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Sutherland Issues Letter on Glacier Lease

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Yesterday, Commissioner of Public Lands, Doug Sutherland, wrote a letter to State Rep. Sharon Nelson (D-34, Vashon) saying he had not yet approved a controversial lease for mining company Glacier Norhtwest. 

Nelson, an opponent of strip mining on Maury Island, sent a letter to Sutherland on Monday asking him to address what she had heard from concerned constituents: Mining company Glacier Northwest had reportedly told King County’s Dept. of Development and Environmental Services that Sutherland was going to issue a required aquatics lease to Glacier (right after the election) that would allow the company to proceed with its controversial mining expansion. 

Republican Sutherland is up for reelection in a  tight race against outspoken environmentalist, Peter Goldmark. Goldmark has made an issue out of Sutherland donors like Glacier Northwest who, Goldmark says, get political favors from Sutherland. 

In his October 16 letter to Rep. Nelson, Sutherland repeated, in much stronger terms, the denial I reported here on Monday issued by Fran McNair, Sutherland’s Aquatic Lands Steward.

Sutherland writes: “As the proprietary manager of state owned aquatic lands, DNR [the Department of Natural Resources] is the decision making authority, not a lease applicant such as Glacier. Therefore any assurances that this prospective lessee may have directly or indirectly indicated concerning their final approval of a pending application should be considered purely speculative and without any merit.”

Election Scorecard

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Obama McCain
100.0% probability of winning 0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 368 electoral votes Mean of 170 electoral votes


Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 369 to 169 electoral votes. If the election had been held yesterday, Obama would have won with near certainty.

Today there were seven new polls in six states released. As a result, Obama holds his massive lead, but McCain gains back one electoral vote. After 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins all 100,000 times. Obama receives (on average) 368 to McCain’s 170 electoral votes. Obama, in an election held now, would have a near-100.0% probability of winning.

More details from this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ.The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

Podcasting Liberally

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After a brief hiatus, the Podcast is back—and with a special guest.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels starts the conicnversation on Seattle “inside baseball ” politics Sound Transit’s Prop. 1 ballot measure and mass transportation. The conversation then turns to the piles and piles of money dumped (sometimes illegally) into in the Washington state gubernatorial race. Will Rossi and surrogates succeeded in unifying the haters? And why hasn’t the BIAW been enjoined from spending more money on the race? Goldy laments the lack of editorial outrage from the traditional media over flagrant violations of election financing laws. The panel chit-chats about other races, like the presidential race and the Burner–Reichert race. Goldy, in response to the PI’s endorsement of Reichert, offers the proposition that the Seattle media establishment suffers from mediocrity. With two journalists on the panel, the comment triggers something of a group therapy session….

Goldy was joined by Chairman of the Sound Transit Board of Directors and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, Publisher of the Group News Blog, Jesse Wendel, HorsesAss reporter Josh Feit , and Seattle blogging pioneer N in Seattle.

The show is 65:16, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_oct_14_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

Why does Rossi hate the initiative process?

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Whenever we pass a ballot measure lowering taxes or limiting government in some way, or reject a measure proposing the reverse, the wise old sages of our media and political establishment always caution that we must follow “the will of the people.”  Yet I have noticed a curious pattern to Dino Rossi, who criticizes Gov. Gregoire for raising the gas tax, advocates for reducing the minimum wage and eliminating the estate tax, and has voted to defund initiatives raising teacher pay and reducing class size… all actions contrary to the will of the people as expressed at the polls.

I-920: Rejected, 38-62
This measure would repeal Washington’s state laws imposing tax, currently dedicated for the education legacy trust fund, on transfers of estates of persons dying on or after the effective date of this measure.

I-912: Rejected, 45-55
Initiative Measure No. 912 concerns motor vehicle fuel taxes. This measure would repeal motor vehicle fuel tax increases of 3 cents in 2005 and 2006, 2 cents in 2007, and 1.5 cents per gallon in 2008, enacted in 2005 for transportation purposes. Should this measure be enacted into law?

I-728: Approved, 72-28
Shall school districts reduce class sizes, extend learning programs, expand teacher training, and construct facilities, funded by lottery proceeds, existing property taxes, and budget reserves?

I-732: Approved, 63-37
Shall public school teachers, other school district employees, and certain employees of community and technical colleges receive annual cost-of-living salary adjustments, to begin in 2001-2002?

I-688: Approved, 66-34
Shall the state minimum wage be increased from $4.90 to $5.70 in 1999 and to $6.50 in 2000, and afterwards be annually adjusted for inflation?

And Rossi’s disregard for the will of the people doesn’t end there, with the candidate promising to build an Alaska Way tunnel that Seattle voters rejected by 70-30 margin, while constantly attacking Gov. Gregoire for failing to build a new Sonics arena that 74% of voters rejected at the polls.  And that’s just off the top of my head.

Huh.  If that’s the way Rossi honors the will of the people while running for office, imagine how much respect he’ll show us once he’s in it.

Burner Outpaces Reichert on Local Donations

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US Rep. Dave Reichert’s spin on Democratic challenger Darcy Burner is that her campaign fund is bolstered by out-of-staters—those carpetbagging netroots folks. 

And the Seattle Times ran with that angle earlier this month:

The outpouring reveals an aspect of Burner’s rematch against U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert that is under the radar for many 8th Congressional District voters: While her campaign talks up her blue-collar roots and family life, online activists from all over the country see her as one of their own.

Her immense popularity among the netroots — an informal, progressive group of bloggers — has boosted her campaign and helped her raise more than $2.3 million, topping Reichert, the Republican incumbent.

But Burner’s critics, including the Reichert campaign, are using those ties against her. They argue that she can’t represent the interests of the 8th District when some of her biggest supporters are liberal bloggers who never have set foot in Seattle’s eastern suburbs.

“Darcy Burner is pretty open about the fact that she wants to go to Congress to represent the netroots,” said Reichert’s campaign manager, Mike Shields. “That is her constituency, and that is who she’s raised money from, and so that’s who she’ll do the bidding of.” 

The Seattle Times‘ sensationalized spin about carpetbagging left out some important context that shows Burner isn’t a puppet of funders from out of state. If you compare Burner’s and Reichert’s donations, you see that Burner has more in-district donors and more in-state donors than Reichert. 

According to analysis of Federal Elections Commission records of individual donors at $200 or above (the level at which biographical info is available) done by Dan Kirkdorffer, a Burner supporter from the 8th District, Burner has 581 in-district donors compared to Reichert’s 446 in-district donors. Burner has 1,311 in-state donors compared to Reichert’s 922 in-state donors.

Burner’s dollar totals from in the district and in the state are also higher than Reichert’s: $685,000 to $635,000 in-district and $1.3 million to $1.1 million in-state, respectively.  

Reichert’s rejoinder could be that a higher percentage of his donations come from in the state and in the district. And that’s true. But Burner has more local donors total, which is a far more significant statistic when making claims about hometown support. For example, she has 42 percent more in-state donors, and 30 percent more in-district donors, than Reichert.

According to Act Blue, the netroots fundraising site, Burner has raised $544,837 from their online donors.  She’s raised about $3.1 million overall, which means netroots donors account for only 16 percent of her money. 

Certainly, Burner has a large number of Act Blue donors, over 15,000 according to Act Blue. Some of these donors are captured in the analysis of FEC reports—others are not because many Act Blue donors fall below the $200 level. While those donors would certainly bump up the number of Burner’s out-of-state contributors, they’d also bump up her in-state donor tally, increasing her lead over Reichert on that score.  

Another important part of the fundraising story to consider is donations from PACs. Those donations are not figured into the in-state vs. out-of-state equation. 

PACs, political committees that represent corporations and unions, made up 31 percent of Rep. Reichert’s total campaign fund according to the latest online data at the FEC (which doesn’t yet include the most recent fundraising reports.) PAC giving makes up only 13 percent of Burner’s haul.

PAC donations can certainly come from local interests, like Boeing ($10,000 to Reichert) and Microsoft ($3000 to Reichert), but here’s the FEC list of Reichert’s PAC donations. With everything from General Electric to Goldman Sachs to Lockheed Martin to Pfizer Inc., it is hardly dominated by local interests.  

I have a call into Reichert’s campaign to ask them to address their claim that Burner’s financial support—which is deeper at that local level than Reichert’s—isn’t local enough.  

Meanwhile, here is what Mike Shields, Reichert’s campaign manager, said on October 3, in the comments thread on the popular local conservative politics blog, Sound Politics: 

There is a bigger issue at stake in this election that local SP readers should consider if they are not yet engaged in this race: if burner wins, she will prove that even a candidate with no experience, no real connection to her community, who is to the left of the local voters, can raise enough money from national activists that they can elect someone in YOUR local district. This will embolden them to futher this model nationally. Those activists may not have succeeded in winning any policy debates, but if they start overpowering local voters with money they can begin installing members who think like them who WILL win their policy debates for them. This is the movement they are openly trying to create and they will absolutely be emoldened if burner wins. She may not seem like she is conecting here, but she’s a national netroots celebrity. You can help stop them and disprove the paradigm by helping us at reichert’s campaign:www.davereichertforcongress.com.

Note: The possibility exists that this comment wasn’t actually left by the same Mike Shields who’s running Reichert’s campaign, but if that’s true, Shields has had nearly two weeks to correct the record.

Here is Kirkdorffer’s analysis. (These numbers include local Bush fundraisers for Reichert, which may artificially inflate Reichert’s local donor numbers. Also, Burner’s number of “In-District Maxed Out” Donors, 54, should be in bold, not Reichert’s lower number of 49.) :

 

Republican sexperts

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The Gregoire campaign alerted me this afternoon to this news release from the National Letter Carrier’s union blasting some ads created by the Republican Governors Association to aid Dino Rossi.

The television ad, being run by the Republican Governors Association in support of GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, shows a man walking a dog, and then a letter carrier (with satchel and mail), leering at young children near an ice cream truck, while in the audio background a woman depicting a mother warns that some convicted sex offenders have not properly registered with law enforcement agencies during the Gregoire administration.

“This television ad is beneath contempt,” said NALC President William H. Young. “It is ludicrous and shameful that the Republican Governors Association would stoop so low as to portray America’s most trusted government agents in this manner just to pump up a specious political argument against the incumbent governor.”

Yeah, that sounds pretty low, although I must confess I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing this particular piece of GOP Party handiwork. Let us know in comments if it pops up on the YouTube.

Talk about “leave no sleaze behind.” I guess they haven’t caught on that regular people get disgusted with demagoguery surrounding this issue. The state House Republicans tried it and look where it got them. The Speaker’s Roundtable, one of the Republican organizing committees, can now meet at a booth at McDonald’s.

As I recall, the fake sex offender postcard was met with widespread editorial board condemnation in this state. Just sayin’.

WA-08: Dewey Wins!

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A couple weeks ago it became clear that our state’s media-political complex had written off Darcy Burner’s chances in Washington’s Eighth Congressional District, and was already busily writing a post mortem.

Darcy had run a disappointing campaign I was told.  She had done nothing since 2006 to polish her resume, or to erode the credentials of her opponent.  She focused on Iraq when voters really only cared about the economy, and was running far to the left of what is at  best a centrist, if not a slightly conservative district.  But worst of all, she was way “too close to the netroots.”  (Whatever that means.)

I heard this critique repeatedly, from journalists from politicos and from elected officials, sometimes firsthand, sometimes second, and sometimes through the whisper down the lane chorus that crowds the road to conventional wisdom.  I’ve even heard it suggested that I personally have done more to harm Darcy’s prospects than help, my relentless “cheerleading” spurring some in the media to turn against Darcy, if only out of spite.

Darcy and the netroots were going to lose a second blue wave election, and it was our own damn fault.  And, it seemed to me, there were some on the Democratic side of the partisan divide who were taking greater satisfaction in this “epic fail” than one would justifiably expect from their Republican counterparts.

Then, over the past couple days, and obviously promoted by both Democratic and Republican sources, this pre-post mortem started to appear in print, echoed in Eli Sanders’ premature articulation in The Stranger, and then oddly enough, bluntly stated in the pages of Time Magazine under the unequivocable headline: “Will the Netroots Sink a Microsoft Dem?”

Even as Burner’s campaign has become more of a long shot, she is increasingly a cause celebre in the liberal blogosphere. The website Daily Kos calls her “a netroots hero” and sees her struggle as a crusade for liberal bloggers as well. “Taking Darcy down, in their minds,” wrote one of Kos’ main posters, McJoan, about national Republicans, “means taking us down, Neutering us.” But her tight ties to the liberal blogosphere may well be her ultimate downfall.

[…] “Darcy Burner is pretty open about the fact that she wants to go to Congress to represent the netroots,” Reichert’s campaign manager Mike Shields, told the Seattle Times. “That is her constituency, and that is who she raised money from, and so that’s who she’ll do the bidding of.” But Democrats worry about the association as well. “The big question people are quietly asking about her,” says one local Democratic consultant, “is, in building her movement, did she lose touch with the people she sought to serve?”

Notice that the article is sourced almost entirely secondhand, with no effort by the author to talk to either campaign.  In fact, the only first hand sources cited in the entire piece are identified as “one local Democrat” and “one local Democratic consultant.”  (The same person?)  This thesis, that the netroots are an anchor around Darcy’s neck, is clearly being promoted by Democrats as well as Republicans, and has been eagerly embraced by a media establishment that is just as fearful as their political counterparts of the challenge we pose to the status quo.

But the problem with this thesis, that conveniently blames the netroots for the Democrats losing a district that has never before elected a Democrat, is that it is based on three assumptions, all of which happen to be unproved by the facts on the ground, that A) Darcy is indeed “too close” to the netroots; that B) a significant fraction of 8th CD voters have any idea what “the netroots” are, or where Darcy stands in relation to us; and that C) Darcy is in fact losing her race against Reichert.

[Read more…]

Oregonian gives nod to Gregoire

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So both Vancouver-Portland metro dailies have now endorsed Gov. Chris Gregoire, Democrat, over Dino Rossi, GOP Party. From The Oregonian:

Attacking the gas tax, he has argued that major transportation improvements that Washington needs desperately could be financed out of the state’s general fund without new revenue. His recent TV ads making dark charges about the state’s oversight of sexual predators have been found both odious and inaccurate by many of the state’s law enforcement officers.

Rossi’s arguments, and the voice he would provide to an element of the state that too often feels unheard, don’t outweigh Gregoire’s impressive first term.

Washington voters should give her another.

Yeah, I know, they’re just newspaper endorsements. Campaigns covet them but it’s pretty hard to claim they influence that many voters.

Still, lots of folks on the north side of the Columbia subscribe to The Oregonian, so it’s worth noting. Editorial boards seem to be noticing Gregoire’s steady hand.

Rossi wins one-week delay in subpoena decision

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What is Dino Rossi trying to hide from voters?  Well, we likely won’t know until after the election, as a King County Superior Court judge has delayed her decision until next week on whether to quash a subpoena to depose Rossi about his involvement in the growing Buildergate scandal.

And while the Rossi camp can be audibly heard sighing in relief, our state’s editorialists, usually champions of sunlight and open government, continue to yawn, apparently unconcerned about Rossi’s role in what is without a doubt the most blatant and egregious violation of our campaign finance laws in our state’s history.  Un-fucking believable.

Election Scorecard

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Obama McCain
100.0% probability of winning 0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 369 electoral votes Mean of 169 electoral votes


Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 270 to 168 electoral votes (on average). With the addition of 17 new polls in 13 states today, Obama slips by one electoral vote.

After 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins all 100,000 times. Obama receives (on average) 369 to McCain’s 169 electoral votes. There is solid evidence to suggest that Obama would win an election held today with near certainty. He is back to “only” a 100 electoral vote surplus.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ.The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

When it comes to debates, there’s nothing new under the sun

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Who is this “Batman?”

(Props to Ezra Klein.)

Late Joe the Plumber coverage: According to Ben Smith at The Politico, it appears Joe the Plumber is not registered to vote in Ohio. He’s apparently going to be on all morning shows ever created, including “Wake Up Finland.” Maybe someone will ask him about this whole “actually bothering to vote” thing. Seeing as he’s so, so concerned about his taxes.

(UPDATE–8:40 AM Oct. 16– I wanted to go back to Politico this morning to double-check about Joe the Plumber’s voter registration, and sure enough Politico has a link to the Toledo Blade, which reports that a Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher is registered to vote in Ohio as a Republican. Not clear why the difference in spelling.)

Joe the Plumber told Katie Couric he doesn’t actually make $250,000 a year yet, but is concerned about a “slippery slope.” Then Joe the Plumber compared Obama to Sammie Davis, Jr., (as in he was dancing,) which made Katie LOL. I wonder if Joe the Plumber knows Sammie was um, Jewish?

As if McCain needs more problems in Florida…

Even MORE debate coverage Although this time it’s from the WSJ 2000 election archives. Good old John Fund ‘splains about sighing.

Mr. Gore sighed with deep impatience throughout the debate in an attempt either to distract George W. Bush in his answers to debate questions or influence the audience. Yesterday Mr. Gore blamed his behavior on the TV cameras. “Under the debate rules, we were told there was going to be no coverage of our reactions when the other guy was talking.”

This is preposterous. Mr. Gore’s sighs were highly theatrical in nature, and he accompanied them with a series of squints, grimaces and eye-rolling that couldn’t have been accidental.

I’m sure Fund will be in similar high dudgeon tomorrow.

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