to build a passenger terminal at Everett’s Paine Field to support commercial airline service that is widely opposed by the surrounding neighborhoods.

Good to see that they are clearly in touch with the values of their community.

Allen Quist, a Republican former state representative challenging U.S. Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN), explains why he’s running for office:

“It’s because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is — every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes — but that’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren’t liberals, they’re radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz — they’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out.”

Hear that? The big battle isn’t against the terrorists… it’s against us liberals. Because, I suppose, we’re, um, worse than the terrorists.

It’s good to see that Republicans haven’t lost their perspective.

With former Seattle City Council member Jan Drago appointed as a caretaker to fill Dow Constantine’s vacated King County Council seat through the end of the year, the rest of the dominoes are beginning to fall into place.

State Sen. Joe McDermott (D-34), the first choice of Democrats on the council as well as West Seattle party loyalists, will return to Olympia for the coming session, before running to fill the seat permanently next November. No doubt state Rep. Zack Hudgins (D-11) will be awfully tempted to take a crack at the race too, but at this point you gotta consider McDermott the frontrunner.

And with Constantine’s seat settled, and a Democratic majority back in control of the council, the once crowded field to replace state Sen. Fred Jarrett (D-41) is starting to clear out. Last week Vicki Orrico withdrew her name from consideration, and today Maureen Judge (who I call “Mo” and my daughter calls “mom”) announced her withdrawal too:

I have decided today that I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the 41st State Senate appointment.

Because these are difficult times, because we face so many challenges throughout the district and state, I feel my most vital and important contribution to our community is in my current role role as Executive Director of the Washington Toxics Coalition and getting the Safe Baby Bottle Act of 2010 passed in Washington state.

The only inside information I’ll pass on is that it wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s probably for the best… at least for me. Mo would have made a great progressive addition to the state senate, but I have to admit a little selfish relief at her withdrawal. Had she won the appointment, the next two months would have been rather hellish from a scheduling perspective, and then once the session was done the campaign would begin.

As for the rest of the field, considering the number of endorsements and commitments he’s already locked up, you gotta consider Randy Gordon the clear frontrunner in tomorrow’s vote of 41st District Democratic PCOs. And as a matter of protocol, the council almost always goes with the PCO’s first choice.

Over at Crosscut, real Ted Van Dyk laments the decline in public civility.

We face unacceptable losses of civility. The in-your-face insults characteristic of many blogs and even traditional media reflect a general loss of respect for each other. The old political dictum, “Tough on issues; soft on people,” has long since been breeched. How many angry print or on-line columns, broadcast commentaries, or political rants have you seen in recent months, flowing from mention of the names Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, George W. Bush, Barney Frank or, locally, Tim Eyman? Not critiques of their policy views but insulting personal attacks and characterizations. The communications flowing from partisan political committees and true believing single-issue groups are often toxic.

Yeah… well… um… in your face, Van Dyk!

First of all, as our state’s best known purveyor of insulting personal attacks on Tim Eyman, I just want to calmly and maturely point out that he started it. If not for Eyman’s own infamous lack of civility, my tit for tat response would never have garnered so many headlines in return. As I explained at the time, in seeking to officially proclaim Eyman a “horse’s ass,” I was not making a mockery of the initiative process; rather, I was just pointing out the mockery that Eyman had already made of it. Eyman is a horse’s ass, and that’s the uncomfortable truth that made my initiative both funny and compelling.

Furthermore, as I have well demonstrated, it is possible to methodically and rationally critique one’s policies, while simultaneously indulging in personal attacks. Indeed, I’d wager that nobody has written more substantively and at greater length on the policy implications of Eyman’s various initiatives than I have over the past six years. Do I resort to name-calling and hyperbole from time to time? Sure. Timmy deserves it. But when it comes to a factual and substantive debate on tax structure issues, I consistently kick Eyman’s sound-bite-repeating equine ass. (Which, by the way, is why Tim won’t even make eye contact with me anymore, let alone engage me in live debate.)

Likewise, it is also possible to maintain an air of civility while, intentionally or not, consistently repeating the same pack of discredited lies, as Van Dyk has relentlessly done in opposing Sound Transit. I suppose Van Dyk might be offended by such bluntness of opinion, but I personally prefer rude truths to polite lies, and unlike him I strive never to conflate solemnity with seriousness, nor civility with being civic-minded.

No doubt Van Dyk pines for the oh-so-civil, bipartisan days when political operatives from both parties might deliver a suitcase full of $100 bills to Richard Nixon, but not me. For if that’s what civility looks like, I want nothing to do with it.

You know, because Christians never get involved in self-destructive sex scandals.

Luke 14:26

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

Family values? Discuss.

The Seattle Times editorial board endorses the new Seattle-Tacoma International Airport contract with Yellow Cab, for amongst other things, improving the quality of the cabs serving the airport:

To the credit of the Port and other entities working on taxi policy, cabs serving the airport are no longer grungy and filled with house pets and cookery. A big improvement.

“House pets and cookery”…?  Um… did the Times editorial board just make some sort of ethnic slur against the Sikh cabbies who dominate STITA, the taxi association that previously held the Sea-Tac contract?

I’ve been in my fair share of STITA cabs, and while I guess you could describe a few as grungy, they were no more or less so than other Seattle cabs, let alone those I was familiar with from New York and Philadelphia. And I certainly don’t remember any cabbies cooking curry in the front seat, with or without a four-legged companion.

Considering how closely the public associates STITA cabs with our region’s growing Sikh community, “house pets and cookery” just strikes me as an odd and inappropriate turn of phrase coming from the Times… the kinda rude hyperbole more at home on, say, a lowly blog, than the editorial pages of a major daily newspaper.

Not that I don’t welcome the competition.

Oops… other Washington.

Now that the race for King County Executive is long over, it’s interesting to compare this:

[Susan] Hutchison said she solved a significant budget shortfall as chairwoman of the Seattle Symphony board of directors. “I solve problems and I fix things,” she said, “and King County needs a fix.”

With this:

The Seattle Symphony, already beset by immense challenges, including a $4 million debt and vacancies in its two top positions, still has not reached a new contract agreement with its musicians union and could potentially face a musicians strike.

No  doubt the Symphony was already in a heap of hurt when Hutchison took over as board chair, but let’s be clear, she didn’t fix crap. Indeed, the Symphony’s fortunes only deteriorated further during her tumultuous tenure. So tumultuous, that when Leslie Jackson Chihuly took over the reins from Hutchison earlier this year, normally stoic board members erupted in a loud celebratory cheer at the transfer.

The Symphony ended its recent fiscal year running a $1.2 million deficit on a budget that Hutchison approved as chairwoman. In fact, they’ve only managed to keep the lights on by dipping into their endowment, already one of the smallest in the nation for a big city symphony. That’s what’s known as eating your seed corn.

Yet, “I solve problems and fix things,” Hutchison repeated throughout the campaign, pointing to her tenure at the Symphony, a claim that largely went unchallenged in the media. Indeed, the Seattle Times editorial board even lauded Hutchison’s budgetary prowess in attempting to explain its ridiculous endorsement of her in the executive’s race.

But now that the shit has finally hit the fan, I wonder if Hutchison will continue to run on her leadership of the Symphony should she choose to challenge Sen. Patty Murray in November? And if so, I wonder if our media will continue to quietly hum along?

Huh.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh remains hospitalized in Hawaii after experiencing chest pains similar to a heart attack.

Which I suppose means Limbaugh must have something similar to a heart. Who knew?

And much to the disappointment of some of my trolls, it isn’t me in trouble with the feds.

I just received an email from Sen. Robert Byrd, the longest serving Senator in U.S. history.

Of course, a lot of other folks around here received the same exact email. It was a fundraising pitch on behalf of Sen. Patty Murray, sent from a Murray campaign email account. Nothing remarkable about that.

But from all accounts, the affection and respect for Murray expressed in Byrd’s email is genuine, and provides a sharp contrast to the caricature of Murray with which Washington Republicans like to comfort themselves every six years.

Back in 2004 I described her last reelection contest as a race between the physically diminutive Patty Murray versus the politically diminutive George Nethercutt, who she unsurprisingly defeated by a 12-point margin. So how has Murray consistently produced such wide margins against highly touted Republican opponents?

Quite simply, Murray is one of the best retail politicians I’ve ever met. Spend a few moments with her and it becomes clear that she actually likes people, and unlike Sen. Maria Cantwell (who has different virtues), clearly enjoys talking with complete strangers. Be it one-on-one, in small groups, speaking before a large room, or even in her TV commercials, this everywomanish aspect of Murray’s personality comes through, making it exceedingly difficult for Republicans to succeed with their usual line of negative attacks.

Ironically, this inherent likability makes it easier for Murray to go on the attack herself, as she did early, often and quite effectively against Nethercutt. Don’t let her size and mannerisms fool you; you don’t get to rise to such a high level of power and influence in a men’s club like the U.S. Senate without sporting some awfully big cojones, metaphorical as they may be, and Murray’s not afraid to swing ’em. Nethercutt entered the 2004 race with a reputation as a giant-killer, but the five foot tall Murray immediately kneecapped him, and he never recovered.

Perhaps this explains why Murray has yet to draw a big name opponent for 2010. After ending the political careers of three sitting Republican Congress-critters in a row, neither Cathy McMorris-Rogers, Dave Reichert nor Doc Hastings are eager to have Murray make them the fourth. And state Attorney General Rob McKenna—without a doubt the most skilled politician on the WSRP bench—is too smart to deliberately seek out a bump in the road on what he hopes to be a smooth ride to the governor’s mansion and beyond. As for Dino Rossi, he just got his ass kicked by an unpopular governor, and besides… you gotta want it to run for it.

That only leaves the traditional GOP fallback candidate: the generic, rich, white guy. And that didn’t turn out so well for Mike McGavick running against a much more vulnerable Cantwell in 2006, now did it?

Right now, with Murray out-raising her best funded no-name Republican opponent by over 227 to 1, and the election only ten months away, it looks like the state GOP has given up on taking out the Democrat they like to laugh off as America’s dumbest senator. Well, um, what does that say about them?