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There are only two things certain in life: death… and Frank Blethen’s editorial board bitching about it.

The Seattle Times prints yet another editorial today railing against what has become euphemistically known as the Estate Death Blethen Tax, and it is curious to see the evolution of their rhetoric. With last week’s failure of the GOP’s cynical “trifecta” legislation, and the prospects of Democrats making huge gains in both houses this November — if not seizing outright control — the Times has apparently conceded that permanent repeal of the federal Blethen Tax is virtually impossible. And so they have settled for attempting to pressure our two US Senators into accepting the best deal possible… for, um, the Blethens.

In so doing they have produced an editorial that is not only arrogant and disingenuous, but at times downright insulting. For example:

Many other advanced countries, including Canada, Australia and Sweden, have no death taxes. These are not low-tax countries: Sweden has the highest tax load in the world, which it can do only by making taxes as efficient as possible. It recently abolished its death tax.

And suppose I were to argue for adopting an “efficient” tax system along the lines of Sweden? Hmm. You think the Times would editorialize in support of marginal income tax rates as high as 87 percent?

Of course not, but then, the entire Sweden reference is nothing but an intentional red herring, because the Times knows damn well that the Swedes replaced their Blethen Tax with a 1.5% annual Wealth Tax on single adult households in excess of about $200,000 (twice that for couples.) This is indeed a more efficient means of taxing accumulated wealth than a Blethen Tax, but I doubt the Times would advocate it as an alternative.

But the Times continues:

Both of our senators have heard these facts many times. Yet, it is an election year. Sen. Maria Cantwell is under pressure from her party’s left, which regards the death tax as a symbol of social concern. They like the idea of it, but they don’t know what it does.

Talk about chutzpah. The wealthy publisher of the largest newspaper in the state, conducting a concerted effort to pressure a Senator during an election year, has the hubris to attack Sen. Cantwell for bowing to pressure from, um, mere voters. Gimme a break.

And as for the argument that us Dems like the idea of the Blethen Tax but we “don’t know what it does”… well, fuck you. (Say what you want about us foul-mouthed bloggers, but at least we don’t try to court readers by accusing them of being uninformed idiots. And FYI, it doesn’t take much perusing of their op/ed page to realize these guys aren’t a bunch of rocket scientists.)

But more interesting than what the Times wrote is what they didn’t write, for in fact, the Blethen Tax should be somewhat reformed. Yet notice the reform on which the Times focuses: reducing the top rate from a nominal 55 percent to something much lower.

What the editorial ignores is the reform most likely to get support from Democrats like me — raising the exemption from the paltry $650,000 the tax would revert to in 2011. Hell, by 2011, $650,000 probably won’t buy you the median priced house in Seattle. Somewhere in the range of $3 million would likely be a reasonable number.

But the editorial totally ignores this part of the equation because it would have little impact on Blethen’s heirs, who will surely pay the top rate on the bulk of their inheritance barring anything but a ridiculously large exemption.

We care about family business

Let the caption contest begin.

If SAFECO wanted to make unlimited contributions to former CEO Mike!™ McGavick’s senate campaign, a $28 million golden parachute was exactly the way to do it. So it should come as no surprise to learn that Mike!™ just sunk in $2 million of SAFECO’s his own money.

Mike!™ said he gave the money partially to offset the fact that Cantwell “has been a tireless fundraiser over the last five years.” Apparently Mike!™ was simply tired of doing all the hard work necessary to competitively raise money… which isn’t surprising coming from a guy who who’s grown accustomed to getting paid $28 million for two months of part-time work.

Paul Krugman has yet another great column in the New York Times today, ridiculing the assertion that soon-to-be-former Senator Joe Lieberman is either “centrist” or “sensible.” But it was a somewhat tangential paragraph that particularly stood out to me:

Many of those lamenting Mr. Lieberman’s defeat claim that they fear a takeover of our political parties by extremists. But if political polarization were really their main concern, they’d be as exercised about the primary challenge from the right facing Lincoln Chafee as they are about Mr. Lieberman’s woes. In fact, however, the sound of national commentary on the Rhode Island race is that of crickets chirping.

That’s because the establishment backlash to Lieberman’s defeat has never really been about political polarization… it’s about a political establishment fearful for its own survival. Indeed, the only thing truly radical about Ned Lamont is the grassroots path he took to victory.

I guess my question is, when a majority of Americans oppose the war in Iraq, believe it is being mismanaged, and want our troops home as soon as reasonably possible… is it extremist or centrist to agree with them? When 65 to 70 percent of Americans disapprove of President Bush’s job performance, is it extremist or centrist to chastise White House critics as endangering national security and emboldening terrorists?

If you define the center as where the majority of voters reside (and I’m not really sure how else to define it) then it is Lamont who stands firmly in the middle and Lieberman who has wandered to the fringe. That’s why Lamont won the primary, and that’s why he’s the hands down favorite to be the next Senator from Connecticut: because his positions largely represent those of a majority of CT voters.

It’s not that the punditocracy can’t see this obvious fact. It’s that they won’t.

Last week I wrote about the sleazy push-poll Rep. Dave Reichert had in the field against challenger Darcy Burner, now confirmed by at least a half dozen recipients. So it was interesting to learn that state GOP chair Diane Tebelius is now accusing Democrats of push-polling:

This week marked additional lows for negative campaign tactics with the use of “push-polling” tactics in the 26th district race on the Kitsap Peninsula. […] The Lantz campaign is out to mislead voters with push polling surveys that target Beckie Krantz and malign her character. It is a devious tactic, but also shows that the Lantz campaign is pushing the panic button.

No doubt, push-polling is a devious tactic, but what Tebelius fails to add is, um… any corroborating evidence whatsoever.

This isn’t the first squawk I’ve heard from state Republicans about low-down, Democratic push-polls, mostly just warnings to constituents to beware of their inevitability. Which to the son of a Freudian psychoanalyst suggests a diagnosis of political projection, either conscious or unconscious. In layman’s terms I’m guessing we might be seeing an “I’m rubber, you’re glue” maneuver — an attempt by Republicans to immunize themselves against a backlash by accusing Democrats of conducting the very same, sleazy, low-down tactics that GOP candidates already have in the works.

UPDATE:
FYI, I’ve received a number of emails from experienced political operatives who absolutely agree: the R’s are planning to go real nasty this election and they’re just trying to set up the D’s so that the press will ignore it as tit for tat.

Man… I need to spend more time reading those Eastern Washington blogs.

Way back on Tuesday, EWpolitics.com reported that the DCCC has added the 5th Congressional District (Peter Goldmark vs. Cathy McMorris) to its short list of targeted campaigns around the nation.

Achim Bergmann, the Western regional director for the DCCC said that they made the choice because new poll numbers showed Goldmark just two points away from McMorris.

“A targeted race is the party’s designation that a candidate is showing potential for winning an opposition seat”

Why is the DCCC taking interest in a race the sleepy Spokane media has apparently written off? Well it could be the surprising weakness McMorris has shown in recent polls. Or it could be the shocker that Goldmark outraised the incumbent in the previous quarter, despite his late start. Or perhaps it’s McMorris’s close identification with the President in a supposedly red district where Bush is remarkably unpopular.

Whatever the reason this is good news for Goldmark that maybe — just maybe — might provoke Eastern WA journalists to start paying attention… before bloggers and the Seattle media grab all the glory.

Whaddaya know…

When Vice President Cheney went out of his way Wednesday to blast Democrats as weak on terrorism, he knew something that few Americans knew: Another stark reminder of the dangers of terrorism was about to hit the headlines.

The White House confirmed Thursday that senior administration officials have been aware since at least last weekend that British authorities were moving toward arrests in an alleged terrorism plot.

Some of these top officials worked in concert with the Republican National Committee to blast Democrats after Tuesday’s primary defeat of Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a supporter of President Bush’s Iraqi war strategy.

Who’d’ve thunk that this, of all administrations, would seek political gain out of a terrorist plot?

UPDATE:
AmericaBlog: “White House official gleeful that terrorists wanted to kill thousands of Americans.”

“Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big,” said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won’t “look as appealing” under the circumstances.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert devotes an entire column to how the Republican Party at the national level has become institutionally deceitful, highlighting the recent battle over raising the minimum wage as a classic example.

The GOP has always been a fierce opponent of the minimum wage, which now sits at a paltry $5.15 an hour, a half-century low in real dollars. Yet the Republicans suddenly embraced a modest $2.10 increase in the minimum wage over three years tied to a whopping slash in the estate tax and a change in law that would have actually cut wages for millions of employees who earn tips. The so-called “trifecta” legislation was little more than an election year stunt intended to bend Democrats over a barrel, and Republican leaders made clear that Dems who opposed the bill would be targeted as obstructionist come November. “There’s like 12 30-second ads sitting around in this bill,” one Republican aide told The Hill.

Herbert bluntly calls the GOP’s bluff, and then some:

I’m for an increase in the minimum wage and against a cut in the estate tax. But that’s not the point here. The point is the extent to which the Republican Party is willing to engage in deceit to try and achieve ends it could not achieve any other way. The latest incarnation of the Republican Party has taken deceit in government and politics to dangerous new extremes, and it’s time to call a halt to it.

The war in Iraq will be remembered as one of the greatest exercises in systematic governmental deceit in U.S. history. But the Iraq fiasco is just the most stunning and tragic example of a style of governing and politicking that has become second nature to the Bush administration and much of the national Republican establishment.

At some level all politics is local, so when we talk about the institutional dishonesty of the national Republican leadership we must also consider how they harness their deceit to influence elections at the local level. Herbert continues:

It is in that same deceitful and vengeful spirit that the party is now attacking Democratic senators who managed to hold fast, under the leadership of the minority leader, Harry Reid, to defeat the legislation that cynically tied the estate tax windfall to an increase in the minimum wage.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee declared that Maria Cantwell, a Democratic senator from Washington who voted against the bogus bill, “decided that giving in to pressure from her party’s leadership was more important than voting to raise the federal minimum wage.”

Senator Cantwell, who is up for re-election this year, favors an increase in the minimum wage, as does her party’s leadership. It has been the Democratic Party that has been pushing for years for an increase in the minimum wage, but there is no room for that reality in the G.O.P.’s corrosive culture of deceit.

Which brings us to Sen. Cantwell’s challenger, former SAFECO CEO and insurance industry lobbyist Mike!™ McGavick, a man who has pledged to bring bipartisanship and civility back to the other Washington. And how does he intend to achieve this? By echoing the partisan, divisive rhetoric of his partisan and divisive national leadership, of course. In the very first sentence of a press release issued in the wake of the vote, Mike!™ immediately fell back on the NRSC talking points.

“Simply put, Sen. Cantwell today announced that she will side with her party’s leaders over the interest of our state,”

Simply put, Mike!™ is a politician like all other politicians, and a Republican in the mold of the national Republicans with whom he would caucus if elected.

And you can’t just write off that initial press release as the rushed, knee-jerk reaction of a communications staff desperate to get out in front of the news cycle. Mike!™ issued two more press releases in the following days, continuing to hammer home the NRSC talking points, eventually so riling The Stranger’s Josh Feit that he felt compelled to pick one apart with footnotes:

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick keeps saying he wants to run a “different” campaign. That is: a campaign that doesn’t stoop to the childish, misleading level of partisan attack politics that typically clutters civic debate. I want to believe the guy, but then he sends out childish, misleading, partisan press releases that clutter civic debate.

[…]

What really bugs me about this whole thing is that the GOP trifecta was purely an election-year stunt to neutralize a winning Democratic issue–the minimum wage. First thing Monday morning, McGavick, who claims to be above the juvenile partisan fray, sends out a misleading hack-job press release on Cantwell, trying to blame her. McGavick is just following GOP orders.

And so he is.

Last week, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly accused me of taking part in a “mean, low-down attack” against Mike!™ for my teensy role in the SAFECO shareholder lawsuit. Joel seems to want to believe Mike!™’s call for civility at least as much as Josh, calling him a “stand-up guy“. But given the deceitfulness of his press releases one can’t help but wonder what Mike!™ is willing to stand up for? The people? The truth? Or the larger agenda of his Republican leadership?

Knowing his long history as a Slade Gorton operative it is hard to take Mike!™’s sudden conversion to civility at face value. Oh sure, no doubt he’s a nice enough guy when you sit down across from him face to face, but then, so am I. And as has been extensively documented by the Seattle Times’ David Postman and on the blogs Hominid Views and Orcinus, Mike!™ has shown an extraordinary willingness to do or say whatever it takes to win an election.

So is Mike!™ just another dirty campaigner, cynically touting civility and bipartisanship as little more than a political convenience? Well, to paraphrase Mike!™’s own defense of a misleading ad against Mike Lowery from 1988: “I have no indication that he isn’t.”

What I do know is that Mike!™ is a Republican and that he is eagerly attacking Sen. Cantwell with the same “deceitful and vengeful spirit” that Herbert has observed nationally. Mike!™ can talk about civility all he wants, but if the Republicans retain control of the Senate we already know what we’re gonna get.

The one real advantage that Rep. Dave Reichert has in his tough reelection battle against Democratic challenger Darcy Burner, is name recognition.

Well… that’s about to end.

Burner hits the airwaves today with her first TV ad, a sixty-second spot designed to introduce the candidate to voters. That Burner can afford to go live so early in the campaign is a testament to her hard work and the enthusiastic support she has generated. It is also an indication of just how tough this race will be for both candidates.

Of course, one of the risks of spending money this early is that it could potentially leave her short of resources during the crucial few weeks before election, but there is one sure fire means of avoiding this calamity: give Burner more money now.

For Burner to win she needs to stay on the air from now until November, getting both her name and her message out in front of voters. And all this costs money.

So if you really care about the 8th Congressional District and the state of Washington, and about the future direction of our nation… if really want to address corruption in Congress and provide real oversight of the most authoritarian White House in recent memory, the most important contribution you can make right now is financial. Give Burner the money she needs to defeat Reichert and take back the House of Representatives for all of us.

And if, like me, you have more spare time than money, Burner can always use more volunteers.

I’ve read a lot of post-election analyses today in the wake of Ned Lamonts historic victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman, but the one that spoke most directly to me was the following from MyDD’s Jerome Armstrong:

I was up in New Hampshire yesterday with college age Sierra Club activists, doing a back and forth debate/discussion with the Sierra Club President, Lisa Renstrom, over the issue of their embracing partisan politics, and advancing the progressive movement ahead of their own single-issue advocacy. I laid out the argument that single-issue advocacy was something that seemed to work in a previous time, but not in today’s partisan atmosphere, and that if a substantive, transformative change in environmental policy was to happen, it would occur because the millions of environmentalists decided to join the netroots/grassroots activists now taking over the Democratic Party. I quoted Krugman’s channel of CTG tough love. Lisa countered that social movements do not make up political parties, but impact them, and she effectively made the case that environmentalists can drive the public debate at the state level in a non-partisan manner. I totally agreed, but believe that that impact can be overtly partisan, and that a distinction must be made between the state, more local level, and the federal races.

Having become just another lobbying group instead of a movement, the Sierra Club and the many single-issue groups like them, NARAL, League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood, AFL-CIO, SEIU, CWA, NALC, NAGE, Food and Commercial Workers, Teamster’s, Firefighters, Carpenters, Postal Workers, IBEW, Human Rights Campaign, etc., found themselves aligned in the minority alongside Joe Lieberman on Tuesday night. Lieberman’s problem wasn’t policy, it’s that he’s not been a part of the solution–the movement of change that forms its base with people of progressive values, not issues.

We are becoming strong enough in primary numbers to defeat the politics of old in the Democratic Party. But we cannot defeat the conservative ideological movement if they are united, and we are not; if they are modern and we are stuck in the methods of the past. In a nutshell, I argued that to win elections and transform the landscape enough to enact a broader environmental policy initiative that addresses issues such as global warming, every progressive individual, group, and organization must work together in the same vehicle. Sure the Democratic Party has been busted and broken in the past, but lets rebuild it and ride it to get there.

Read the whole thing, but that block quote is the gist of it.

This is of course a call for more partisanship and an end to the single-issue politics that has characterized progressive organizations up until now… a theme that I’ve been hitting on for the past few days. I know that some may argue that this isn’t exactly the most reliable path towards good government, but this is the path the other guys have chosen, so what choice do we really have? (That is, if we care as much about winning as we do just being right.)

It is fair to say that challenger Ned Lamont’s dramatic victory yesterday over incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary pivoted almost entirely on the war in Iraq — an issue that has dogged Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell throughout her reelection campaign. But it may come as a surprise to anti-war Democrats — and perhaps to Sen. Cantwell herself — to learn that she and Lamont essentially share almost identical positions on the war.

Lamont supported the Reed/Levin Amendment which called for the administration to start redeploying troops out of Iraq starting in 2006. Sen. Cantwell voted for it.

In speaking about Iraq, Lamont has firmly argued that “America should make clear that we have no designs upon their oil and no plans for permanent bases.” Sen. Cantwell co-sponsored an amendment on this exact issue, helping to push passage through the U.S. Senate.

Lamont believes that “Our best chance of success requires that the Iraqis take control of their own destiny.” In supporting the Levin-Reed Amendment Sen. Cantwell stated that it would “encourage the Iraqis to take complete control of their own future.”

And throughout his campaign Lamont has argued that it is time for us to “change course” and bring the troops home. In a letter to President Bush sent on August 4, Sen. Cantwell twice told the president that we must “change course” to help the Iraqis find a political solution and take over its own security.

I know many Democrats who cite Sen. Cantwell’s vote to authorize the war along with her refusal to vocally criticize the President in its aftermath, as the primary reason they can offer her only grudging support at best. And yet both she and Lamont — who earned the enthusiastic support of anti-war Democrats in yesterday’s primary — apparently share the same position on what to do about the war now.

Just thought you all might want to know.

UPDATE:
Not much of a surprise, but Sen. Cantwell has endorsed Lamont:

“I congratulate Ned Lamont on his victory last night. I respect the decision of the Connecticut Democrats in choosing their nominee and I will support him.”

It was a battle so big only four of us could fit around the table. Will and Mollie teamed up with me to take on Seattle P-I bruiser Joel Connelly in a no-holds-barred, steel cage match debate over political civility. I thought we held the upper hand until Joel blindsided me with a broken bottle of Maker’s Mark, but my logical analysis and impressive command of the facts eventually won the day when I knocked the old curmudgeon to the ground and beat him senseless with his own cane. In between blows we civily discussed the McGavick shareholder lawsuit, my role in it, the pros and cons of negative campaigning, and how all this relates to Sen. Joe Lieberman’s defeat last night in the CT Democratic primary.

The show is 46:25, and is available here as a 31.9 MB MP3. Please visit PodcastingLiberally.com for complete archives and RSS feeds.

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

Only one of the Democratic candidates for president represents the American center, which is where the Democratic Party needs to be if it is to be trusted with national power.

That candidate is Sen. Joe Lieberman. He is not doing well with the Democratic faithful, but in the opinion of this page, he would make the best candidate for a return to centrist politics.

He is experienced on foreign affairs, which Sen. John Edwards is not, and on domestic affairs, which Gen. Wesley Clark is not. He is calm, which Howard Dean is not. He waffles, but not as much as Sen. John Kerry.

Lieberman is a mainstream Democrat on favoring abortion rights and benefits for gay partners, affirmative action and civil liberties, and on opposing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This page agrees with him on all those things, as well as his realism in foreign policy. He voted for the war resolutions of 1991 and 2002.

He is also a fairly strong advocate of free trade, which best fits the economic interests of this region and, we believe, the United States. Lieberman supported free trade with Canada and Mexico, WTO membership for China and fast-track negotiating authority for further trade agreements. This year, these have become minority positions in his party.

Lieberman was one of the founders of the New Democrats, a group that calls for “progressive ideas, mainstream values and innovative, market-based policy solutions.”

Bill Clinton, whom this page endorsed twice, was that sort of Democrat, and he carried this state.

Washington voters have elected such New Democrats as Sen. Maria Cantwell, Reps. Rick Larsen, Jay Inslee, Adam Smith and Brian Baird; Gov. Gary Locke and Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon.

The center is not where most of the presidential candidates are this year. Their favorite theme has been the evil rich. Edwards calls it the “Two Americas”

People are going to be talking about the Lamont-Lieberman race in CT, so you might as well do it here. Polls close at 8PM Eastern, 5PM Pacific, and I plan to follow the results on MyDD.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Come on by and watch me and Joel Connelly come to fisticuffs over campaign civility.

And if you happen to be a liberal drinker on the other side of the mountains, the Tri-Cities chapter of DL also meets Tuesday nights, 7 PM, Atomic Ale, 1015 Lee Blvd., in Richland. Go ask Jimmy for more details.