HorsesAss.Org

Republicans nationally have a lot to crow about after their big Election Day victories, but here in Washington state… not so much.

In what was arguably the most pro-Republican/anti-Democratic political climate since 1994, WA GOPers only managed to pick up three, maybe four seats in the state Senate, all of them against freshman incumbents in traditionally Republican-leaning districts the Dems had just recently captured during the Big Blue Wave of 2006. In the state House, Republican’s did manage to knock off a couple long term incumbents, but still only captured four or five seats, barely eating into the Dems’ huge majority.

But as disappointed as over-exuberant R’s might be by their candidates’ underperformance in in the Legislature, where Dems still firmly control both houses, their party’s performance at the top of the ticket was downright dismal. Once the dust has settled and the final votes are tallied, Democratic incumbent US Sen. Patty Murray will have defeated three-time Republican loser Dino Rossi by a nearly five point margin, while for all their talk of a 1994-like wave, the Republicans’ only US House pickup will be an open seat in WA-03… a seat the Dems were almost certainly going to lose in 2012, after it’s inevitably redrawn as a strongly Republican-leaning district.

In fact, the biggest upset of the election season went against Republicans in the putatively nonpartisan State Supreme Court race, where unofficial Democratic favorite Charlie Wiggins defeated unofficial Republican favorite Richard Sanders in a rare unseating of an incumbent justice.

All in all, considering the circumstances and the expectations, not a bad election year at all for Washington Dems. Which means it wasn’t all that good an election for Washington State Republican Party chair Luke Esser, who as a result, now faces a very serious challenger from former KVI talk radio host Kirby Wilbur.

Yeah, I know, Esser is Rob McKenna’s political altar boy, and it seems unlikely the Republican establishment would want to cross McKenna by ousting Esser just as the two were preparing to launch McKenna’s 2012 gubernatorial campaign. But with the rise of Clint Didier and the “Tea Party” movement, it’s not at all clear that the Republican establishment is still in firm control of the Republican Party.

See, the problem for Esser is, even the Republican Party is somewhat small “d” democratic when it comes to electing a chair, and if the teahadists have managed to take over enough local committees, he could be in for a real fight, especially against a well known opponent like Wilbur, who has long been active in party affairs, yet convincingly manages to strike that tone of ideological purity the teabaggers demand.

And it’s not like the WSRP doesn’t have a history of punishing its chair for disappointing results at the polls. Just ask Chris Vance and Diane Tebelius.

So if Esser isn’t already looking over his shoulder, he should.

– Vivian McPeak on cannabis and cancer.

– Glenn Greenwald on Obama’s 180 on trying Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in Federal court.

– Adam Serwer explains how Eric Cantor is accusing himself of committing a felony.

– Steve Elliott writes about an unscrupulous medical marijuana dispensary owner in Tacoma. This man was in the audience at the CDC’s forum with 36th LD Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles and when given a chance to ask a question of the Senator, he ranted a bit about how government regulation would doom his business. No kidding.

Last week’s contest was won by uptown. It was the center of Colchester, England.

This week’s is related to a TV show or a movie. Good luck!

Job 1
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?

Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.

But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.

And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

Discuss.

This weekend is the 10th anniversary of one of my favorite sites, TPM. Its format has grown from a simple one-person blog to a full-fledged news site, and they’ve done a good job of changing the perceptions of how news sites can be done. Joshua Green has a fun recounting of the early days of the site.

Justice Richard Sanders has kinda-sorta conceded his race to challenger Charlie Wiggins, after yesterday’s tally left him trailing by 5,787 votes. Writing in an email to supporters, Sanders explained that “campaign experts say that we are unlikely to make up that difference as the counties finish their tally over the next few days.”

And to what does Sanders attribute his upset loss?

In an interview Friday night, an emotional Sanders blamed The Seattle Times for what he called certain defeat, saying the newspaper unfairly portrayed him as believing African Americans are more prone to commit crimes.

Yeah, as I wrote over on Slog, the Times pulling its endorsement likely was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But you’ve got to give credit to the Stranger too, for setting the frame on Sanders. Indeed, you gotta wonder if the Times would have reported on or reacted to Sanders’ comments quite the same way if not for the other Sanders’ devastating expose?

And in case you’re wondering about the numbers, and why “election experts” believe a 5,787 vote gap out of nearly 2.5 million ballots cast is an insurmountable lead, well, there are now less than 93,000 ballots remaining, more than half of them in King County, where Wiggins is currently leading by a 58.6 percent margin. If you just project county-by-county based on cumulative margins, Wiggins would end up with about a 9,800 vote lead; if you project based on the post-election-day trend, that lead jumps to over 12,000.

That’s not much different from the projection I made, back when I called the race on Tuesday.

(There are more than thirty links to media from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

King County Councilman Reagan Dunn is running for Washington State Attorney General in 2012 (unless, possibly, redistricting or Reichert’s retirement leaves an open seat in WA-08). So what kind of bold leadership can we expect from Dunn? Not much.

The Seattle Times editorial board on the message to be taken from the failure of I-1098:

MORE taxes: not wanted in Washington. If there is any common message in the initial numbers for ballot propositions in Washington, it is that. … The message is unmistakable, and candidates cannot say they did not hear it.

The Seattle Times editorial board on the message to be taken from the failure of I-1082:

BY rejecting Initiative 1082, voters said they want the sale of workers’ compensation insurance to remain in the hands of the state. The Legislature is still free to reform the program, and it should do so.

Um… so… when voters reject tax hikes, it means all tax hikes should be completely off the table, but when voters reject workers’ compensation reform, it means the Legislature should get to work reforming workers’ compensation, except, you know, in a different way. Did I get that straight?

Gosh, how could we possibly augur the will of the people without the haruspices a the Times to pick apart the entrails of the body politic for us?

An absolutely perfect lampooning of the rhetorical approach of the right on just about everything.

As depressed as I am over the turn of events in LD-25, where neo-fascist wunderkind Hans Zeiger has retaken the lead over incumbent Democratic State Rep. Dawn Morrell, I have newfound hope in LD-41, where just a few days ago incumbent State Sen. Randy Gordon appeared to be hopelessly trailing faux-moderate Republican challenger Steve Litzow.

In fact, if the trends from the last few days of returns hold up, my calculations suggest that Gordon, now trailing by 336 votes, is currently on pace to take a small lead.

Gordon, who was appointed to replace former Sen. Fred Jarrett after he stepped down to take the number two position in King County, is widely regarded as one of the most liberal members of the Senate. So holding this seat in the former Eastside GOP stronghold would be a huge victory.

Last night, incoming House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), soon to be the highest ranking Jewish member of Congress in US history, held an unusual one-on-one meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after which Cantor’s office issued a statement that included the following:

“Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington,” the readout continued. “He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.”

Um… a bit of advice to Rep. Cantor from a fellow member of the tribe: if you really care about Israel and its security, and the welfare of world Jewry in general, then the last thing you want to do is turn American support for Israel into a partisan issue. The state of Israel could not have survived without broad and consistent support from both Republicans and Democrats alike, so when Americans start taking sides on Israel as bitterly and divisively as your party has pushed them to take sides on nearly every other issue… well, nothing good can come from that, for Jews anywhere.

If you’re searching for evidence of Right-Wing Derangement Syndrome, and the corrosive effect it is having on our body politic, look no further than Washington’s 1st Legislative District, where certified teahadist Heidi Munson and her supporters have run a mean-spirited and racist campaign against Democratic Representative-Elect Luis Moscoso.

One Moscoso supporter reports being harassed by a Munson doorbeller, who ironically called Moscoso a “racist” while accusingly him of being part of a La Raza invasion of Snohomish County. Another supporter reports a confrontation with a Munson sign waver, who insisted Moscoso wasn’t a citizen, and demanded to see his birth certificate. And just this Sunday Moscoso found a cross made out of his campaign signs on his office lawn.

That sort of xenophobic race baiting doesn’t occur in a vacuum; it’s the result of a top down rhetorical strategy that seeks to exploit fear, anger, paranoia and hatred, all for cheap political gain. And it’s a strategy one can’t simply turn off after the election.

Throughout the campaign Munson supporters have left numerous ugly comments on Moscoso’s Facebook page about him, his family and President Obama. And just yesterday, after the latest ballot drops gave Moscoso an 863-vote lead in a race he was trailing on election night, another Munson troll left this oh-so-bitter/cliche comment:

That final line, “You will not have that seat,” sure does sound like a threat, and I hope the Washington State Patrol investigates it, but the larger point is that when such an angry (and presumably armed) segment of the population has become so convinced by its leaders that the only way for a Democrat to win is to cheat, lie and steal, well… would it really be so surprising to see that result in violent consequences?

If Munson cared about democracy and the rule of law, she would concede now. She would congratulate Moscoso on his victory, and wish him the best of luck. This was a heartbreakingly close loss, she would tell her supporters, by she would vouch for the legitimacy of the outcome while thanking her supporters for all the hard work they put into her campaign. Yes, if Munson truly cared about democracy and the rule of law, she would be gracious in defeat, leading her supporters by example.

But she won’t, because like so many others on the teahadist right, Munson and her cross-planting followers are little more than modern day Klanners, intent on appealing to our nation’s basest instincts in their delusional struggle against the La Rasa hordes. And what’s truly scary, is that she almost won.

By happy coincidence, the new Speaker of the House and much of the Republican leadership of the House represent districts in swing states. And while their districts likely will remain safe after redistricting, I hope the Democrats spend the time recruiting candidates and spend the money running ads against Republican leadership.

This accomplishes a few things: first it pushes them to moderate their stances. If they know there will be a serious challenge from people to their left, they’ll have to think before kowtowing to the teaparty activists in their midst. So perhaps we’ll see awful legislation turned slightly less awful if the people charged with passing it through the House fear for their own seats.

It also means we can play offense in states that Obama is going to need to carry. Every crazy bill passed through the House gets a nice ad in Ohio and Virginia calling it out, and lays blame on Boehner and Cantor. We get to have a conversation about the awful things the republicans do in areas of those states that perhaps don’t often have those conversations. This will help Obama win in Ohio by having a conversation, by getting media for the Democrat’s position, and if the downticket races look competitive recruit volunteers.

Best (although least likely) of all, we might pick up some seats. Yes, Boehner got 2/3 of the vote last year. But every district in the country gets redistricted, so last cycle’s results are only so telling. And Democrats haven’t given these districts a test in a long time, so it’s not as out there as you might think.

I’m working on a longer piece explaining the whole ballot counting process (and why switching the ballot deadline to received by election day won’t much speed things up), but if you’re wondering why King County could tally 71,915 ballots on Monday, but only 18,236 today of the approximately 80,000 ballots it had on hand, well, that gets to the heart of one of the factors most responsible for slowing down the count: a lot of voters just can’t seem to follow instructions.

According to King County Elections Chief Communications Officer Kim van Ekstrom, over 17 percent of the ballots received this cycle needed to be “duplicated” so that they could be properly read by the optical scanners. Sometimes it’s due to a damaged ballot or stray marks, but often it’s due to voters not properly filling in the circles,  or using the wrong color pen. Voters are clearly instructed to use a black or dark blue pen (the scanners are specifically designed not to read red or green), but King County voters apparently own a rainbow of writing utensils.

Over 17 percent! That’s well more than 100,000 duplicated ballots in King County alone.

So the reason why the remaining ballots are taking so long to count is that these are the ballots that took a detour through the process, either due to a missing or mismatched signature, or the need to duplicate the ballot before scanning. And, well, that just takes time.