Search Results for: Dave Reichert

Over on Slog, The Stranger’s Eli Sanders addresses the question of whether Rep. Dave Reichert truly is, or is not a moderate… and he allows Reichert to provide the answer in his own vague, rambling words.

Sanders links to video on TVW of Reichert addressing the Mainstream Republicans of Washington at their annual Cascade Conference last week in Sea-Tac. Speaking before a gathering of self-proclaimed moderate Republicans, Reichert curiously attempts to explain away his own voting record, by recounting a rambling anecdote about a conservative voter who complained about his alleged moderation:

Now, I said, “You know what sir, that would be a huge mistake, and here’s why.’ (I wanted to explain to this person how things work back in Washington, D.C., and why certain votes have to be taken.)

Sometimes the leadership comes to me and says, “Dave, we want you to vote a certain way.’ Now, they know I can do that over here, that I have to do that over here. In other districts, that’s not a problem, but here I have to be able to be very flexible in where I place my votes. Because the big picture here is, keep this seat, keep the majority, keep the country moving forward with Republican ideals, especially on the budget, on protecting our troops, on protecting this country. Right? Being responsible with taxpayer dollars. All of those things. That’s the big picture. Not the vote I place on ANWAR that you may not agree with, or the vote that I place on protecting salmon.”

“Back in Washington, there are lots of games played…” Reichert informed his audience. As for the carefully crafted perception that he is moderate and independent? “That’s where I need to be in a 50-50 district.”

Uh-huh.

As one Republican elected official who was in the audience that day incredulously told me:

“Of course we understand that strategy… but you don’t come right out and say it in public!”

And on camera, no less. See what I mean when I say that even Reichert’s fellow Republicans think he’s an idiot?

My question then is, who is the bigger idiot? Reichert, who stupidly admits to the TV cameras that in an effort to help him look more independent, House leaders are telling him when he should or should not vote against them? Or our local editorialists who have been so reliably eager to congratulate Reichert every time he makes a show of breaking with the party line?

Reichert knows that his alleged “independent streak” is a stinking load of bullshit. His fellow Republicans know that this is a stinking load of bullshit. Only our local media seem to be oblivious to the stench of politics as usual.

Much of the myth of Reichert’s moderation and independence stems from a handful of strategic votes against his party’s leadership on bills whose passage or failure was pre-ordained. Indeed as Daniel Kirkdorffer studiously explains in his thorough analysis of Reichert’s voting record (an absolute must read for all serious journalists,) the overwhelming majority of Reichert’s allegedly moderate votes were entirely meaningless:

[Supporters] argue that Reichert has voted 55% of the time on the same side as the majority Democratic position. Problem is that almost half of those votes (206) were undisputed procedural votes, and hence meaningless when determining voting tendencies. Furthermore, his overall voting record has him voting 94% of the time with the majority Republican position.

So how do we really gauge a legislator’s voting record then? Well we do so by looking at the 389 votes where the parties took opposite positions, and we see where legislators stood on those votes.

As soon as we do that the first observation is that Reichert only voted 11.7% of the time on the same side as Democrats, but 88.3% of the time with his Republican colleagues.

However, the most important votes of all were generally the key votes on the passage of bills. 35 times since January 2005 the House has been at odds on these most important votes, and Reichert has only voted with the Democrats on two such occasions, which is just under 6% of the time.

Even in his stand against the despicable Terri Schiavo bill — for which he was loudly lauded by the local press — Reichert had little impact on the final 203-58 vote. Indeed, when the shit hits the fan as it did with ANWR, when he voted for drilling after voting against it, Reichert has always been a reliable vote when called upon by his party leaders. And he always will be.

That is what Reichert was laboriously trying to explain to his fellow Republicans last week. That is what his colleagues in the audience understood. And that is what our local media has an obligation to explain to voters.

Right-wing news aggregator The Orb reports from the GOP State Convention in Yakima, and has some constructive criticism for Rep. Dave Reichert:

Dave Reichert, U.S. House Rep – He’s a good guy and my congressman, and I am going to vote for him. But I have hard time following him when he speaks. It’s not that he has a bad voice or comes off nervous or unsure of himself – it’s just that sometimes I can’t figure out what his point is. He mix and mingled 3 stories of WTO rioting, riding with Ron Sims in the towncar, and chasing down crooks that got filmed on TV… all to make the point that it’s import “to try”, and how that related to Reagan fighting the cold war. I don’t want too sound mean or picky because he’s a good man and has done a good job for the 8th district and is head and shoulders more qualified than ex-Microsoft executive product manager Darcy Burner, but in my opinion he needs to focus better when speaking to a crowd.

Of course, part of the problem could just be that Reichert simply isn’t all that bright. (At least, that’s what a number of people who know him tell me, Republicans included.) These rambling speeches, they’re not a result of lack of focus Orb – Reichert’s about as focused as he can get. No, they’re a result of a lack of intellect.

For example, did you know that Reichert once had the inside track on the Republican nomination for governor in 2004? The man with the shiny medals and shinier hair had the support of the party big-wigs all lined up. That is, until he appeared before a gathering of these very same mucky-mucks and delivered one of his trademark, higgledy-piggledy soliloquies, displaying an utter lack of knowledge of the duties of office, let alone the issues of the day. A stunned audience immediately started recruiting Dino Rossi.

Why do you think that when he ran for the nomination for the 8th CD, the usually disciplined state GOP atypically tolerated such a crowded and competitive primary, despite Reichert’s huge name ID advantage? Because party stalwarts like Luke Esser and Diane Tebelius had seen him speak before, and they couldn’t stomach nominating such an idiot.

And why do you think that Reichert staged his dramatic walkout from the candidate debates? Because the other guys hurt “The Sheriff’s” feelers? No… because his handlers knew that he would be overwhelmed even by the likes of Tebelius. (I’ve seen her work a courtroom, and I’m telling you, that’s a pretty low bar.)

You want Reichert to “focus better”…? If by that you mean stay carefully on script, well sure, that would help his campaign. But don’t kid yourself about who Reichert really is. That rambling, periphrastic mess you saw on stage in Yakima, well… that’s the real Dave Reichert. Support him if you want, but don’t pretend it has anything to do with competence or intellect.

Live by the shield, die by the shield, that’s what I say.

Rep. Dave Reichert has fashioned a comfy political career out of flashing his badge and campaigning as the “the Sheriff”… the man who took all the credit for tracking down the Green River Killer. But if he’s going to claim his experience running the King County Sheriff’s Office as his primary qualification for representing Washington’s 8th District in Congress, then he owes it to voters to answer questions about his tenure as the county’s top cop.

The Seattle P-I continues its series today, “Conduct Unbecoming”, exposing a history of mismanagement in the Sheriff’s Office, and once again, Reichert refused to cooperate:

Although two lower commanders recommended Saulet be fired, then-Sheriff Dave Reichert decided to suspend him for eight days.

Reichert, now a U.S. congressman, declined to comment.

Throughout the P-I‘s months-long series of investigative reports, Sheriff Reichert has refused to answer questions from reporters, even though he was the man in charge during much of the time covered. It was Reichert who ultimately failed to properly discipline or fire deputies who had committed serious crimes and conduct violations… and as the latest P-I installment reveals today, his lax attitude towards bad cops has cost taxpayers millions. And yet still, Reichert refuses to talk to reporters.

This is totally unacceptable, and our local media should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to let Reichert get away with his shrewd silence.

I don’t blame the P-I reporters covering this growing scandal; the most they can do is continue to badger him and then report his intransigence… and that they have done. But their colleagues at other local media outlets, and the editorialists on their own Op/Ed pages have fallen down on the job.

This is a major story in which Reichert played a major role, and he can’t be allowed to simply escape comment because it is politically inconvenient.

That reporters, columnists and editorialists continue to puff him up by touting Reichert’s experience as Sheriff — and yet refuse to hold him accountable for the job he did in that office — is a disgrace.

If Reichert has nothing to hide he should talk to the press, for voters have a right to know what kind of job he really did as Sheriff. But if he continues to suspiciously maintain his silence, voters have a right to know that too.

Tomorrow’s edition of The Hill provides yet more evidence that the Reichert-Burner race has become one of the hottest in the nation:

Demonstrating concern about retaining the majority in November, the office of House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is holding weekly meetings with a handful of staffers of potentially vulnerable Republicans.
[…]
The weekly gatherings are an opportunity for the leader’s staff to walk the rank-and-file staffers through the upcoming agenda and hear from the offices about the political climate in some of the party’s most competitive districts. The member input provides insights and intelligence from campaigns across the country that leaders can use to influence their legislative agenda and strategy during a bitter election year.
[…]
The meetings with the staffs of vulnerable members occur once a week when the House is in session, Boehner spokesman Kevin Madden said, and staff from 12 offices usually attend.

Some of the members involved include Republican Reps. Steve Chabot (Ohio), Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.), Bob Ney (Ohio), Dave Reichert (Wash.), Clay Shaw (Fla.) and Heather Wilson (N.M.). Each of those members’ districts is among the party’s most competitive, according to a chart compiled by The Cook Political Report.

The emphasis is of course mine, but it shows you just how worried the House GOP is about retaining Reichert’s seat. WA-8 has become one of the Republicans’ 12 most competitive races… so much so, that they’re willing to shape the national legislative agenda to help Reichert win.

A few short months ago pundits, poobahs and politicos thought WA-8 was a gimme, but now Darcy Burner’s surging campaign has put the fear of, well… Darcy Burner in them. Somehow, I don’t think anybody’s calling her a “third tier” candidate anymore.

[NOTE: Read the update below. It appears I was mostly wrong. My bad, but I own it.]

When Rep. Dave Reichert reported about $100,000 in illegal, excess contributions a couple weeks back, did he think nobody would notice?

I was skimming through Reichert’s quarterly FEC report, when I came upon something quite odd. The campaign contribution limit for House races this cycle is an aggregate $2,100 from individuals and $5,000 from PACs for each the primary and the general elections. And yet I found contribution after contribution in excess of those amounts.

In all, I found 47 individual contributions in excess of the $2,100 individual limit — as much as $4,700 each — and most of these individuals had given excess contributions for both the primary and the general elections. In addition, I found 9 PAC contributions apparently in excess of the $5,000 aggregate limit, including notable WA state business leaders like Microsoft, Boeing and Weyerhaeuser.

Add it all up and Reichert’s haul of excess contributions totals over $97,000. And that’s just from donors who contributed during the previous quarter… I’ve yet to go back to earlier reports to see if other donors had already exceeded their aggregate limit as well.

Of course, Reichert didn’t just solicit all this extra cash and figure the FEC wouldn’t notice. The PDFs of his itemized receipts include the following notation:

Limit Increased Due to Opponent’s
Spending (2 U.S.C. 441a(i)(441a-1)

Oh. So there’s an explanation. No biggie, I guess. Until you look up 441a-1 and find that this explanation is a load of shit.

What Reichert is referring to is something called the “Millionaires’ Amendment,” which allows candidates to exceed the normal contribution limits, under certain circumstances, when an opponent spends personal funds in excess of an established threshold. The FEC publishes a brochure, which clearly explains the provisions:

The provisions of the Millionaires’ Amendment may, in certain circumstances, increase the contribution limits for House and Senate candidates facing opponents who spend personal funds in excess of certain threshold amounts. […] For House candidates, the threshold amount is $350,000. 11 CFR 400.9(b). House candidates whose opponent’s personal spending exceeds that threshold may trigger increased limits.

Um… last time I checked, Darcy Burner had spent less than $47,000 of her own money to jumpstart her campaign — nowhere near the $350,000 threshold. And in any case, at the time Reichert started soliciting his excess contributions, Burner hadn’t yet reported $350,000 in total contributions, from any source.

And of course, the contribution limit increase doesn’t just come automatically; there is a process. Candidates are required to estimate in their Statement of Candidacy the amount of personal funds in excess of the threshold they intend to expend, and Burner’s statement estimates exactly $0.00. Furthermore, candidates are required to send a copy of Form 10 to both the FEC and their opponents within 24-hours of exceeding the threshold; of course, Burner has never filed such a form, because she’s more than $300,000 shy of the mark.

And finally…

An opposing candidate’s campaign-related expenditures from personal funds in excess of the triggering threshold do not automatically result in increased contribution limits. The Millionaires’ Amendment also takes into account fundraising by the campaigns. Campaigns must use the “opposition personal funds amount” formula to determine whether an opposing candidate has spent sufficient personal funds in comparison to the amounts raised by the campaigns to trigger increased contribution limits

A candidate with a significant fundraising advantage over a self-financed opponent might not receive an increased contribution limit. In this way, the regulations avoid giving increased contribution limits to candidates whose campaigns have a significant fundraising advantage over their opponents.

Reichert has outraised Burner $1.4 million to $540,000 thus far… so I’m not sure the limit increase would have been triggered even if Burner had hit the threshold.

I’m no FEC expert, so maybe I’m missing something obvious here… but it’s hard to believe that the Reichert campaign itself actually believes that it qualifies for increased contribution limits under the Millionaires’ Amendment. So what could possibly explain this discrepancy?

Well, I suppose it could just be a mistake. Because donors don’t always understand the limits, campaigns inadvertently receive excess contributions all the time, and there’s a mechanism in place for returning them in a timely matter without penalty. But 56 contributions totaling nearly $100,000 in a single quarter? What’s the chance of that?

And, oh yeah… the vast majority of these excess contributions were recorded in the final couple weeks of the quarter, while all nine of the excess PAC contributions were recorded on March 31… the very last of the reporting period.

Coincidence? I think not.

Here’s what I think happened. The Reichert campaign got spooked by what they correctly perceived to be a late quarter fundraising surge by Burner, and so they booked tens of thousands of dollars in excess contributions during the final days — knowing that they would eventually have to refund the money — simply to make the fundraising gap look less embarrassing. The goal was to prevent Burner from gaining the credibility and momentum she had earned.

It didn’t work.

A few weeks back the WA State GOP took another shot at stemming Burner’s momentum by supposedly filing an FEC complaint against her campaign. According to the official GOP press release:

Diane Tebelius, Washington State GOP chairman, asked the FEC to look into alleged violations of federal campaign reporting laws including receipt of excessive contributions and failure to properly report disbursements.

This complaint paints a picture of a campaign that is unable to comply with federal election rules and regulations. Earlier this year Burner pledged to adhere to the highest ethical standards if elected to Congress. This latest revelation makes that pledge sound hollow. “Darcy Burner makes a mockery of her own pledge with her inability or unwillingness to follow even the most basic campaign finance rules,” commented Chairman Tebelius.

The GOP’s complaint was trivial and frivolous, centering on a video, legally produced by a volunteer. But if Tebelius wants to mock Burner for failing to report volunteer work she wasn’t required to report, what can we say about Reichert? His campaign not only failed to comply with federal election rules and regulations, it flouted them, apparently and intentionally soliciting nearly $100,000 in excess contributions, simply to gain a PR advantage.

Reichert wasn’t merely gaming the system… he was lying. And it gives us a good idea of what we can expect from his campaign from here on out.

UPDATE:
As it turns out, it looks like I may have misunderstood the “Election Cycle to Date” field to refer to the election cycle to date, per election. Take a look at this section of the form, and you can see my confusion:

Hmm. Others have suggested this field may actually represent the aggregate across both elections, and looking at the way the numbers add up, I’m leaning in that direction. My bad.

So… the amount of the excess contributions may be much less than I had assumed. Two individuals who have contributed totals of $4,700 and $4,600 respectively (over the combined limit of $2,100) plus two PACs, Microsoft and Boeing, who have contributed an aggregate of $15,000 and $11,000 respective (over the combined limit of $10,000).

I guess I was so caught up in the bogus reference to the Millionaires’ Amendment, that I didn’t see the forest for the trees.

Sure, it’s embarrassing to get things like this wrong, but I’m man enough to admit it. So rather than delete the post, I’m leaving it up here for all to see my mistake and my correction. If anything, this is a great example of the self-correcting feature of blogging, when practiced honestly. This is a kind of open-source journalism, and any time I truly make a mistake, my readers are there to correct me and set the record straight.

Rep. Dave Reichert goes out of his way to portray himself as a moderate, but a new, DCCC web-ad exposes his extremist views on stem cell research.

During the 2004 race, Reichert told FOXNews.com that he is “generally against embryonic stem cell research,” and he held to his position in 2005 by voting against final passage of HR 810, a bill loosening restrictions on federal funding for such promising research.

I haven’t seen any polling, but I’m guessing that puts him pretty far out of step with his district.

Freshman GOP Rep. Dave Reichert has a well-earned reputation for being hot-headed and thin-skinned. But apparently, he’s also a hypocrite.

For example, remember that candidates forum back in 2004, in which Reichert dramatically walked out, whining that his Republican primary opponents (Luke Esser and Diane Tebelius) were playing “dirty politics”…?

“I’m disappointed that there are a couple of people who are on this stage with me today that decided that it’s more important to mislead and misinform the public, and as we refer to the dirty politics across the country and in our community and in our state, I, for one, am sick and tired of it.”

Reichert said that he wanted to run a clean campaign and that he has been doing so since he began campaigning.

[…]

[Bruce] Boram, Reichert’s spokesman, said the accusations were “cheap shots” and the sheriff wanted no part in that type of debate.

Funny thing is, at the same time Boram was defending his client’s public hissy fit, he was also preparing to launch some dirty politics of his own. It was Boram, in case you forgot, who was the local operative behind the US Chamber of Commerce’s unprecedented, multi-million dollar smear campaign against Deborah Senn in the Democratic primary for state Attorney General. It was Boram who refused to reveal the source of the money and who initially refused to comply with WA’s public disclosure laws.

When asked by KING-5 news if there was “any room for Bruce Boram” in a campaign that has disavowed “dirty politics,” Reichert said: “He and I are going to have a talk today to see where we go from here.”

Well, we can only imagine how that conversation went, because the next day, Boram purportedly resigned.

Boram, who was Reichert’s spokesman, strategist and a key fund-raiser, said he was stepping down because the furor over the ads was threatening to spill into the congressional race.

“When I’ve become the issue in the campaign, that’s just not good. So I decided it was just for the best,” Boram said yesterday afternoon. His resignation was effective immediately, he said.

Reichert said he had not asked Boram to leave, but said Boram made the right choice.

Hmm.

So imagine my surprise reading about Darcy Burner’s surging campaign in Roll Call last week, when I came upon the following quote:

“The 8th is a swing, Democratic district,” concedes Reichert’s political consultant Bruce Boram. “Any Democratic opponent who runs against Reichert starts at 43 percent [of the vote].”

Wait a second. I thought Reichert dumped Boram back in 2004 because somebody had to stand up to dirty politics? Perhaps Roll Call simply got it wrong? So I checked Reichert’s 2005 expenditures, and what did I find? 19 expenditures totaling over $90,000 to Boram and his company Catalyst Consulting… by far Reichert’s largest vendor thus far.

Um… apparently, Boram was too dirty for Reichert’s campaign back in the fall of 2004, but somehow managed to clean himself up by April of 2005. And he’s been on the payroll ever since.

So I’m not exactly sure what message I’m supposed to take away from this. Was Boram’s staged “resignation” merely a disingenuous act of political expedience? (You know… a lie.) Or has Congressman Reichert become so indoctrinated in the culture of Republican Party politics, that, dirty politics… eh… not such a big deal anymore?

Or perhaps there’s another answer. Perhaps Reichert is so disengaged from his campaign and so hands-off its operations, that he doesn’t really know or care about the personal and professional behavior of the people running it? You know, the way he didn’t really seem to care about the mismanagement of the Sheriff’s office during his tenure there, or the abusive behavior of many of his deputies? Or the way he doesn’t seem to care about the corruption rampant in the Republican controlled Congress?

I dunno… either way it looks like a pattern to me. Though, I wouldn’t want to be one to cast aspersions.

Vice President Dick Cheney is in Washington state today to raise money for local Republican candidates, and both Mike McGavick and Dave Reichert are welcoming Dick with open, um… arms.

Both McGavick and Reichert attempt to sell themselves as moderates (a charade the Seattle Times seems more than willing to accommodate) but their willingness to enthusiastically suck up to Cheney despite his appallingly low public approval ratings shows just how indebted the two candidates really are to the neo-con’s Dark Sith, and the corrupting power of the money he raises.

Cheney’s visit also brings a welcome spotlight to the most important vote either candidate would cast should they be elected: the vote for Senate and House leaders.

Should the Democrats fail to take control of either house, Sen. Bill Frist will remain the Senate Majority Leader, and Rep. Dennis Hastert will remain Speaker of the House. The committee chairmanships will all remain firmly in the hands of loyal neo-cons, thus no investigations will be launched, no subpoenas issued, no check and balance applied to an increasingly rogue Bush administration.

Cheney’s fundraising trip to Washington state should make one thing clear in the minds of Washington voters: if you like Dick Cheney, and you like the direction our nation is going under his leadership… if you want more domestic spying at home, and more ill-conceived military adventurism abroad… if you want exploding budget deficits, multi-billion dollar no-bid Halliburton contracts, and lie after lie (WMDs, Valerie Plame, Hurricane Katrina, etc.)… then by all means, vote for McGavick and Reichert.

Do you want to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge? Vote for McGavick and Reichert. Do you want Roe v Wade overturned? Vote for McGavick and Reichert. Do you want to nuke Iran? Vote for McGavick and Reichert.

Because even if they occasionally cast strategic votes to display their supposed independence from the GOP leadership, their most important vote will be the one that puts this leadership in place. Dick Cheney is spending $193,079.41 of taxpayers money to fly out here and support McGavick and Reichert, because he knows that when push comes to shove, McGavick and Reichert will support him.

And that’s all voters really need to know about the mid-term election.

UPDATE:
Carl reminds me that Bill Frist is leaving the Senate to pursue his lifelong dream of coming in fourth in New Hampshire. So, some other neo-con will be elected Majority Leader should the R’s retain control. Same difference.

Freshman Republican Rep. Dave Reichert (WA-8) has tried to carve a reputation for himself as a strong and independent leader by strategically casting a handful of well placed votes in opposition to the GOP leadership… mostly when it doesn’t count. But his role in the recent controversy over oil drilling in the pristine Alaska National Wildlife Refuge shows exactly how calculated and unprincipled these votes have been.

After making a big show earlier this year of opposing drilling in ANWR, Reichert rolled over when it really mattered, voting for the Defense Spending bill and its cynical provision without a peep of opposition. Meanwhile, Sen. Maria Cantwell staked her reputation — and perhaps her career — on threatening a filibuster… and successfully following through.

Cantwell deserves all the credit she’s getting for staring down Alaska’s powerful and vindictive Sen. Ted Stevens.

“This vote today is a tribute to her tenacity and skill,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “She stood up to a powerful member of the Senate. Today was a big win.”

Reid made Cantwell the Senate Democrats’ energy point-person in September, setting into motion Wednesday’s confrontation.

But as much credit as Cantwell deserves for her bold leadership in orchestrating this dramatic filibuster, Reichert deserves at least as much blame for weakly caving in to his party’s cynical parliamentary procedure. He cannot argue that nothing could be done to block the provision — something could be done, and Cantwell did it. The difference is, Cantwell really is a defender of the environment, whereas Reichert only gives it lip service.

In defending his previous stance, Reichert explained that phone calls and emails from constituents were overwhelmingly opposed to drilling in ANWR:

“They were running about 95 percent in favor of not drilling. You have to listen to the people you represent.”

But when push came to shove, it wasn’t “the people” he listened to.

Reichert’s district has been steadily trending Democrat, putting him on everybody’s short list of vulnerable Republicans… and I can’t wait for this issue to pop up during the 2006 campaign. What’s he going to tell the overwhelming majority of constituents who oppose drilling in ANWR? “I voted against drilling before I voted for it”…?

Reichert flip-flopped on ANWR, and he’s going to pay for it.

[Cross-posted to Daily Kos.]

So much to blog on, so little time. So I thought I’d do a little roundup post to point you to a handful of issues and articles that have piqued my interest.

MoveOn.org targets Reichert with anti-war ad
Our very own Rep. Dave Reichert is one of six vulnerable House Republicans being targeted by MoveOn.org with a TV ad campaign questioning their lack of support of an exit strategy from Iraq. 18 ads will run in Reichert’s 8th Congressional District this week on CNN.

“These are districts where the incumbent doesn’t support an exit strategy to bring the troops home and the challenger does,” said Tom Matzzie, MoveOn’s Washington director.

In other Reichert news, he just voted to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Evergreen Politics interview Gov. Gregoire
Lynn Allen of Evergreen Politics has posted another one of her excellent interviews, this time with Gov. Christine Gregoire. Lynn didn’t have as much time with the governor as she had hoped for, but she managed to get in some good questions, like the one addressing perceptions of Gov. Gregoire’s legitimacy:

CG: Well, they spent six months challenging the legitimacy of that election. The only result was a few more votes for me after lots of money spent on both sides. I believe we won that election from the beginning. With as much money as was spent to question the legitimacy of the election, I can see how people would be concerned and frustrated. We need to go beyond it now. I’m in office. We have a state to run. We need to run it. I think we’re getting phenomenal things done. I am looking forward to the new year. This issue will get behind us. I think that the citizens are concerned about what is important in their lives – health care, security, jobs, and education for their kids. These are difficult issues and I’m prepared to deal with them.

The citizen in me is happy to see the governor focused on her job… but the political strategist in my wishes she would pay more attention to correcting the public’s misconceptions about the 2004 election.

Onward Christian soldiers… to Olympia
State Rep. John Ahern (R-Spokane) was back on his Christmas Warhorse last Friday, attacking the blatantly offensive and anti-Christian phrase “Happy Holidays.” The Olympian has the story, and includes some good quotes from a prominent local blogger:

“It’s not a big deal. There’s nothing new this year,” said Goldstein, noting that the Capitol tree has been called the Kids Holiday Tree for more than a decade. “They are making something out of nothing right now, but with all the media tools they have at their disposal, people don’t realize it’s nothing.”

Goldstein said the danger of the debate is that it legitimizes intolerance of different religious groups, including Jews, Muslims and nonbelievers.

Man… that David Goldstein guy is sharp. Somebody should give him his own radio show.

Finkbeiner goes both ways
When Bill Finkbeiner was a state representative (and a Democrat) he twice voted in support of legislation extending state anti-discrimination laws to cover sexual orientation, but as state senate minority leader (and a Republican) last year, he held his caucus firm in opposing it. Now that he’s resigned his leadership position, the Seattle Times’ Andrew Garber speculates about which way Finkbeiner might vote when the bill is reintroduced in the coming session.

“The X factor will be Sen. Finkbeiner,” said state Sen. Erik Poulsen, D-Seattle, a key negotiator in the Senate last year for the bill, which would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.
…
Supporters of the bill see him as the weakest link in what’s been an unwavering Senate GOP blockade of the measure since it was first introduced more than 20 years ago.

Of course, none of this should come as a surprise to my regular readers. In analyzing Finkbeiner’s resignation as minority leader, I wrote:

… freed of the burden of leadership, don’t be surprised to see him vote his conscience on HB 1515 (prohibiting discrimination based on sexual preference) ….

I think it is clear from his prior public statements that Finkbeiner does indeed support the legislation. If he chooses to stand up to his party leadership and vote his conscience, I expect at least two other Republican senators to join him.

Democrat Darcy Burner, running for the party’s nomination to oppose first-term incumbent Dave Reichert, has a post up on Daily Kos attacking Reichert and the GOP leadership for failing to act on homeland security:

One of the critical issues that all Democrats will face in the 2006 elections is the assertion that they are too soft on national security issues. It will certainly be an issue in my race, where I am running for Washington’s 8th Congressional District against an incumbent, Dave Reichert, who is a former sheriff, and whose entire message last cycle consisted of “I will protect you.”

I think that we spend a lot of time allowing the Republicans to ask the wrong questions, and then we attack their answers when we shouldn’t cede them the questions in the first place.

They are asking the question: “Are we tough enough to finish what we’ve started in Iraq?”

The question that needs to be asked is: “Are we safer than we were on September 11, 2001?”

Don’t cede them the question. Ask the right one, and then answer it.

In light of last week’s blistering report card from the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, criticizing the Bush administration and Congress’s failure to act on many of their most crucial recommendations, Burner’s post is not only relevant to voters in her district, but to voters nationally. Please read the whole thing, and then recommend it so that it can get some national attention.

I’ve been meaning to blog for almost a week on last Tuesday’s Social Security “town hall” held by Congressman Dave Reichert at Bellevue High. According to MSM and blog reports, the meeting didn’t go quite as smoothly as the Republican organizers intended, and I highly recommend Andrew’s excellent personal account and analysis posted over on NPI’s official blog. The Seattle Times’ James Vesely, who moderated the discussion, also describes the scene quite nicely:

If what I saw last week at Bellevue High is any indication, the reform plan to add private accounts to Social Security is a goner.

The school’s auditorium was packed, and not even three panelists urging private accounts

Okay… so the Times didn’t actually officially endorse Dave Reichert… yet. But you can read between the lines of today’s editorial: “Stop that car! Turn that dial!”

Hell, the headline is transparent enough, but the real giveaway is the fact that they ran this editorial at all.

The King County Sheriff’s office issues a mildly politicized press release, and the state Democratic Party complains. This is routine electioneering — a total non-story.

And yet the Times sees fit to turn it into an editorial attack on Dave Ross? Give me a break.

There’s plenty of important news — not that you’d necessarily know it from reading the front page of the Times — more deserving of self-righteous moralizing than Ross’s failure to dictate the actions of a state party he barely belongs to, or radio duopolist Entercom.

The Times has never been shy about taking sides in political campaigns. Just remember that as you watch their coverage of the 8th District congressional race.

The political poop is starting to hit the fan in the wake of the unprecedented $1.2 million GOP smear campaign aimed at defeating Deborah Senn in the Democratic attorney-general primary.

The Public Disclosure Commission met in a special session yesterday after the attack-ads’ sponsor, the Voters Education Committee (VEC) refused to obey state disclosure laws and reveal the source of its funding. At the PDC’s request, the attorney general is asking a court to force the group to disclose its contributors before the Tuesday election.

In response to the PDC ruling and subsequent suit, KING-5 Seattle and KREM-2 Spokane (both owned by the Belos Corp.) have pulled the ads from their TV broadcasts. Unfortunately, none of the other TV stations have been as responsible with the public airwaves.

And today we learn that the VEC’s director, Bruce Boram, has been fired from his role as the political architect of Dave Reichert’s campaign for the vacant 8th district congressional seat. (Sure, Boram says he quit, but political consultants don’t leave paying jobs unless they have to.)

So here’s the question: what the hell is the VEC trying to hide?

When this whole affair started I just assumed it was some wealthy Republican backers playing games with the system, but once they got caught they would obey the state disclosure laws like everybody else. (Well… everybody but Tim Eyman.) I thought the likely culprit was the insurance industry.

But the more the VEC resists revealing its financiers, the more I’m beginning to suspect that there’s something more devious going on here.

The circumstances surrounding the anti-Senn ads have started taking on a life of their own, and unlike the infamous “Swift Boat” ads, the free media is working towards Senn’s favor. Clearly, some very wealthy and powerful special interests want to knock Senn out of the race… proving Senn’s campaign slogan: “Deborah Senn, the people’s Attorney General.”