Washington state megathread

[CultureKing]

I will no longer have Baird as my congressman! Hopefully we don't do something stupid and get in someone conservative like Smith again... Or an idiot like Baird. Truthfully while he would likely have won re-election it would have been much closer because as of late he has made a number of bad decisions that have angered both the right and left. It will be interesting to see who gets through the primary.

[CultureKing]

I am pretty sure that Denny Heck will get in, he is a family friend. Personally I would love to have Heck as my rep, he is probably the most experienced, confident and connected of the bunch. I am hoping to get a summer internship with the campaign. Though that makes a very large number of democrats.

[CultureKing]

Why have we had so many odd, violent crimes recently? Argh.

[CultureKing]

Debolt will not be running to replace Baird. Meanwhile Heck will announce this week if he intends to run or not. Personally I am about 90% sure that he will, you don't loan yourself $100,000 just to explore the waters.

[CultureKing]

Heck got in; should be a fun race to watch. I'm almost hoping the top-two causes an R vs. R general so it'll spur the Democrats in the Legislature to abolish the damn thing.

Speaking of fun races, this tool is looking like Murray's most likely challenger: http://www.chriswidener.org

I highly doubt an R V R election will happen, only about 3 of the democrats are serious candidates and I am sure that at least one of them will drop out before the primary. Meanwhile there are still a good number of republicans in the race... It could be very interesting and the sort of thing where the primary is won by someone in the low 20s.

[CultureKing]

Heck got in; should be a fun race to watch. I'm almost hoping the top-two causes an R vs. R general so it'll spur the Democrats in the Legislature to abolish the damn thing.

Speaking of fun races, this tool is looking like Murray's most likely challenger: http://www.chriswidener.org

I highly doubt an R V R election will happen, only about 3 of the democrats are serious candidates and I am sure that at least one of them will drop out before the primary. Meanwhile there are still a good number of republicans in the race... It could be very interesting and the sort of thing where the primary is won by someone in the low 20s.

Oh I don't think there's a serious chance of it happening. There's a chance a D vs. D contest could result as well I suppose. I'd just find it amusing either way.

A write-in Democrat could be pretty competitive in a R vs. R general, don't ya think? Write-ins usually can't get to 50%, but they can up to 40%, which would be all you need in a 3-way.

Probably if the word was out that a write-in campaign was going on, but I'm pretty sure Washington State law forbids someone who lost in the primary from being a write-in during the general. We'd have to find some other candidate entirely, get a campaign up and get the word out before ballots start getting received in mid-October (a window of a little less than two months). It'd be challenging.

Really? That is an odd law... I feel like being a write-in candidate would not really have any restrictions. Though a democratic write-in candidate in this situation would probably be guaranteed at least 25-30% of the vote (though only with the assumption that there is a notable and public write-in campaign).

[CultureKing]

Heck got in; should be a fun race to watch. I'm almost hoping the top-two causes an R vs. R general so it'll spur the Democrats in the Legislature to abolish the damn thing.

Speaking of fun races, this tool is looking like Murray's most likely challenger: http://www.chriswidener.org

I highly doubt an R V R election will happen, only about 3 of the democrats are serious candidates and I am sure that at least one of them will drop out before the primary. Meanwhile there are still a good number of republicans in the race... It could be very interesting and the sort of thing where the primary is won by someone in the low 20s.

Oh I don't think there's a serious chance of it happening. There's a chance a D vs. D contest could result as well I suppose. I'd just find it amusing either way.

A write-in Democrat could be pretty competitive in a R vs. R general, don't ya think? Write-ins usually can't get to 50%, but they can up to 40%, which would be all you need in a 3-way.

Probably if the word was out that a write-in campaign was going on, but I'm pretty sure Washington State law forbids someone who lost in the primary from being a write-in during the general. We'd have to find some other candidate entirely, get a campaign up and get the word out before ballots start getting received in mid-October (a window of a little less than two months). It'd be challenging.

Really? That is an odd law... I feel like being a write-in candidate would not really have any restrictions. Though a democratic write-in candidate in this situation would probably be guaranteed at least 25-30% of the vote (though only with the assumption that there is a notable and public write-in campaign).

Yeah, most states* have sore loser laws. If you lose a primary you can't run in the general.

*Some don't, like Connecticut...

Hmm... in such a situation who would the dems go to? A representative like Williams?

[CultureKing]

... or is he a senator? I always forget, though I wont have to remember for much longer considering he is not running for re-election.

[CultureKing]

The state better tax it if they legalize. The income would be very welcome. My question is at what level would pot be legalized? Personally I feel like it should be at the same rate as tobacco...

[CultureKing]

Here is a quick update on the 3rd CD race:

Democrats Heck and Wallace have both announced their fundraising for the last quarter. Wallace raised $22,894 in the last quarter of 2009 and Heck raised $115,000 (plus $100,000 of his own money loaned to the campaign) in the last quarter, of which Heck's campaign only collected donations for the last eight days of, despite him not announcing until this January.

Meanwhile Republican Castillo had raised $53,874 raised as of Sept. 30 (I don't think he has reported his last quarter numbers yet).

http://www.theolympian.com/politicsblog/story/1103349.html


----
Let the money flow and the race begin!

[CultureKing]

Washington bill in the works would recognize gay marriages performed in other states:

http://dlr.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/default.aspx?Bill=2482&year=2009

I think this is the right kind of incremental approach -- basically set it up so not having gay marriage is ridiculous, because after all we pretty much have it anyway.

I think WA will be the first state to have gay marriage here in the West permanently. This approach is better than taking it to the courts.

Does anyone else find it interesting that the two main GOP candidates for WA-3 are Hispanic?

Is Herrera hispanic?

[CultureKing]

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1605804/KPLU.Local.News/Washington.Gets.$590M.To.Improve.Seattle.To.Portland.Rail.Service

Washington and Oregon received a total of $598 million to help build faster rail in the Seattle-Portland-Vancouver corridor. Washington received $590 of that money (take that Oregon!).

[CultureKing]

GOP caucus bans state Sen. Pam Roach, tells her to get anger counseling

LOL!!!

hahahaha x500

I remember as a senate page we were warned about crossing Roach, she is one terrifying woman. Why is she still holding office?

[CultureKing]

The Washington State Democratic party has officially endorsed standing no chance whatsoever in WA-8.

I am assuming this means that we are trying to help the Burner-clone that is running there. Oh well...

As long as we hold the democratic seats I will be happy (the 3rd should be a hard-fought contest though.

[CultureKing]

Time to change the thread title.

Done.

Only if it's an income tax...

Agreed, though likelihood of that happening: 0%

[CultureKing]

Time to change the thread title.

Done.

Only if it's an income tax...

Agreed, though likelihood of that happening: 0%

A "fair tax" would probably be our best hope in Washington--a flat income tax that would replace the sales tax. I don't think a progressive income tax would ever pass, but a flat income tax that got rid of the sales tax may be an acceptable compromise that would certainly be preferable to our current system.

Really I personally think that a progressive tax would have a better chance should we ever actually replace the sales tax. A flat tax would be a horrible idea (though still better than the regressive sales tax).

[CultureKing]

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that all the school levies are passing. I expected widespread defeat in the current political climate.

Agreed. Are there any school levies failing? All of them in my area are passing. Perhaps Washingtonians are a bit smarter than the "current political climate".

[CultureKing]

So, I'm currently on the fence about getting involved in the Sensible Washington (I-1068) campaign for marijuana legalization.  All things considered, R-71 was organizationally boring.  Gays are a pretty establishment voting bloc by this point, and other than a few bar crawls, there wasn't much in the way of outreach to weird voters.  The grassroots people were also basically affluent society people, too.

On the other hand, I-1068 involvement so far has been exactly what I feared.  They can't take donations yet, because of concern over pro-pot funds being frozen (it's happened before.)  And one of the (self-appointed) local organizers is an anarchist who isn't registered to vote.  But fortunately I won't need to worry that he has some philosophical opposition to voter registration, because this is all explained by finding his 2006 conviction for felony vehicular assault.

Basically, I-1068 is shaping up for all my fears: The "grassroots" (snicker) are less composed, the base for GOTV/signature-collecting is less motivated and "with it," there's less money...basically signature-collecting will be a nightmare, and advertising won't be much better, if they even manage to collect enough signatures.  Which is doubtful.

I don't see I-1068 getting on the ballot, honestly...

Agreed. Even if it would pass (though I have strong doubts) the movement is likely not organized enough to get things done. Truthfully though pot is so widespread in this state that almost no one really minds and it isn't really fought against that hard by authorities.

[CultureKing]

Front page article yesterday about extremist tea party groups. Guess where nearly all of them were based? Spokane/Northern Idaho! It seems the area may be trending back towards having  more crazies just like in the good 'ole days. My favorite was the nice old woman who advocated for a new civil war should elections "not go the right way".

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html?scp=1&sq=Lighting%20a%20fuse%20for%20rebellion&st=cse

Why did I choose to live here?

[CultureKing]

I almost want to go to a few of their meetings and after a good amount of time shred apart their arguments. Too bad they would never allow any sort of intellectual conversation and also since many of them bring guns to the meetings I would actually be terrified that violence would erupt as a result of someone challenging their ideas.

[CultureKing]

Tea Party speaker wants to hang Murray

lolz...?

Did you watch the tv news story? It almost seemed like they were trying to portray them in a positive light. Truly disgusting in my opinion (in regards to calling for someone to be hung).

[CultureKing]

So Washington didn't have a bestiality law prior to that?

I don't think so. The bestiality law was created because a man in Roach's district (in Enumclaw) died after having sex with a horse.

[CultureKing]

Olympia's mayor pro tem has been arrested for selling pot:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/415615_olympia.html?source=mypi

http://www.theolympian.com/2010/02/21/1145973/supporters-speak-for-hyer.html

Being a native I find this quite funny, especially after reading some of the statements from the city council in the above article which basically amount to: so what?

[CultureKing]

So Wallace dropped out...

I would love to see a poll of the primary race on both sides...

[CultureKing]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011259101_incometax05m.html

So much for your gubernatorial ambitions, Lisa...

Meh, its kinda sad that it hurts her so much. Income taxes are a much better way of doing things, especially progressive taxes.