HorsesAss.Org

I’d like to take a break from speculating on the ballot count in the governor’s race to actually talk about something important. Underage gambling.

As my regular readers know, I was a vociferous opponent of Tim Eyman’s I-892, an initiative that would have put 18,255 slot machines into over 2000 locations in nearly every community in the state. But just because I-892 was crushed at the polls with less than 38% of the vote, doesn’t mean I’m going to let this issue die.

As an editorial in today’s Seattle P-I points out, I-892 was rejected because Washington voters simply don’t want more gambling. The No campaign had a very simple task — they didn’t have to convince voters that putting slot machines into our neighborhoods is a bad idea — they merely had to convince voters that I-892 would put slot machines into our neighborhoods.

Washingtonians understand that expanding gambling comes with social costs that simply are not worth the extra tax revenues. But I’m not sure we fully understand exactly how much gambling can cost us.

Our children.

Back on 9/30 I told you about an extraordinary documentary shot by some recent grads of Shorewood High School that showed teenagers — some as young as 12 — caught up in the current gambling craze (“Problem gambling isn’t kid’s play“.) The documentary was later the subject of a KING-5 TV special report: “Underage gambling out of control“.

Thanks to a tip from problem gambling advocate Jennifer McCausland, the Washington State Gambling Commission and Washington State Liquor Control Board conducted a joint sting operation at seven Seattle-area mini-casinos. WSGC officials were surprised to find that a “very young looking” sixteen-year-old was able to gamble and purchase alcohol at three of the seven targeted card rooms.

You’d think with a major gambling initiative on the ballot, this would have been big news in the weeks leading up to the election, but it’s only during the past week that this story is beginning to get a bit of play. Both KOMO-4 TV and KING-5 TV ran pieces yesterday showing seized surveillance footage from the sting operation. [Casinos busted for allowing 16-year-old to gamble, buy alcohol] It’s pretty stunning.

Eyman pooh-poohed it during the campaign, but Washington — and much of the rest of the nation — is facing a growing public health crisis: compulsive gambling, an addiction that is just as real and destructive as drug and alcohol abuse. The rapid expansion of gambling here and elsewhere only serves to normalize the experience for our children, while state lotteries spend millions of dollars marketing gambling as the ticket to Easy Street. And the current poker craze, fueled by coverage on ESPN (and even local TV!) will inevitably serve as a gateway towards a lifetime of addiction for an entire generation.

Yes, only 5% of adults are problem gamblers (although they account for as much as 60% of casino profits), but according to a 1999 study, the addiction already afflicted more than one in twelve WA teens. And that was before the poker craze, at a time when total state gambling revenues were half what they are today.

While Eyman promises a son-of-892, that’s not my main concern; the gambling industry is not going to throw good money after bad, and there’s no way he can qualify the initiative for the ballot without their cash.

My concern is that we have a unique opportunity to do something about this problem, and we can’t afford to blow it. I-892, the Shorewood High documentary and the WSGC sting operation have all helped to create public awareness of this growing crisis, while Democratic control of the Legislature offers a hope of funding problem gambling treatment and prevention programs. Such legislation was blocked in the Republican-controlled Senate last session, and regardless of who becomes the next Governor, we need to pressure Olympia to finally take action.

We need greater enforcement of underage gambling laws, and stricter penalties for their violation. But most important, we need to start educating parents and teens about the warning signs of problem gambling, and the very real dangers of lifelong addiction. Ms. McCausland’s Second Chance Washington is a great start, but it’s the responsibility of the commercial and tribal gambling industries to start paying for the problem they are creating.

This is not the last you’ll hear from me on this subject, regardless of what Tim does.

Of roughly 2.8 million ballots cast:

Time     Rossi Lead   Projected Margin   Ballots Left
10:00am  -158         1430               21666
03:00pm  -196         1392               21551
03:40pm  -168         1436               18931
04:30pm   236         1596               18566
06:00pm   621         1702               11456
07:00pm    33          613                6152
10:00pm    19          599                6127

These figures apparently include the Grays Harbor recount, which provided a significant boost to Gregoire. Looks like we’re headed for a recount.

And again, the Projected Margin (of a Rossi victory) is based on county by county estimates of ballots left to count, and the existing margins therein. If these estimates are dramatically off, so will be the projection.

The headline says it all.

Presumably, this lawsuit focuses on the absentee and provisional ballots for which the Dems have collected affidavits proving signature matches. I guess winning is more important than discerning the will of the voters.

I’ll be posting the latest gubernatorial vote tallies and updated projections as they come in later today… the bulk of new numbers should come in after 4pm.

But there was more potentially good news for the Gregoire camp, when Grays Harbor announced it was to recount all ballots today, due to a glitch in the counting system. (Apparently, some ballots were counted twice.)

Auditor Vern Spatz expects the recount to favor Democrat Gregoire.

The folks at Sound Politics had some fun teasing me for my moment of post-election despair, in which I said “I cannot imagine being convinced that this was a free and fair election.” (I still can’t.) They called me aluminum hat boy.

That’s fine, fun is fun.

But looky what happens the moment the vote count doesn’t go their way:

What all this says about the credibility of our election system, should the favorite daughter of the Democrat machine which produced the 10,000 magical mystery ballots be declared the winner on the basis of these magical ballots, is for another day.

(Stefan… it’s the WIFI networks that are controlling our brains!!!)

Anyway, here’s what happened. The righty bloggers have been making the same projections I have. Only much more smugly.

Based on the distribution among the various counties of the ballots left to be counted, and the current vote margins therein, we were all projecting Dino Rossi to win by a 3000-plus vote margin. Not a comfortable victory but more than the 2000 vote spread that would trigger an automatic recount.

Our math is sound, and assuming the margins hold up and the numbers posted to the elections page on the Secretary of State’s web site are accurate, our projections should be sound too. But there was always something that made me suspect that the “Ballots Left to Count” numbers were estimates only:

Figures in the “Approx Ballots Left to Count” column are estimates only.

I might have missed this disclaimer entirely, if it didn’t appear prominently beneath a bold, red, all caps warning: “IMPORTANT: READ THIS FIRST!”

Of course Stefan and the other aluminum-hat-wearing whiners at Sound Politics were well aware that these were “estimates only.” In fact there was a discussion earlier today about Benton County overestimating the number by 2500 during the 2000 election.

So here’s where we stand. After today’s count, Gregoire is leading Rossi by 158 votes, while the projections still suggest a 1430 vote Rossi victory, and an automatic recount. But… adjust the ballots-left-to-count by 5000 in the right counties, and Gregoire keeps her lead.

So there’s the glimmer of hope some of you were asking for.

From the political blog on the Spokesman Review!

Christine Gregoire’s strongest county, King County, will announce within half an hour that it had thousands more uncounted votes than expected. Elections officials there started today thinking they had up to 11,000 votes left to count.

If true, this would still not be enough to project to a Gregoire victory, but GOP chair Chris Vance says it all: “That changes the race dramatically… I was much more confident this morning.”

Since I’m getting a lot of traffic from the AP article on bloggers obsessively tracking the vote count in the governor’s race, I thought I better play my assigned role, and provide some updates throughout the day.

So here are the latest totals out of approximately 2.8 million votes cast:

Time     Rossi Lead   Projected Margin   Ballots Left
10:30am  1935         3417               41423
11:05am  1948         3419               41273
12:45am  1988         3405               38873
04:10pm  1974         3359               36573
05:00pm  -657         1365               27493
06:45pm  -158         1430               21666

Gregoire now holds a 158 vote lead after King County reported 17,000 votes this afternoon… a bit of a surprise considering King County had previously reported only 11,000 ballots left to count. However, based on the remaining distribution of uncounted ballots, Rossi is still projected the winner by 1430 votes.

For those D’s looking for a glimmer of hope… perhaps you should look elsewhere. It has been pointed out to me that I was wrong in saying Maria Cantwell picked up 1500 votes in her recount… she only picked up 306.

But it certainly looks like we’re headed for a recount.

Interesting piece in the Seattle P-I about Democrat Brian Weinstein’s victory in traditionally Republican Mercer Island. [Teachers key to Democrat Weinstein’s ousting Mercer Island state senator]

Voters “were very frustrated with Jim Horn,” Weinstein said. “People on the Eastside to a large extent move here because they want their kids to go to good schools. It wasn’t hard to convince them.”

This is how you win elections, and it fits very nicely into some thinking I’ve been doing on how Democrats can start taking back the country. We’re not wrong on the issues, we’re running the wrong candidates and the wrong kind of campaigns.

I’ve got a bit more thinking to do, but you can be sure I’ll share it with you and ask for your input once I get all the pieces in place.

I’m quoted in a couple of AP newswire stories today, including a nicely written piece by Olympia correspondent Rebecca Cook, that has gone national: “Bloggers obsessively track votes in governor’s race.” Also mentioned is local righty blog SoundPolitics.org, who really has been tracking the ballot count obsessively. (I guess I should also mention equally obsessive righty Timothy Goddard, since he was kind enough to mention me.)

You’ll also find me getting my digs into our friend Timmy, in Dave Ammons’ weekly column: “Analysis: Current rough patch won’t stop Eyman.”

It has been suggested to me that for a blog devoted to a reasoned discussion of politics and media criticism, I have occasionally gone over the top. Okay… a few people have actually accused me of being offensive.

For example, I have received a couple negative comments about my joyful, half-joking Canadian bashing. One reader wrote that he enjoyed my deconstruction of Collin Levey’s opinions, but that my “savage critique of her writing skills” was personal and uncalled for. And of course, there are those who squirm uncomfortably at my occasional — yet always prudent — use of profanity… like “ass“, “shit“, “bastard“, “fuck“, “prick“, and the semantically nuanced political epithet: “fucking prick“.

Personally, I have long believed that one of the strongest ways to express genuine outrage is to say something genuinely outrageous. Plus, swearing just plain makes me feel good. For example, take FuckTheSouth.com, one of the few pieces of post-election analysis that has actually made me laugh. Downright offensive? I guess so. Thought provoking, informative, political analysis? Yeah, it’s that too… and it’s also damn amusing.

I would hope that my regular readers understand the difference between seriousness and solemnity, and thus do not discount the content of this blog due to the literary style in which it is expressed. But I understand if not everyone shares my predilection for the profane. My goal has always been to entertain as well as inform — but I am doing neither if I’m turning off repeat visitors due to a few cuss words.

And so I ask you, gentle reader, for your input. Am I doing myself and my causes a disservice by expressing my opinions so, well… expressively? Or do you appreciate that, unlike the mainstream pundits, my word choice is as honest as my opinions?

I look forward to your comments and suggestions on how to make this a better blog.

Speaking of intellectual dishonesty on the Seattle Times op/ed pages, Collin Levey is up to her usual rhetorical mischief in her latest column: “Cheap drugs help no one if they’re not effective“.

Collin’s springboard is the recent recall of Indian-made generic HIV drugs, that had been intended for the AIDS-ravaged African market. She uses this unfortunate incident as an opportunity to criticize (largely Democratic) efforts to permit reimportation of less expensive drugs from Canada:

In the past two years, there has been a stampede on the part of governors and Washington, D.C., policymakers to authorize the reimportation of drugs from Canada and other nations.

All the problems of America’s expensive medications could be solved, this contingent said, by performing a simple end-run around the greedy juggernaut of profit-seeking drug companies. In this, as in Africa, the Bush administration’s insistence that it would not sanction the safety of drugs not vetted by the Food and Drug Administration has been met with sneers and accusations of callous disregard for human life.

It’s Collin who is sneering, and her callous disregard is for truthful debate. We’re talking about the reimportation from Canada of drugs manufactured in the United States. She may not be implying that Canadian pharmacies are passing off ineffective Indian generics… but she’s certainly hoping that’s the inference her readers will come away with.

The safety issue is a red herring, and Collin knows it.

That said, I wholeheartedly agree with Collin when she says “Canadian reimportation is an idiotic idea” — but probably not for the same reasons.

Can anybody seriously suggest that shipping drugs to Canada and then shipping them back to the US is an efficient, cost-effective distribution system? Canadian drugs are cheaper because the Canadian government negotiates with the pharmaceutical companies to obtain favorable pricing for its citizens… something the Bush administration explicitly prohibited Medicare from doing in the recent reform legislation.

There is no free market in prescription drugs; government health systems and large insurance companies negotiate best pricing the world over. Only in the US are the uninsured and underinsured left to fend for themselves. In effect, American consumers are subsidizing sales of lower priced drugs abroad.

What would happen if the US government paid more care to the welfare of its citizens than the welfare of pharmaceutical executives? No company can or should be forced to operate at a loss. If the US negotiated lower prices for its citizens, then the drug companies would be forced to negotiate higher prices in those markets that can afford it.

In lieu of a free market, we can at the very least strive for a fair one. Especially when it comes to a life-or-death product like prescription drugs.

With about 41,000 votes left to count, Rossi now leads Gregoire by 1920 votes, and current county margins project a 3400 vote victory. (For Rossi, that is.) That’s an improvement (for Gregoire) from yesterday, but the remaining votes would really have to break strongly in her favor to make up the gap.

You want hope? If Gregoire can pull within 2000 votes and trigger an automatic recount, anything can happen. In the senatorial race four years ago, Maria Cantwell picked up over 1500 votes in the recount.

Again, I understand the rules of the game, and the simple virtue of owning a newspaper grants you the right to use the op/ed pages to push the agenda of your choice. But I am constantly amazed at how ham-fisted the Blethens are in promoting their own narrow self-interest.

For the second time since the election, the Seattle Times has seen fit to editorialize against the estate tax, first the federal and now the state. Yeah… the war in Iraq, the economy, widespread electoral fraud… none of that is apparently as important to the owners of our state’s “paper of record” than assuring that the very wealthy pass on their estates undiminished.

In fact, I’m not sure the Blethens are really all that concerned with anybody else but the Blethens, as they constantly argue their case by raising the specter that an estate tax might force their heirs to sell out, ending decades of local ownership… by the Blethens.

And readers should be concerned because…?

I’m sure their rhetoric has a powerful emotional appeal — to the Blethens — but it ignores a couple realities. A) Any change in tax policy has winners and losers, and eliminating WA’s estate tax would either cut services or shift tax burden to those who can least afford it, making what is already the most regressive tax system in the nation even more unfair. B) Eliminating the estate tax would not ensure Blethen family control; the Times is already half-owned by Knight-Ridder, and a single disgruntled heir looking to diversify their portfolio (according to the Blethens, the Times is a money pit) could shift control of the paper.

(FYI, my former hometown newspaper, the Knight-Ridder owned Philadelphia Inquirer, is a highly respected and editorially independent publication that makes the Seattle Times look like, well… the Seattle Times. All you expatriates from NY, DC, LA and other big cities with real big city papers… you know what I’m talking about.)

But then, it was just an editorial so we don’t really expect intellectual honesty, or even respect for the law:

Now a group of heirs that has had to pay the state tax has sued. On Sept. 30, they argued their case before the Washington Supreme Court. That court has not yet ruled.

How strong their legal case is we do not know, but we hope they prevail.

Yes, the Blethens “hope they prevail”, regardless of how strong the legal case is. I guess that is what the Times means by “political courage”… justices who are willing to rule on policy rather than the law.

Oh… and one more thing. It’s called an “estate tax”, goddamnit, and no matter how many times you call it a “death tax” (eight times in six paragraphs) it is still an “estate tax.” (RCW Title 83)

Perhaps Knight-Ridder could lend the Times a fact checker.

How important are provisional ballots in determining the outcome of the governor’s race? The WA State Democratic Party is planning to sue the King County Elections Department to gain access to the list of voters whose ballots have been ruled invalid.

In response, state GOP chairman Chris Vance made one of his usual ill considered stupid comments:

“I’m now becoming very worried that the Democrats are going to try to turn this into Florida,”

I can’t blame Republicans for trying to run out the clock, but this habit of ridiculing Democrats for wanting to count every vote shows just how little the R’s respect the electorate. Turn this into another Florida? How fucking arrogant can you get? If votes are left uncounted, then this is another Florida.

Apparently, Republicans only respect the will of the voters when it agrees with them.

I encourage you all to read the excellent column in today’s Seattle Times by Rep. Fred Jarrett (R-Mercer Island): “Legislative progress possible if we ‘risk’ civil discourse“.

It may seem a bit odd for me — an admitted partisan rhetorical flame thrower — to be supporting a Republican legislator’s call for bipartisan civil discourse. But just because I understand my role, doesn’t mean I can’t dream of a better world.