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The Seattle Times this morning asks the question, “Bag fee: bad idea or bad timing?”

Huh. Well, I suppose it could be one or the other or both. Or, and perhaps I’m reaching here, but just maybe Referendum 1’s failure had something to do with the chemical industry outspending the Yes campaign by fifteen to one, an astounding $1.4 million to $95,000 margin? I mean perhaps, if the American Chemistry Council hadn’t spent about twenty bucks a piece for every No vote it would ultimately win, the vote might have been a little closer?

Or maybe I’m crazy, and money has no influence whatsoever on elections?

Of course, the reason the plastic bag industry was willing to spend so much money in a city initiative had nothing to do with lofty ideals or even the plastic bag market here in Seattle. It was to head off a cascade of similar measures in other cities should the Seattle bag fee had gone into effect, and proven to be, well, not so bad and not so unpopular. So here’s what I would do if I were on the Seattle City Council: pass the bag fee ordinance again.

And again. And again, and again and again.

Just keep passing that sucker, forcing the chemical industry to pump a million and half dollars or so into our local media economy year after year after year. It’s good for business and good for our democracy. And it sure would feel good to give the American Chemistry Council the finger.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

You know things are changing with respect to marijuana laws when the former police chief of a major American city writes the forward to a book about how marijuana is safer than alcohol. Here’s former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper in the introduction to a new book called Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink:

In all my years on the streets, it was an extremely rare occasion to have a night go by without an alcohol-related incident. More often than not, there were multiple alcohol-related calls during a shift. I became accustomed to the pattern (and the odor). If I was called to a part of town with a concentration of bars or to the local university, I could expect to be greeted by one or more drunks, flexing their “beer muscles,” either in the throes of a fight or looking to start one. Sadly, the same was often true when I received a domestic abuse call. More often than not, these conflicts–many having erupted into physical violence–were fueled by one or both participants having overindulged in alcohol.

In case you might be thinking my observations are unique, let me share the results of some informal research I have conducted on my own. Over the past four years, out of a general interest in this subject, I’ve been asking police officers throughout the U.S. (and Canada) two questions. First: “When’s the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana?” (And by this I mean marijuana only, not pot plus a six-pack or fifth of tequila.) My colleagues pause; they reflect. Their eyes widen as they realize that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. I then ask, “When’s the last time you had to fight a drunk?” They look at their watches.

This past weekend, another Hempfest came and went. Several hundred thousand people flocked to Myrtle Edwards Park, most of whom got high, and the most serious altercation was Dominic Holden being removed from the VIP area.

As Stamper points out, anyone remotely familiar with people who drink and people who smoke pot know quite well which category is more likely to be violent. Yet we continue to regard alcohol as the safer drug. Politicians of both parties have continually told us that we can’t legalize marijuana because of the message it would send to our kids, yet alcohol advertisements are everywhere. For those of us who grew up with this nonsense, we got the message loud and clear. Our drug laws don’t make any sense.

All day Thursday is a book bomb for the aforementioned book from Mason Tvert, Steve Fox, and Paul Armentano. Drug law reform groups are hoping to get the book to #1 on Amazon. I have my own copy already but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. The book is largely an extension of the work that Tvert has done with SAFER, a Colorado-based organization that has made some waves in that state already. You can grab it from Amazon here.

Yesterday I took a break from my all-too-frequent analyses of the R-71 signature counts. I didn’t even look at the numbers until this morning. When I did look, a Spock-esque twitch afflicted my left eyebrow. “Curious”, I though. “But maybe it’s just a one-time fluke….”

The analysis of yesterday’s data showed the probability of NOT making the ballet increased from a nearly impossible 0.04% to an almost-interesting 0.91%. In fact, this slow increase in the probability of not qualifying has continued a trend begun after 13 August.

Well, if you like that result, hold onto your sou’wester, because today’s result will blow you away. I’ll present the results in three parts. First, the basic results for today, then we’ll explore the trends in the daily data dumps. Finally (and below the fold) we’ll look at the micro-level volume data to divine what this trend suggests.

Today’s R-71 data release has the signature count up to 79,195, (about 57.5% of the total). There have been 9,208 invalid signatures found, for a cumulative crude (non-duplicate-corrected) rejection rate of 11.63%.

The invalid signatures include 7,805 that were not found in the voting rolls, 703 duplicate signatures, and 700 signatures that mismatched the signature on file. There are also 38 signatures “pending”; I’ve ignored them in the analyses. The 703 duplicate signatures suggest a final duplication rate of about 1.90% for the petition. This continues the trend we’ve seen this week of the projected duplicate rate growing faster than the mathematical predictions under the assumption of random sampling.

Using the V₂ estimator, the number of valid signatures is now expected to be 120,777 leaving a thin surplus of only 200 signatures over the 120,577 needed to qualify for the ballot. From the cumulative data to date, the overall rejection rate is projected to be 12.28%.

A Monte Carlo analyses consisting of 100,000 simulated petition samples suggests that the measure has an 80.48% probability of qualifying for the ballot, assuming the only “error” is statistical sampling error.

Here is the distribution of valid signatures relative to the number required to qualify.

The red bars on the left show the times R-71 failed to qualify among the 100,000 simulations; green bars show the counts of signatures in which the measure qualified. Compare this to the results from just two days ago. Quite a difference!

Let’s examine the history since the SoS office started releasing accurate data a week and a half ago:

The red line shows the number of signatures needed to qualify, and the blue symbols show the daily projections of valid signatures, surrounded by 95% confidence intervals.

Clearly, since the 13th of August, the projected number of signatures has declined–and, as of today, declined more than we could expect by chance alone. Something is going on.

Tomorrow will be interesting…if the trend continues, success of the measure may dip below a probability of 50%.

The analyses I’ve done here are based on two assumptions: (1) that the signatures evaluated so far are just like signatures that remain to be evaluated, and (2) that the signature validation process is “stable” (the people validating signatures are not changing their standards over time). Today we see some pretty good evidence that one (or both) of these assumptions is (are) violated.

The supporters of R-71 will, no doubt, focus on the second assumption. If the measure fails, Secretary of State Sam Reed will likely take much abuse from fringe homophobes for “personally pushing a homosexual agenda.” To me, the simplest explanation is that the volumes being examined in serial order are chronologically correlated with the signature collection order. ( I don’t know if this is true; but, I cannot rule it out either.)

My thinking is that later-collected signatures (and therefore, later volumes) should have a higher duplication rate, just because there is an increasing chance with time early signers forgot whether or not they signed earlier. Additionally, with the last push of getting as many signatures as possible with an approaching deadline, it seems plausible that errors would increase. I’m thinking errors like collecting more out-of-state signatures, underage signatures, and signatures from people not active on the voter rolls.

Below the fold, I examine the fine-level data to see just what types of errors are increasing as the process proceeds. If you are still interested, click through…

[Read more…]

From The Spokesman-Review:

(Rep. Cathy) McMorris Rogers spoke at All Saints Lutheran Church to about 50 people representing the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association and the AARP, the national advocacy group for people 50 and older.

Although the media were not allowed to attend, a few people who did said afterward that health care was the primary topic of discussion and that a woman in the audience who spoke in favor of the public option received the loudest applause.

Which personally I think is fine. Members of Congress should have meetings with members of appropriate groups in their districts. How interesting that the loudest applause was for the public option, too. I guess when you actually put folks who are likely to be most immediately interested in a room, they get real.

It wouldn’t even really be worthy of note, except for the deliberate insurance industry-GOP strategy of fostering anger and deception at other member’s town halls. To her credit, McMorris Rodgers has decried some of the worst of the nuttiness.

Sure, it would have been nice for McMorris Rodgers to have a public town hall in Spokane, since some tradmed outlets have declared them mandatory for Democrats. But hey, we’re pretty used to the double standard by now. I’m sure the howls of outrage from right wing talkers about facing constituents will echo across Eastern Washington tomorrow.

Normally, a sound first place finish in a nonpartisan primary would pretty much assure a candidate frontrunner status, but since the race for King County Executive is nonpartisan in name only, not-so-secret Republican Susan Hutchison shouldn’t start measuring the drapes just quite yet.

On the one hand, 37% in an ostensibly five-way race is pretty darn good, especially when you consider that the runner up is trailing far behind at 22%. But that’s not really all that much better than Will Baker numbers, the bare minimum an uncloseted Republican can expect to draw around these parts, and with 57% of voters choosing avowed Democrats, the D to R ratio is actually pretty damn respectable.

So what percentage of these non-Constantine Dems can Hutchison expect to lure in the general? Some, sure, but I’d hazard not nearly enough. Constantine is by far the most qualified candidate remaining, and the only Democrat. And if voters understand that in November, that should be enough to put him well over the top.

Public Policy Polling (PDF:)

One poll question indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on a complicated issue asked if respondents thought the government should ‘stay out of Medicare,’ something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.

Sometimes I really think we should just repeal Medicare, look over at the Republicans and go “there.” We won’t, of course, because it would be inhumane to millions of our fellow citizens, but still…

(Props to Think Progress.)

The Columbian: has a roundup of primary night down here.

Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard faces a heated battle to keep his job in November after waging a neck-and-neck struggle with Councilman Tim Leavitt in Tuesday’s primary.

Preliminary tallies released Tuesday night show Pollard with 43.1 percent of the vote, followed by Leavitt with 42 percent.

A third candidate, citizen activist Charlie Stemper, had 14.9 percent and will not advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

This should be a very interesting race to watch. As the article notes, Pollard is a 14 year incumbent, and the blunt former military officer has only once received less than 60% in a general election. Leavitt is campaigning on “change,” which is evident if you check out his web page. Remind you of anyone else’s?

There’s a generational component at play, with Pollard generally receiving backing from many long-time establishment figures. But Leavitt has secured some pretty impressive endorsements as well, including some union locals, various civic and community groups and of course, the Building Industry Association, the local BIAW affiliate.

Perhaps as importantly, Leavitt is endorsed by county commissioners Marc Boldt and Steve Stuart, whose party labels read “Republican” and “Democrat” respectively, but who in reality are both solidly in the BIAW camp.

There are long-standing frictions over growth between the county and the city, and one way to view Leavitt’s run is as an attempt by the pro-developer forces to take over the city government as well. The bubble may have burst, but the local bidness guys and gals are busy planning for the next one, and it would be great for them if the city doesn’t give them any trouble.

While there are the usual assortment of hyper-local issues, like redevelopment of Vancouver’s waterfront, the big regional issue at play is a new bridge over the Columbia River, ie the CRC project. This might wind up being a key factor in the race, with Pollard sticking to his vision of a completely revitalized downtown replete with waterfront, new bridge, capped freeway and light rail.

Leavitt has been pretty vocal about resisting tolls on any new bridge, which makes for good populist fodder, but doesn’t really match up with existing federal, state and local budget realities. Without tolls there won’t be a new bridge, as federal transportation funds aren’t what they used to be and there is strong political pressure in Oregon on the issue of cars coming in from the Washington side.

So to boil it down, the long-term incumbent and former military guy is the one with the vision for the future, including light rail and a more viable urban landscape, and the “change” guy endorsed by the BIAW is the one pecking around the edges, with the support of some Democrats, campaigning to stop a new bridge, even if he doesn’t say so explicitly.

It’s not that there aren’t real issues to address, and there are legitimate beefs with the city over where to put resources. The arts community is supposedly quite unhappy with Pollard over what they perceive as a lack of support, and many downtown merchants got their dander up early on about the possibility of light rail disrupting their businesses. Sprawl and traffic on the east side of town is as bad as ever, although over the last decade the city has made significant improvements in services delivered to that area.

The real issue, I suppose, may actually turn out to be the lack of funding for municipalities in general, and just how much less in basic services people want. There’s never any shortage of people to complain about taxes, and in this economy that would seem to work in Leavitt’s favor. This could wind up being the race of Pollard’s career.

I’m still on Other Coast Time, so I couldn’t help but drift off after writing up the 8:15 election results, but I think I dreamt last night that I awoke to find Greg Nickels with a comfortable lead in the Seattle mayor’s race, the later ballot drops having flipped the early numbers. I guess even my unconscious had trouble believing that Mayor Nickels might not survive the primary.

Of course, there wasn’t much in the way of late ballot drops as only the handful of ballots from the county’s three accessible voting centers were added in at 10 PM, and so the mayor really has found himself at the shortest end of a three-way statistical tie in a top-two primary. The mayor’s camp tells me they have some cause for optimism, as late polling showed Nickels doing better against Mallahan than the early vote, so with another 45% or so of ballots still outstanding there’s a good chance the mayor could catch him, but as I wrote last night, they’ve gotta be feeling kinda sad.

Winning a third term is awfully tough (a truism Gov. Gregoire should take to heart as she continues to raise money, presumably in preparation for 2012), even under the best conditions, and these weren’t the best conditions for Mayor Nickels, who despite managing our city into arguably one of the more stable financial situations of any major city, county or state government during this nearly unprecedented economic downturn, has faced brutal attacks on his management skills from a press that apparently believes that his response to a nearly unprecedented snow storm is a better measure of his managerial abilities.

Voters tire of you. And citizens have reason to be fatigued, considering the miserable city response to last December’s snowstorms.

[…] The anti-tunnel vote got a huge bump with support for McGinn, who wants to undo that decision. Welcome to Groundhog Day, as the city revisits the decision again and again. McGinn’s solution, surface transit, will jam our streets and overwhelm the freeway.

Yeah, well, I oppose the tunnel myself (at least, this tunnel, under this financing deal), but perhaps the Times might have thought about the potential consequences before nailing the mayor to the cross over a trumped up Frozen Watergate scandal. (I always find it a little irritating how the press plays such an active role in influencing elections, and then sits back and pretends to be a neutral observer after the fact. At least I’m honest about my activism.)

So as it stands now, we face the very real prospect of the man with the reputation for being one of the greenest mayors in America being unceremoniously shoved aside by an environmental activist. Really?

Don’t get me wrong, Mike McGinn and his supporters deserve a helluva lot of credit for running a grassroots campaign, and impressively so, whatever the final results. I’m eating a breakfast of not so tasty crow this morning for questioning the value of phone banking. And I certainly have my differences with the Nickels administration.

But it’s just hard to believe that a scandal-free mayor of a relatively well-managed city with few if any major problems compared to, say, the big city of my birth from where I’m typing my morning after observations, might potentially fail to make it through such an unimpressive, if crowded field of primary challengers.

How very Seattle of us.

So even while town halls are being held, contentious but not violent tonight in the case of Brian Baird, the political situation has bypassed the right wingers earnestly stamping their feet and holding their breath about “socialism” and “death panels” and such. From The New York Times:

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed.

“The Republican leadership,” Mr. Emanuel said, “has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day.”

So in their zeal to, well, be wienies, the righties have managed to convince even Rahm Emanuel that there’s no sense in playing ball with them. They just keep moving the goal posts.

My, oh my, isn’t this all so interesting?

I’m sure this will turn out to be good news for Republicans, somehow.

The quesadillas were shockingly good for an Irish place. What no boiled meat and cabbage? Oh, also he seems to have a ticket through the primary.

Hutchison…………37.40%
Constantine………22.38%
Jarrett…………….12.04%
Phillips…………….11.72%
Hunter…………….10.90%

I’m sure a new set of numbers will drop as soon as I hit publish, but there you go as of right now.

King County Elections dropped the first batch of ballots shortly after 8PM, and… well… blow me down:

Mike McGinn	16810	26.56%
Joe Mallahan	16334	25.81%
Greg Nickels	15859	25.05%

That’s a three-way statistical tie in the Seattle mayor’s race with 17.3% of registered voters counted. Can’t get much more dramatic than that… except for, you know, the excruciating wait over the next week or so as the other half of the ballots slowly trickle in to elections headquarters. (KC Elections still projects a 33% final turnout.)

No doubt the McGinn camp is feeling awfully damn pleased with themselves right now about their grassroots efforts, while the mayor’s folks… well… I suppose they’re feeling kinda sad. As for Mallahan’s folks, well, I’m still not sure there are any Mallahan folks who aren’t actually on payroll.

As for the rest of the King County primary results, there aren’t many surprises. In the executive race, Susan Hutchison leads Dow Constantine 37% to 22%, while Ross Hunter, Fred Jarrett and Larry Phillips are battling it out for a distant third. Meanwhile in the Seattle City Council races it looks like Sally Bagshaw will face off against David Bloom, Nick Licata will go up against Jesse Israel, and Mike O’Brien will take on Robert Rosencrantz.

And of course, the Bag Fee initiative is failing, 58% to 42%.

More later.

Today is election day, so make those final selections and turn in your ballot. And the join us tonight for some politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. The festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at 8:00 pm.

Remember, folks, guns and alcohol don’t mix. So check your sidearm with the kids before you come on down.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWg9CqgwZN4[/youtube]

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 335 other chapters of Drinking Liberally for you to shoot for.

Portland Fox Noise affiliate KPTV is going to stream Brian Baird’s first town hall, being held tonight at the Amphitheater at Clark County, capacity approximately 18,000.

The event is scheduled to be streamed starting at 7 pm.

The temperature in Vancouver just before 4 pm is 91 degrees.

Next up at the Amphitheater, in ten days, Nickelback, followed by Def Leppard in September.

[Typed on my Blackberry. Excuse the typos.]

At around 1:10pm, while getting ready to go to work, I stepped on the corner of a garbage bag. In that bag was the lid of a can of olives… My heel met that lid from the olive can, and well… The guy I’m housesitting for is probably going to need a new mat for his back door.

Sitting on this hospital bed at Overlake is giving me the chance to reflect, in real time, about healthcare in the USA.

This visit is going to cost me $125 bucks. Did I try to shop around, maybe to look for a better deal to avoid the ER? I did, but with a shoeful of blood, its tough to comparison shop.

Whats good about the situation is that I’m going to recieve excellent medical care. In America, we don’t ration healthcare. I’m going to get the full boat: tiny stitches, local pain meds, and a flat tube TV on the wall.

In America, we don’t ration healthcare. We ration the access to that healthcare. We run a healthcare system that no serious conservative politician in any country would advocate for. In England, Tory leader David Cameron reaffirmed his support for the NHS after a member of his party made dispariging statements on American TV. Cameron wants to be Prime Minister one day, and he knows that for its flaws, each and every Briton would pick the NHS over America’s broken system any day.

After I’ve been patched up and sent on my way, the hospital will ring up my charges and bill my insurance. They will bill at the highest rate possible to recoup for uncompensated care. You see, the simple fact that some don’t have insurance makes the insurance I do have more expensive. Whats more, my health insurance company will spend %12 of every dollar on paperwork, processing, and other overhead. Medicare, The Great Healthcare Satan, spends far less.

For all the monkeytalk coming out of DC these days, its easy to lose track of the reality of a broken healthcare system, and how regular Americans must navigate it every day, Americans of all stripes.

The doctor is on his way in, so I’ll close by saying this:

Universal health insurance is no more a socialist plot that universal car insurance.

[Typed on my Blackberry. Excuse the typos.]