Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle

[Meeker]

Goodspaceguy for Senate!

[Meeker]

Will Norm Dicks receive another challenger to his left that he spends grossly unnecessary amounts of time and money on?

His recruiter lady, Anna What's-Her-Name, came into my U.S. Politics class (which was like...2 Washingtonians) to find interns.  She was going on about how this "could be a tough year."  I'm surprised nobody seems to get pissed off at Dicks for poaching potential volunteers.

He usually pays for the coordinated campaign offices which reduces people's willingness to get mad at him and his army of pointless field workers.

[Meeker]

State Representative Eric Pettigrew filed as "Prefers No Party Entered Party". Not sure if he forgot to fill out that box, or there's some error on the county's part, or he's trying to run as an independent, or he's using his ballot title as a critique of the top-two party labeling rules, or something else entirely. Probably the first one though.

[Torie]

Hey, why is no one commenting about my John Fund comment above?  Alcon? Bgwah?

You know lawyers tend to lash out when they get ignored.

[Meeker]

Hey, why is no one commenting about my John Fund comment above?  Alcon? Bgwah?

You know lawyers tend to lash out when they get ignored.

Our legislature is extremely polarized. The Republican caucus more than the Democratic caucus though; there's a group of moderate Democrats that call themselves the Roadkill Caucus because they feel they always get run over by the more liberal, labor-friendly caucus majority (they're mostly obnoxious Moderate Heroes though and should be ignored). There are quite literally no moderates left in the Republican caucus, although some are slightly less conservative than others.

This has been the case since before the top-two though and is mainly due to the Republican collapse in the Seattle suburbs and the Eastside which leaves them with nothing but a caucus of rural conservatives and also a number of Democrats who need to keep their moderate credentials in place in order to keep getting re-elected.

I don't think the top-two has really been in effect long enough to make any serious commentary on its impact of the state political system (we've only used it once after all). It should still be gotten rid of for other reasons of course.

ETA: Nate Silver (or maybe he just publicized someone else's work) had a post up sometime ago that showed that average Washington Democratic voters are much more liberal than the national average and average Washington Republican voters are much more conservative than the national average. The only state where the gap is bigger is, interestingly, Oregon.

[bgwah]

John Fund, in the course of  commenting on  the California jungle primary proposition, stated that the suggestion that it will help elect less partisan and more moderate candidates is bunk, citing as evidence what the jungle primary has wrought in Washington State. He says scholarly studies show that Washington has the most partisan and ideologically polarized legislature in the country, which if true certainly surprises me. Any comment from the Washington State aficionados around here?

I'm not aware of any studies that have said our legislature is the most polarized. Nevertheless, we've only used the top two primary for one normal election year (2008). To say it is the result of this supposed polarization doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Most of the current legislators have been around longer than that anyway, and I can't think of any races where a more extreme candidate won as a result of the top two primary...

[Alcon]

Looks like the pot initiative is screwed.  Too bad, we could have had pot and booze on the same ballot.

[Frodo]

Looks like the pot initiative is screwed.  Too bad, we could have had pot and booze on the same ballot.

In times as economically challenging as these, I don't blame people for having higher priorities on their minds than legalizing pot.

[Meeker]

State Representative Eric Pettigrew filed as "Prefers No Party Entered Party". Not sure if he forgot to fill out that box, or there's some error on the county's part, or he's trying to run as an independent, or he's using his ballot title as a critique of the top-two party labeling rules, or something else entirely. Probably the first one though.

The Secretary of State lists him as "States No Party Preference". An unfortunate development if this turns out not to be an error.

Meanwhile, Leslie Klein will be running for State Senate as "Prefers (R) Problemfixer Party".

[Alcon]

Looks like the pot initiative is screwed.  Too bad, we could have had pot and booze on the same ballot.

In times as economically challenging as these, I don't blame people for having higher priorities on their minds than legalizing pot.

I doubt many people went, "I'd sign your petition but the economy sucks too much to spend time on that."  The pot people used the economic downturn smartly, to argue too much was being wasted.  Maybe the bad economy means fewer volunteer hours -- I don't really think so.  But all in all, I don't think this was a bad year.  I just think it's a hard fight.

[Meeker]

The people running the campaign were also incompetent. That had a lot to do with it.

[Torie]

Thanks Bgwah and Meeker. It seemed like the posited causal connection was BS to me, but I just wanted to check and see if what seemed to me to be the obvious through my long range and opaque lens, was as well to those who don't any lens at all to observe the action on a day to day basis.

[Meeker]

Don Rivers is running against McDermott for the third time. Rick Larsen also has a Democratic challenger.

Someone named Jesse Young has dared to challenge Doug Cloud for the right to lose to Norm Dicks.

[Meeker]

State Representative Eric Pettigrew filed as "Prefers No Party Entered Party". Not sure if he forgot to fill out that box, or there's some error on the county's part, or he's trying to run as an independent, or he's using his ballot title as a critique of the top-two party labeling rules, or something else entirely. Probably the first one though.

The Secretary of State lists him as "States No Party Preference". An unfortunate development if this turns out not to be an error.

Meanwhile, Leslie Klein will be running for State Senate as "Prefers (R) Problemfixer Party".

Pettigrew now says he filed on his iPhone and missed the box due to the small screen. He'll correct his party preference shortly.

[Meeker]

Mike The Mover running for Senate of course.

[Alcon]

Jesse Young actually has more signs than anyone up in my part of Tacoma currently, which is bizarre, but I think he's the Tea Party candidate.

A few hardcore supporters + Some limited cash infusion + No actual idea about how a winning campaign is run + No reason to bother anyway = Early yard signs.  It's a pretty safe formula.

Also, the highly underrated William Edward Chovil filed for Senate today, too.  I celebrated by thanking him for his vigilance against the Cold War on the way home, which I've seriously been waiting two years for him to be outside his apartment to get a chance to do.  He didn't understand what I said because he's older than time.  I was still satisfied.

[Хahar 🤔]

A few hardcore supporters + Some limited cash infusion + No actual idea about how a winning campaign is run + No reason to bother anyway = Early yard signs.  It's a pretty safe formula.

That explains the oodles of yard signs here for the Republican candidate for Congress.

[Meeker]

State Rep. Scott White has moved up to Ken Jacobsen's State Senate seat. David Frockt was running a primary challenge to Jacobsen until he announced his retirement a few weeks ago but once White got in the race Frockt dropped down to run for White's State House seat. White was first elected in 2008 so he's moved up pretty quick.

Ken Paulson, last seen running against Tim Farrell, has filed as an independent against Steve Conway in the race for Rosa Franklin's State Senate seat.

[Meeker]

Dino Rossi sadly "Prefers Republican Party".

We're also going to have at least 12 Senate candidates on the primary ballot.

[bgwah]

Doug (Yoshe) Revelle [Prefers Happiness Party] is running in the 40th LD. Awesome.

[Meeker]

The 40th is the same LD that the Salmon Yoga Party came from two years ago.

[bgwah]

So we have a couple people running as "Independent No Party" candidates. Is the filing form really that confusing?

ANYWAY, both the 4th and 5th districts have Constitution Party candidates now, as well as the Green in the 9th district.

I wish there were a Green in the 7th, too!


Run down of funny party preferences, some of which Meeker has covered:

• "Neither Party" in the 18th
• "Lower Taxes Party" in the 19th
• We have another "Progressive Dem" in the 22nd, following Williams' example I guess.
• "Republican (GOP) Party" in the 28th
• Aforementioned "Independent Dem." in the 31st
• "(R) Problemfixer Party" in the 36th
• "Conservative Party" in the 38th--no Republican filed here as of yet, I wonder if this is technically their candidate? lol
• "GOP Party" in the 40th
• "Happiness Party" in the 40th
• "Green Party" in the 40th--not supposed to be funny, but the only Green (or Libertarian or Constitution for that matter) that I see running for the legislature

And of course a ton of "Prefers Independent Party" folks, lol. They really need to fix this part, IMO...

[Alcon]

Man, it is going to be weird if no Republican files for our 27th LD race...

I didn't realize Chris Hurst lives way out in the Snoqualmie National Forest.

[bgwah]

Still no Republicans in the 7th congressional district.

Not a single Republican running in the 11th, 34th, 37th, or 43rd legislative districts.

lol Seattle.

[Lunar]

Anyone know how strongly Palin is going to stick by whats his face?