HorsesAss.Org

On Tuesday we kicked off a netroots fund drive for Bill Sherman, with an ambitious, five-day target of $5,000 in online donations, and once again our region’s progressive community came through. 101 of you donated a total of $5,335. I personally thank all of you.

I spoke with Bill early last night, after we had passed our target but before the tally was final, and I can’t tell you how grateful he was. We didn’t just raise enough money for a targeted mailing, we created a whole lot of excitement and buzz, prompting more well-heeled donors to open up their checkbooks and help close the money gap between Bill and Republican Dan Satterberg. Bill might still be outspent nearly two-to-one, but if he can raise enough money to get his message out, he’s in a great position to be our first Democratic King County Prosecuting Attorney in over sixty years. So if you haven’t already given, please give now.

And while we didn’t hit my personal target of 200 new donors, 101 represents an amazing response rate relative to the few thousand readers who hit the participating blogs on a daily basis. By comparison, earlier this month Satterberg held his last big fundraising event of the campaign, attracting about 60 donors. By that measure, we kicked his ass, and with only a handful of blog posts. Not bad at all.

What we are witnessing both nationally and locally is an emerging progressive movement with the potential to challenge the dominance of both party’s political money machine. When Darcy Burner and I first met back in 2005, and talked about the role the blogs might play in supporting her campaign, the first thing I told her was “don’t expect us to raise you any money.” We can create buzz, I said, help frame the debate and debunk media coverage, but we just can’t raise money. And so nobody was more surprised than me when HA readers contributed over $30,000 to Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark over a ten-month period in 2006.

Then came Darcy’s astounding $125,000 national netroots funder — over a weekend in August — and now Bill’s $5,335, which relative to the size of the audience is at least as impressive, if not more so.

The point is, that by helping Bill win we are not just gaining a progressive perspective on the administration of justice in King County, we are sending a message to the local political establishment that the rules are changing. As the Democratic Party and other progressive organizations have increasingly relied on local bloggers to get their message out, we have necessarily played an important role in helping to shape their message. And now, in a campaign finance system where most races have contribution limits, our growing ability to harness the financial resources of a diffuse netroots community, and focus it on a handful of very local races, has the potential to transform our movement into one of the most sought after “endorsements” in the state. When a union or corporate PAC or wealthy individual can only give $700 to a race, but we can bring in thousands — in $50, $25, $10 increments — our broader progressive voice becomes louder than any individual special interest.

This is a slow process; it will move forward in fits and starts. But together, we have the potential to transform the face of local and national politics.

Send a message — help elect Bill Sherman.

My posting has been a little sparse as of late. Why? I don’t think I ever really announced it, but as of the end of September, I’m a full time student at Seattle Central Community College. I have one year to go until I can transfer to UW. I’m excited to be back, but the workload is more than I was prepared for.

With full time school and a very interesting part time gig, I’ll be super busy for the near future. Some things I will be looking out for:

Roads and Transit. The latest polling puts the measure at the mid fifties, which is decent, but not great. I get the sense that Seattle’s great civic tradition of screwing the pooch on transportation will pay us yet another visit this fall. Already, the whispers of “vote this down, we’ll come back with something next year” can be read in the blogosphere.

If this this is voted down, I’ll tell you what is coming:

Last January, a commission led by former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and telecommunications billionaire John Stanton called for a new agency of members who would plan and finance road and transit projects for central Puget Sound. The new Puget Sound Regional Transportation Commission would take functions from the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID), and Sound Transit.

The Rice-Stanton report [2.5 MB PDF] concluded that there are 128 agencies who manage aspects of transportation in the four-county area. “Our current system of transportation governance delivers inadequate results and will need fundamental systemic change to meet our region’s transportation needs in the future,” they declared.

Sound Transit and others fought the proposal, which passed in the state Senate but died in the House.

If ST2/RTID doesn’t pass, the punishment will not be doled out equally. Sound Transit, an organization with no friends in Olympia, will get the lion share of the blame. The Rice/Stanton plan will likely pass both the Senate and the House. (Some ask, “why would Democrats shitcan Sound Transit?” Remember, we’re not talking about regular Democrats. We’re talking about Olympia Democrats. This blogger was once told the story of a Sound Transit community meeting in north Seattle, where state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson showed up in a t-shirt that read “Mag-Lev Mama.” That’s how out to lunch they are on this issue.)

If Rice/Stanton passes, Sound Transit will be folded into a larger agency which will, in all likelihood, be governed by an elected board. Seattle, home to transit loving liberals, will have its political clout diluted by the new governance scheme. A transit board member in, say, Gig Harbor will have the right to veto transit funding in Seattle. And that, ladies and gentlemen (and Sen. Ed Murray), is bullshit.

Don’t forget that even if Prop 1 goes down this fall, roads will still get built. Why? Gov. Gregoire won’t allow 520 to plunge into Lake Washington. Expansion of the south portion of 405 is popular on the Eastside (and already partially funded), and with traffic congestion statistics showing this stretch of road to be the most congested in the state, it will be an easy call for legislators. Roads spending, unlike light rail, has sometimes be handled by the legislature without a vote of the people. Initiative 912 notwithstanding, two gas tax increases came out of Olympia without public votes. This could very well happen again, but this time to fund the projects that RTID funds.

The “Let’s Wait ‘Til Next Year” crowd sometimes cites Sound Transit’s success at the ballot box in 1996 as proof that light rail can do a quick turnaround to be approved by voters. What they don’t tell you is that Sound Transit’s failed measure in 1995 was paired down significantly to gain approval in 1996. The package in ’95 included light rail north to Lynnwood, south to Tacoma, and east across the lake to Bellevue. The package voters approved in 1996 was much smaller in scope. In fact, Sound Transit 2 greatly resembles the original Sound Move of 1995. Even with the much-publicized blunders made by Sound Transit during the 90’s, approval of the original Sound Move plan would have put the region in a great position today.

People who want more high capacity transit are rolling the dice by voting “no” on Prop 1. Don’t assume you’ll get another chance to vote for visionary transit investment like this in the near future.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: The Stranger Hour
Erica C. Barnett and Josh Feit from The Stranger join Goldy to talk politics, Erica’s new iPhone, and maybe some sex.

8PM: Drinking Liberally
Justin Krebs, founder of Drinking Liberally, will join Goldy to talk about the liberal grassroots, drinking and being liberal. [Update: Nicholas Beaudrot, Seattle Chapter co-founder is there, too.]

9PM: Perfection, Ann Coulter style
Goldy discusses wacky topics like disenfranchising women and perfecting Jews.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give Goldy a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

The headline on Postman’s blog was “Reichert bests Burner, a bit, in latest money totals,” but a closer look at the numbers doesn’t bode so well for the incumbent. According to Postman, Dave Reichert will report raising $340,800 from July through September, compared to $304,901 for Democratic challenger Darcy Burner. So yeah, Reichert raised a bit more than Burner in the third quarter.

According to Postman, Reichert also leads Burner in total dollars raised Year To Date (YTD), $830,440 to $518,630, but of course, the whole point of raising money now is to spend it later, and despite Reichert’s presidential fundraiser, Burner still leads $370,228 to $339,400 in the all important category of Cash On Hand (COH).

That puts Burner in a pretty damn good position heading into an election year against one of the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbents. How good a position? Well, a quick comparison of the numbers this cycle to those at the same point in the previous cycle is quite stunning.

	Reichert:	Burner:
Oct. 2005, YTD:	$937,829	$105,156
Oct. 2005, COH:	$455,120	$43,952
Oct. 2007, YTD:	$830,440	$518,630
Oct. 2007, COH:	$339,400	$370,228

In October of 2005, Reichert led Burner by a substantial ten-to-one margin, with over $455,000 in the bank (both went on to raise about $3.1 million each,) but this time around Reichert’s fundraising is noticeably down while Burner’s — fueled by her $123,000/3,200 donor netroots fundraiser — is way up, actually giving her a $31K lead in the number that really matters, Cash On Hand… and that’s after Reichert brought President Bush into the district for a high-donor fundraiser. And note, the YTD numbers represent “net receipts”; if you only look at contributions and subtract out Reichert’s $64,000 2Q “committee transfer,” Reichert’s fundraising is running about 20-percent below last cycle’s efforts.

It’s harder to raise money when you are in the minority, as Reichert is discovering, but it still ought to be easier as an incumbent than as a challenger, especially this early in the contest. If the Reichert folks were as pleased with their candidate’s anemic showing as they claimed to Postman, I’m guessing they wouldn’t have buried their announcement on a Friday afternoon.

Today is the last day of our netroots fund drive for Bill Sherman, Democrat running for King County Prosecuting Attorney, and as of the last update, 85 people have given $4835… just $165 shy of our $5,000 target! You could be the one to put us over the top.

Of course we’re way shy of our target of 200 new contributors, and I’d like to at least get above 100… that would be more than the number of contributions to Dan Satterberg during his previous reporting period. So if you haven’t already given, just $5 or $10 bucks is enough to make a difference.

Satterberg and his surrogates are working hard to paint Sherman as unqualified for the office, but as Joel Connelly pointed out yesterday, that’s simply not the case:

It’s an oft-frustrated hope that democracy will give us a choice between the greater of goods, rather than the lesser of two evils. The Sherman-Satterberg contest offers two top-notch individuals with different approaches to the job.

All Sherman needs to win this race is the money to get his message out and refute Satterberg’s attacks. Please give to Bill Sherman today.

The Bush administration announced this week that federal budget deficit declined this year, and for the third year in a row.

Jack Cafferty examines the claims and points out, “They’re lying!”

Bonus factoid:

There has been more debt accumulated during the administration of President Bush than during all of the previous presidents combined.

(This and some 70 other media clips from the past week are now posted at Hominid Views.)

Via Slog, Newsweek reports on a very bizarre incident in Iraq:

The colonel was furious. “Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers.” He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company.

Scary progressives launch preemptive invasion of Bellingham

The Washington Bus rolls into Tacoma Saturday morning (details here,) to doorbell for Tacoma City Council Candidate Marilyn Strickland, and you can be sure that the local righties will be all aghast at the “out-of-towners” and “special interests” invading Tacoma to influence their precious “non-partisan” election. (Don’t the smiling young folks in the picture above look scary?)

This is a theme that has grown quite popular with Republicans throughout the region this campaign season, as they watch their political prospects steadily shrink. When the Bus made a trip up to Whatcom County a couple weeks back to doorbell on behalf of County Council candidate Ken Mann, local Republicans flew into hysterics, launching a whisper campaign warning of a “National Socialist Organization that is Supported by Hanoi Jane Fonda.” On Mercer Island, where my ex-wife, Maureen Judge is running for City Council, wide-eyed righties stand up at candidate forums, frantically waving Progressive Majority print-outs, a la Joe McCarthy and his “list” of known communists. In Bellevue, incumbent Councilmember Phil Noble unsuccessfully pleaded with the 48th District Democrats to withhold their endorsement of his opponent Keri Andrews, claiming it would be an inappropriate intrusion into their non-partisan race. (Noble is so non-partisan that he gave a second contribution to Republican Jane Hague… after her drunk driving incident was made public.) And of course in the region’s marquee race, Republican Dan Satterberg has made non-partisanship the central theme of his campaign for King County Prosecuting Attorney, even promising to lobby to officially change the office to non-partisan, should he be elected.

Why the fearful reaction to progressive organizers, and the sudden public embrace of non-partisan ideals? Because in a region where Republicanism has been discredited perhaps more thoroughly than anywhere else in the nation, these nominally non-partisan races are the only chance most Republicans have of ever holding public office.

Non-partisanship has become the last refuge of political losers.

After twelve years of corrupt congressional rule, an inept and contemptuous Bush administration, and the collapse of the Eastside GOP, the red “R” has become a scarlet letter few Puget Sound Republicans are eager to wear, and the growing chorus of protestations against the politicization of non-partisan offices should be understood in this context. For decades conservatives have dominated these local races using the cloak of non-partisanship to hide their very partisan agenda, resulting in a virtual Republican lock on councils and school boards in otherwise Democratic districts. Ironically, the grassroots tactics employed by organizations like Progressive Majority and Washington Bus are largely those that were pioneered by conservatives decades earlier.

In fact, non-partisanship has always been a lie… a sham… a fiction, in which even the most casual observer could generally pick out the players without a program. We all know who the liberal and conservative justices are on the state Supreme Court, and we’re usually pretty damn sure about party identification. Likewise non-partisan councils and school boards throughout the region routinely factionalize along ideological if not party lines. Party identification reflects the candidate’s values and judgment, and it is not only dishonest, but fundamentally undemocratic to hide these labels from voters.

It has oft been written that our nation’s founders were uncomfortable with the notion of political parties, but they created this framework nonetheless, and in so doing helped create the greatest political, economic and military power in the history of the world. While America may not have invented the notion of “the loyal opposition,” it was here that it reached full fruition, for by institutionalizing a public debate in which endless argument is embraced as patriotic dissent rather than a treasonable act, our nation has managed to achieve a degree of political stability that is the envy of people everywhere.

Indeed, it is not less partisanship that is needed, but more… a truth self-evident in the familiar groans of self-described independents and third-party fantasists who routinely complain about the lack of difference between the two major parties. Of course, at the policy level, nothing could be further from the truth, but the general failure of Democrats to forcefully distance themselves from the conservative rhetoric that dominates public discourse, only sows such confusion.

Politics, like the law, is an adversarial process, and if one side is less dedicated to winning than the other, then the entire system fails. The Republican brand is tarnished for a reason, and GOP fortunes deserve to be punished accordingly. If we meekly allow them to tear off their scarlet letter and masquerade as non-partisan, we will be doing ourselves and the electorate a great disservice.

Political climate change…?

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s climate change panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it.

Gore, whose film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Academy Award earlier this year, had been widely tipped to win Friday’s prize, which expanded the Norwegian committee’s interpretation of peacemaking and disarmament efforts that have traditionally been the award’s foundations.

“We face a true planetary emergency,” Gore said. “The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

But of course, it’s unseasonably cold somewhere on the planet today, so folks like Stefan are just laughing at us and the Norwegians for foolishly believing in science. (What a maroon.)

Speaking of maroons, while we’re enjoying the fruits of Bush’s genius, remind yourselves that we could have had this:

What with our local media elite’s fetish for splitting tickets, it was far from a sure thing, so I must admit breathing a sigh of relief to see the Seattle P-I Editorial Board enthusiastically endorse Bill Sherman for King County Prosecuting Attorney:

Every organization occasionally benefits from new ideas, perspectives and energy.

In a contest of two impressive candidates for King County prosecuting attorney, Bill Sherman makes the more compelling case. In Sherman, a Democrat, voters can pick someone who is well qualified, with diverse experience and possessed of a healthy interest in exploring new directions.

Dan Satterberg has argued that Sherman is unqualified to serve as Prosecutor, but he clearly failed to sway the P-I. I sure hope he’s more convincing in front of juries.

That said, Satterberg maintains a two-to-one money advantage, and that could be all he needs to win this election, so Sherman still needs all the help we can give him. With two days left in our five-day netroots fund drive, 69 people have already contributed $4,160. That’s well on the way toward our $5,000 target, but far short of our goal of 200 new donors — and nothing would be more satisfying than to blow through our goal with a wave of five and ten dollar donations.

So please give to Bill Sherman today, and help him bring “new ideas, perspectives and energy” to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Thanks for all your help.

UPDATE:
As expected, the Seattle Times has endorsed Satterberg. The Times also bought into Satterberg’s bullshit “non-partisan” meme. Also not unexpected.

So there you have it, a hung jury from our two dailies. Both papers acknowledge that both candidates are well qualified — the P-I believes Sherman has made the case for change, the Times does not. All in all, a net-nothing in terms of changing the dynamics of this race.

My only question is, with this being the marquee race of the season… why did they both endorse on a Friday?

The Darcy Burner campaign has announced that it will report raising an impressive $304,901 for the quarter ending September 30. That brings the campaign to a total of $518,630 year to date, with $370,228 cash on hand. The third quarter is traditionally the slowest fundraising quarter of the year.

It is hard to predict how much Dave Reichert will report by the Oct. 15 deadline, but I’m guessing it won’t be substantially higher, even with his much ballyhooed visit by President Bush. And in any case, it seems certain that he’ll be in a substantially weaker financial position than he was at this time during the previous cycle, when he reported $929K YTD, and $455K COH.

In October of 2005, Reichert led Burner by a ten-to-one margin in the money race. This time around it is almost certain that Burner will report more cash on hand. No wonder Stuart Rothenberg ranks Reichert as one of the top three most endangered Republican House incumbents.

Although investigators have ruled the death of Montgomery Alabama minister Gary Aldridge a case of “accidental mechanical asphyxia,” the faithful are convinced it was murder. Why? Well, the Liberty University graduate and former Jerry Falwell aide was found hogtied in his home. And wearing a wet suit… and a face mask, a head mask, diving gloves and slippers, and rubberized underwear. And, an entire second wet suit.

Yup, sounds like murder to me. You know, except the part about the two wet suits and various diving paraphernalia. Not to mention the dildo up his ass.

And if Montgomery’s fundie community wasn’t scandalized enough, just wait until they find out the dildo was wearing a condom. Now that’s a sin.

*** NETROOTS FUND DRIVE IN PROGRESS; PLEASE GIVE TO BILL SHERMAN! ***

With over one million registered voters, a third of the state’s electorate, and two congressional seats, King County comprises an election jurisdiction larger than 16 states plus the District of Columbia. And yet this two-to-one Democratic county at the heart of WA’s progressive majority risks ceding control of its elections operations to a Republican Party with a proven national agenda of voter intimidation and suppression.

Should I-25 pass this November as expected, the county elections director could switch from an appointed professional to an elected officer, chosen in a “non-partisan,” low-profile, February special election — the perfect opportunity for a Republican to sneak into office. Meanwhile, Democrats are fighting to break the GOP’s sixty-year lock on the office of Prosecuting Attorney — the equivalent of the Attorney General of a small state. With these two offices come two of the three seats on the King County Canvassing Board, and the ability to disenfranchise any voter or disallow any ballot, on a simple two-to-one vote.

Republican voter suppression campaigns cannot be taken lightly in a county where Republicans, following the lead of their Summit County, Ohio counterparts the year before, challenged thousands of voter registrations just days before the 2005 election, sowing confusion, suppressing turnout, and forcing many voters to cast provisional ballots. Despite the fact that many of these challenges were in error, and against the legal advice of the attorney his own office assigned to provide expert counsel to the board, PAO Chief of Staff Dan Satterberg repeatedly voted to uphold challenges that did not include the voter’s current address as required by law. And despite the fact that KCGOP officer Lori Sotello signed thousands of affidavits declaring “under penalty of perjury … personal knowledge” that she did not have, Satterberg and his office refused to even investigate allegations of perjury.

Now Satterberg is running as a Republican for Prosecuting Attorney, and should he win, local, state and federal elections could hang in the balance. Not because Satterberg is corrupt, but because he subscribes to a political philosophy that views the franchise as a privilege, not a right, and because he belongs to a party with an established record of fighting to invalidate otherwise qualified ballots based on the tiniest discrepancy or voter error, while choosing to ignore the technical violations of those bringing the challenges. His is the party that pioneered turn-out friendly vote-by-mail in Republican dominated jurisdictions, yet fights it tooth and nail in our state’s most populous and Democratic county. His is the party that attempted to exploit the 2004 election controversy by proffering election “reforms” whose singular purpose seemed to be to make it harder to vote.

Despite Satterberg’s protestations to the contrary, the PAO is a partisan office, and always has been, and as the Seattle P-I noted in the wake of the bogus voter registration challenges, Satterberg’s longtime mentor Norm Maleng was “a partisan politician.” Party affiliation matters because it denotes a set of values, and in this election, Democrat Bill Sherman’s values are much more closely aligned with those of the vast majority of county voters.

Satterberg and his surrogates have gone on the attack because they know that negative campaigning works, and given their two-to-one money advantage this gives them a good shot at winning in November. Please, don’t let Republican money decide this election, when so many future elections could hang in the balance.

On Tuesday we launched a netroots fundraiser for Sherman, seeking to raise $5000 from 200 contributors over five days. As of this morning, 52 supporters have given $3240 — that’s a tremendous start, but still far short of our donor target. A surge in dollars and donors makes it easier for Bill to raise money from other donors, so if $10 is all you can afford, that’s more than enough.

Please give to Bill Sherman today, in whatever amount you can afford.

Really…he isn’t.