HorsesAss.Org

Last week’s Birds Eye View Contest went unsolved, but something weird did happen with the picture. When I first copied it last week, at intersection of Amethyst St and Raynol St in Los Angeles, there were no homes ready to slide down the hill. I went back there just now, and…homes have been built! Doesn’t Southern California have enough empty houses already? Sorry to everyone who tried solving that one, although I think wes.in.wa was on it. That was way hard.

Here’s this week’s…it’s not impossible. Good luck.

Control of the Clark County commission may hinge on a recount. The Columbian reports that Republican former state legislator Tom Mielke has a slim 78 vote lead over Democrat Pam Brokaw. Since Republican incumbent Marc Boldt won handily, and Democrat Steve Stuart was not up this year, partisan control will rest on the outcome of the Mielke-Brokaw race.

Don’t know exactly why ballots counted later tend to break Republican, and I suppose it doesn’t matter as the votes are the votes, but it is like water torture, as Aneurin observes.

So maybe Darcy should complain to the Washington News Council, that supposedly objective collection of movers and shakers who have arrogated to themselves the right to decide what constitutes real journalism. They did so in the WA-08 race in 2006, when they voted thumbs down on a P-I story about the real story behind Dave Reichert’s investigation of the Green River Killer. The P-I wisely rejected their findings, but the Washington New Council got their little kangaroo court broadcast on TVW, if I recall correctly. So our tax dollars were being used against us in a bald political manner, even if it was all dressed up in legal niceties. Still waiting on the Legislative hearings asking TVW um, WTF?

Here we are two years later and the Seattle Times indisputably did a hit job on Darcy Burner, so I’m sure the Washington News Council will be all over it.

And the Washington News Council is having a nice dinner tomorrow night! You should go. Really. I bet they’ll just be outraged about what happened to Burner and can’t wait to get to the bottom of it.

Here’s the poster:

Yesterday, I was watching President-elect Barack Obama’s first post-election press conference, when Will called, and I scolded him for interrupting me while I was watching “my President.”  And I suddenly realized how long it’s been since I was able to utter the phrase “my President,” without throwing up in my mouth.

A historic election indeed.

To find out why this is the coolest thing ever, click here.

Darcy issued the following brief statement:

“It is likely at this point that Congressman Reichert has won re-election, and while we will certainly ensure that every valid vote is counted, we accept the decision of the voters.

“I would like to thank the thousands of people who put so much time and effort into the campaign, as well as the countless thousands more who went beyond voting to actively participate in our democratic process this year. The election of Barack Obama as our new President will ensure that the change to the direction of our country called for in this campaign is realized in the new year.”

I will write my own analysis later, but for the moment, I can’t disagree with Joan’s comments over at Daily Kos:

The Seattle Times spurious attack on Darcy’s character, calling her a liar because she accurately described her Harvard degree, apparently worked. So they succeeded in re-electing an already ineffective incumbent who will be even more so mired deep in the minority, with a Democratic president.

Congratulations, Emily Heffter and the Seattle Times. You just assured progress on key issues like transportation and environmental protection in the 8th District won’t have an effective proponent in the House. At least we’ve got good Senators.

I want to thank all of you here at HA who contributed so much time, money and support to Darcy during her two campaigns.  And I want to thank Darcy for dedicating four years out of her life to this cause.  I don’t know if she’ll ever serve in Congress, but I sincerely doubt that this is the last we’ve heard of Darcy Burner.

Super Obama World

David Carrier, who mounted a vigorous campaign against incumbent Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, has conceded the race this evening as today’s totals show Benton with a lead of roughly 51%-49%. In a news release Carrier urged citizens to be vigilant.

We can’t afford to sit back while Senator Benton blocks legislative solutions that will improve our lives and the lives of our children. We can’t allow him to miss legislative sessions, committee meetings, and important votes. We can’t allow him to blow off meetings with constituents. We can’t let him get away with false allegations and deceptive campaign tactics. The people of the 17th Legislative District deserve better, and must hold him accountable.

Doesn’t sound like Carrier’s going to fade away quietly to me.

Carrier’s run was an impressive showing by a novice candidate running against one of the best funded Republican incumbents in the state. Here’s hoping Carrier decides to run for office again at some point, be it in the 17th LD or for some other position.

I’ve read a number of analyses attempting to explain Gov. Chris Gregoire’s decisive, 8-point victory over Dino Rossi in what has long been heralded as a nail-biter of a race, and I find it curious that everybody seems to miss the obvious:  voters were largely satisfied with the Governor’s job performance during her first four years in office.

Everybody was so focused on casting this race as a rematch of 2004’s virtual tie, that they seemed to ignore the dramatically different circumstances.  Four years ago this was a race for an open seat, pitting two contrasting personalities against each year.  The state decidedly leans Democratic, but Rossi came off as more personable, while an over-confident Gregoire campaign failed to challenge the Republican’s vague mask of moderation.  Meanwhile, Rossi’s “she’s too liberal,” “she’s gonna raise your taxes,” “she’s an Olympia insider” attacks resonated enough to make Gregoire appear a risky choice to many crucial swing voters.

But over the past four years Washington voters have come to know Gov. Gregoire… not as well as they should have, but well enough.  And as it so happens, it turned out she wasn’t too liberal, she didn’t ignore Eastern Washington, and apart from the gas and estate taxes—both approved overwhelmingly at the polls—Gregoire didn’t raise our taxes.

Fear of the unknown is a powerful force, but this time around Gregoire was known… and she just didn’t come off as all that scary, no matter how many times that asshole pitchman poured gasoline on a flaming stack of money.

This isn’t rocket science.  This was a referendum on the Governor’s job performance.  And on that measure, Gregoire won hands down, increasing her margins in 30 of 39 counties.

Of course, the strategy and execution of the two campaigns also came into play, as did various other external factors, and I’ll have more to say on that a little later.  But with even the post-election analysis of Gregoire’s own campaign manager failing to mention Gregoire’s job performance as a critical factor, I just wanted to give a little credit where credit was due.

For all our differences on policy and strategy, and there are more than a few, Chris Gregoire has proven herself to be an excellent governor… and in reelecting her, our state’s electorate has proven itself to be an excellent judge of both character and competence.

From Editor and Publisher yesterday:

The American Press Institute (API) will host an invitation-only, closed-door “summit conference” Nov. 13 in which 50 CEO-level executives will ponder ways to revive the newspaper business.

The one-day conference at API’s Reston, Va., headquarters will be “a facilitated discussion of concrete steps the industry can take to reverse its declines in revenue, profit and shareholder value.”

And here’s Robert MacMillan of Reuters writing about the closed door policy at the crisis summit in a post today:

Many sources whom we deal with in the media world — particularly reporters, editors and other members of the editorial staff — find it funny that the industry they’re in (finding and reporting information, truthsquadding the government, holding the powerful accountable, etc. etc.) relies on publishers and other executives who are among the most press-averse people in the business world. Some executives talk. But many others hide, and only come out once a quarter to share some more bad news.

Maybe reporters should try publishing false accounts of their owners’ educational backgrounds, that might shake things up a bit. We’ll call it the Heffter-Pickler Reporting Method.

Initiative 1029 is passing by a lopsided 73-27 percent margin, and how do the editors at the Seattle Times celebrate this exercise in direct democracy?

The Legislature and the governor should exercise their right to overturn this initiative immediately. That’s a tall order, because it would require two-thirds vote of both houses if lawmakers opt to do it within two years of passage.

Hear that?  The Times thinks three quarters of its readers are idiots, easily deceived by an “artfully worded ballot measure.”

I’ve long argued that the intiative process is a crappy way to write legislation, and I don’t doubt that I-1029 might have benefited from a more deliberative process.  But for a paper that routinely defends anti-tax, anti-government, anti-labor initiatives as inviolate expressions of “the will of the people,” this editorial reads as a masterful stroke of unselfconcious hypocrisy.

Had the execrable and unworkable I-985 passed on Tuesday, even by the slightest of margins, would the Times have demanded that the Legislature exercise its “right” to overturn the initiative?  How about the blatantly unconstitutional and anti-democratic I-960, that passed by a narrow 51-49 percent margin, yet requires a two-thirds majority for any tax or fee increase?  Would the Times cheer a legislative effort to exercise their “right” to overturn that initiative?

I don’t think so.

So be forewarned.  The next time the Times editors defend an initiative or the initiative process by cynically appealing to “the will of the people,” I’m going to shove today’s editorial so far up Fairview’s fanny they’ll have newsprint coming out of their mouths.

Um… it doesn’t look good.  Again, we don’t know where the ballots are coming from, or if they’re being counted in any particular temporal order, but Reichert won the last King County drop by a large margin, and it’s beginning to look like a trend.  It’s too early to concede, but unless things go substantially in Darcy’s favor in today’s count, it’ll be time to start crying in my beer.

As a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s throughout the primary, I was told that my candidate, and her supporters (myself included) were somehow destroying the party. That we were going to cost the Democrats the election and divide the party irreparably. That somehow forcing an extended primary through Pennsylvania, and Indiana, and North Carolina would hurt us in those states. Remember Kennedy in 1980 – as if the problem wasn’t Carter in 1980 – I was told. You’re not a real Democrat.

While I did make an electoral argument for Hillary, I never believed that Obama couldn’t win, or couldn’t win Jewish voters, or white women, or working folks, or whatever the most important demographic evar might have been at that particular moment. I think you have to vote issues in the primary, or you never get the chance. So, yeah, I supported the candidate who supported universal health care, had the better plans for the environment, and who I thought would be better for the middle class. I’m still glad I supported someone who was in favor of those things, although as I said during the primary, those are differences in degree and not differences in kind that we had with McCain.

I always promised to work like hell for whoever the nominee was, and I’m glad to say I delivered. I don’t know how many complete strangers I proudly told on the phone or at their door, “I’m a volunteer with the Obama campaign for change.” I’m also proud to say how well Hillary delivered: raising money for Obama, and many speeches (most notably her concession speech, the speech in Unity NH, and the convention speech) as well as local events all across the country.

The truth is that a tough primary is often good for the party engaged in it. It gets supporters riled up, and it forces candidates to articulate their positions. It means that the media can’t just ignore them. As Melissa says:

Despite the frenetic din of pleading, scolding, haranguing, begging, admonishing and outright mockery that was aimed at Clinton during the primary as she stubbornly refused to concede a primary that she hadn’t actually lost, and despite the grim hand-wringing that a long primary would irreparably damage presumed nominee Obama, none of the grave warnings of the take-your-boobs-and-go-homers came to fruition. In fact, by engaging late-primary states like Indiana which haven’t helped choose a nominee in decades, the extended primary actually helped wake up Obama voters sooner than usual. It forced them to pay attention to the minutiae of Democratic policies early in the election, and gave the Obama campaign the opportunity to test and perfect its ground operation. The result? Indiana is blue for the first time in 40 years.

I was never worried about a primary against Maria Cantwell 2 years ago. And I was kind of disappointed that there wasn’t much of one in the 8th. The truth is, they’re almost always good.

In order to overreach, you have to be reaching in the first place.

The AP’s Curt Woodward has written his post-election analysis of the governor’s race, in which he largely credits (blames?) Obama’s “Superman-style” coattails and the economic meltdown for Gov. Gregoire’s big, election night victory.  And let’s not forget that “high-stakes politically motivated lawsuit.”

In fact, the only non-external factors Woodward credits to the campaign itself were Gregoire’s performance in the final debate, a few “half-truths” about Rossi’s stance on the minimum wage, and a last minute text message to Pierce County voters. That said, Woodward points out, “Gregoire’s campaign definitely had its flaws…”

She allowed Rossi to define her early on, and took some time to formulate a “change” theme that tied her campaign to Obama’s.

Even in victory, there were perplexing missteps. Gregoire’s campaign, for instance, didn’t provide the governor – or even a senior campaign official – for an interview Tuesday night or Wednesday with The Associated Press, which has the widest statewide reach of any news organization.

Yup, the most glaring flaw in Gregoire’s campaign was its failure to show proper deference to the AP… or so says the AP.  I guess that explains the glowing post-election analysis.