Sunday, June 13, 2010
Filing Week follies
Last week saw one of Washington’s annual exercises in political action. It was Filing Week, the five days during which all potential candidates for office in the year’s election make their decisions known to the public.
There’s always some suspense in Filing Week. Used to be a lot more, back when filing had to be done in person in Olympia or at King County Elections. For reasons that always escaped me (extra publicity, perhaps?), candidates routinely waited until Friday to file their papers. Every year, it seemed, somebody showed up at the designated office just before they closed the doors. Or they’d arrive a few too many minutes late, and be denied the opportunity to file. Now that they’ve gone to electronic filing, whatever point someone thought they were making by hurrying in at the deadline is moot.
These days, the only potential suspense is at the State Representative level and in some judicial races—which of the equivalent offices will the person file for? In Washington, unlike most other states, Senate and House districts are identical. Each Legislative District has one Senator (elected every 4 years) and two Representatives (both elected every 2 years). So a candidate can choose either of the two House seats to contest. One of the incumbents might be more vulnerable than the other, or perhaps there might be an open seat. Those usually draw bigger crowds.
Now that the odious Top Two primary is firmly entrenched, and even being idiotically copied by California, there’s more suspense in the political party nomenclature than in the office selection. In his (highly questionable) wisdom, the Secretary of State permits each candidate to write whatever he/she wants, limited only by character count and propriety, in the
(Prefers _______________ Party)portion of the candidate listing. Inevitably, as Goldy noted last week, a few Democrats forget to switch to the adjectival form of their party’s name; thankfully, all of those mistakes were corrected. At least, that’s what the SoS says ... King County Elections shows a few (Prefers Democrat Party) candidates on its website, as well as a few other differences from the SoS listing.
Sprinkled through the party designations are a number of, ummm, gems of creativity. I’m not talking about the two (Prefers Green Party) candidates, since that’s a legitimate political party. Nor do I refer to the five candidates who tried to mask their Republicanism by using some variation of (Prefers G.O.P. Party) ... even though that expands to “Grand Old Party Party”. And (Prefers Independent Party), seen 12 times, isn’t much different from the 11 (States No Party Preference) listings. Beyond those, however, we’ve got some inventive designations in the listings:
- (Prefers Centrist Party)—Mohammad H. Said, US Senator
- (Prefers Bull Moose Party)—Anthony (El Tigrero) Novack, LD13 House Pos.2
- (Prefers Lower Taxes Party)—Tim Sutinen, LD19 House Pos.2
- (Prefers SeniorSide Party)—Mike Huisman, LD21 House Pos.2
- (Prefers Demo Party)—Jeremy Miller, LD22 House Pos.1
- (Prefers Progressive Dem Party)—Steve Robinson, LD22 House Pos.1
- (Prefers Prolife Democrat Party)—F.G. (Fred) Jensen, LD22 House Pos.1
- (Prefers Reluctantly Gop Party)—Ray Carter, LD34 House Pos.1
- (Prefers (R) Problemfixer Party)—Leslie Klein, LD36 Senator
- (Prefers Happiness Party)—Doug (Yoshe) Revelle, LD40 House Pos.1
Finally, there’s Christopher Hurst, the incumbent in LD31 House Pos.2. If this Washington had Blue Dogs, he’d be one. He’s apparently in such a snit at the House Democratic caucus that he refuses to use the real identifier. Instead he’s calling himself (Prefers Independent Dem. Party). When he made that announcement, hepromised (threatened?) that a bunch of other conservative Democrats would join his micro-protest by using the same moniker.
So how many colleagues did Hurst recruit to his cause? The answer, it would appear, is exactly zero. Great move, Chris.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Time flies...
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, thirty-fifth President of the United States, would have celebrated his 93rd birthday today. As I calculate it, the planet has spun on its axis 16,990 times since JFK was assassinated. Which is almost exactly the number of days between his birth in Brookline MA and that horrid Friday in Dallas; Kennedy’s life was 16,978 days long. On May 17 of this year, then, John Kennedy had been dead exactly as long as he lived.
Five days ago on May 24, Robert Allen Zimmerman, far better known as Bob Dylan, turned 69 years old. He’s been a professional musician for nearly fifty of those years. Just 22½ in November 1963, Dylan was already a star of the folk/protest/civil rights community when Kennedy died. Since arriving in New York City in early 1961, he’d released two albums on Columbia Records, Bob Dylan and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and his third album The Times They Are A-Changin’ was already in the can awaiting release in early 1964. Dylan and Joan Baez were so highly thought of at the time that they had been invited to play short sets at the August 28, 1963 March On Washington, where Dr. King gave his renowned I have a dream speech. The other musicians who performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that afternoon were Mahalia Jackson, Marian Anderson, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Below is a public domain photo of Joan and Bob on that day:
I don’t have much of a point to make regarding this awkward juxtaposition of the birthdates of JFK and Dylan. Merely acknowledging that tempus fugit, whether or not one is having fun.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
(Faint) praise for Dino Rossi
Over the years, I’ve written many negative words about two-time Washington gubernatorial loser, and current US Senate dabbling ditherer, Dino Rossi. Most of those negative words appeared during the 2004 recounts, in my extended WA Gov series of DailyKos diaries.
I’ve called Rossi smarmy, sleazy, crooked, slimy, and odious. I’ve likened him to a used car dealer and a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BIAW. I’ve noted with distaste his refusal to concede the 2004 election after his long, long court challenge was dismissed, with prejudice, after Chris Gregoire had already been Governor of Washington for nearly half a year.
But Dino is nowhere near the classless ingrate that is the newly-minted teabagger Republican nominee for US Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul. While Rossi wouldn’t concede after losing his race, last night Paul wouldn’t talk to the candidate who was conceding to him! Talk about a scumbucket…
Dr. Paul (he’s an ophthalmologist) is, of course, the son of US Congressman Dr. Ron Paul (dad’s an OB/GYN). This rotten apple hasn’t fallen far from the crazy tree. Father and son represent the ugly union of the worst features of libertarian xenophobia, the Tea Party/teabagger movement, and the putrefying remains of the Republican Party. Unfortunately, the appellation Know Nothing Party was claimed by their forebears a century and a half ago. That’s too bad, because it’s as fitting a name as there could be.
Paultards now have two avenues for their devotion and their dollars. I wonder whether all the cash those wackos poured into Rand’s run in Kentucky, as well as Ron’s nutty presidential campaign in 2008 (FWIW, he’s already running for 2012), were backed by gold ingots buried in their backyards. I mean, the Pauls want to take the United States back to the gold standard, don’t they?
So what’s my praise for Dino Rossi? It’s that he isn’t as big a scumbag asshole as Rand Paul.
Faint enough for ya?
Friday, April 30, 2010
The money game
Dino Rossi may, or may not, be running for the US Senate against Patty Murray this year. My pal Goldy’s most recent thoughts on the subject, posted this morning, indicates that the smarmy real estate huckster may be moving in the direction of running. Apparently, the dulcet tones of Big John Cornyn, who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have begun to entice Dino into taking the plunge.
If Rossi runs, he’ll lose. If Rossi doesn’t run, Patty will win big. In other words, Senator Murray will definitely be reelected come November.
As long as he dithers and ponders, Dino Rossi can’t raise a dime to run for the Senate. Until he establishes a federal campaign committee, he cannot take in contributions. Even if he could transfer funds from his Washington campaign committee (which he can’t, because it’s illegal), that would amount to a pittance. According to his most recent PDC report in November 2009, his gubernatorial campaign had just under $9900 cash on hand. That’s hardly enough money to buy a couple of computers. And if Dino thinks he’ll be able to collect a pile of money from the NRSC, which Cornyn has undoubtedly promised him, he’s likely to find himself near the back of a long line of candidates. After all, the GOP has a lot of seats to defend—Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio—and many Democratic seats that are far more vulnerable than ours—Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania. With only $15 million in the bank, the NRSC isn’t going to open the vault for Dino.
So let’s say that Dino decides not to run, that he instead wants to make still another (losing) run for Governor. That would certainly make for an entertaining 2012 as Rossi and Rob McKenna fight it out to face off against Jay Inslee or possibly Lisa Brown. It would also make for a wide-open struggle among a slew of weak, unknown, and anonymous Republicans to be Patty Murray’s sacrificial lamb.
While money isn’t the be-all and end-all of politics, the campaign-funds gap between Patty and her putative opponents is so vast that it’s almost humorous. According to the Federal Election Commission, 13 people have filed to challenge Patty Murray for her Senate seat. (No, Dino Rossi isn’t one of them.) Of those, 11 indicate that they are Republicans, one says he represents no party, and one is shown as “unknown”. Nine of them are serious enough as candidates that they submitted 1Q/2010 financial reports to the FEC. To give you an idea of the seriousness-gap between Patty and her opponents, consider the following table, showing cumulative numbers for the entire group:
| Candidate Name | Party | Through | Contributions | Own funds | Cash on hand | Debt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Akers | Republican | 1Q/2010 | $276,323 | $237,528 | $89,970 | $237,528 |
| Don Benton | Republican | 1Q/2010 | $120,929 | ----- | $103,694 | ----- |
| William Chovil | Unknown | ----- | ----- | ----- | ----- | ----- |
| Arthur Coday Jr | Republican | 1Q/2010 | $61,606 | $18,025 | $26,313 | $18,025 |
| Richard Curtis | None | 1Q/2010 | $5,853 | ----- | $1,549 | ----- |
| Clint Didier | Republican | 1Q/2010 | $351,518 | $4,800 | $151,072 | $834 |
| Daniel LeBlanc | Republican | 1Q/2010 | $100 | ----- | $100 | ----- |
| James Mercer | Republican | 1Q/2010 | $3,599 | $1,644 | $1,473 | ----- |
| Patricia Murray | Democrat | 1Q/2010 | $5,471,308 | ----- | $5,916,995 | ----- |
| Rodney Rieger | Republican | 4Q/2009 | $15 | $15 | $15 | ----- |
| Sean Salazar | Republican | 4Q/2009 | $52,998 | $24,462 | $96 | $5,644 |
| Edward Torres | Republican | ----- | ----- | ----- | ----- | ----- |
| Chris Widener | Republican | 1Q/2010 | $56,614 | ----- | $12,308 | ----- |
| Craig Williams | Republican | 1Q/2010 | $18,753 | $8,250 | $2,626 | ----- |
“Motley” doesn’t begin to describe this bunch. Only ex-NFLer Didier and State Senator Benton have over $100K in cash-on-hand, and Didier’s bankroll is a mere 2.5% of the pile Patty has amassed. Akers is completely self-funded, and both Coday and Salazar have put in a serious chunk of their meager funds.
Were Rossi to join the crowd, he would certainly finish second in the Top Two primary. After all, he’s the only one in the bunch who’s even slightly known beyond his own family circle. But he’d still lose to Senator Murray, and he’d undoubtedly cause the NRSC and corporate scumbags to flush some of their money down the toilet of his campaign. He’d lose (semi)respectably, which would place him quite a bit closer to Patty than any of the rest of them.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Practice, practice, practice
This post’s title is the punchline to an old joke.
And that’s how it came to pass that, last Sunday evening, my nephew and his oboe debuted at the Isaac Stern Auditorium / Ronald O. Perelman Stage -- the nation’s most renowned classical music performance space since its opening in 1891 -- at the corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue in midtown Manhattan.An elderly New Yorker (often identified as Polish-American pianist Arthur Rubenstein) is approached by a tourist, who asks him, “Pardon me, sir, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?”
"Practice, practice, practice..."
No, it wasn’t a solo debut, or even a featured debut. As he continues to progress as an oboist, those may happen at some future date.
He and dozens of his fellow members of the Garfield High School Orchestra performed as part of Carnegie Hall’s Spring Instrumental Music Festival. The other performances at the evening’s concert were by the orchestras from Delaware, Ohio’s Rutherford B. Hayes High School and Kirkwood (Missouri) High School.
Alas, I’ve seen only one review of the performance thus far:
They were magnificent -- my sisterI’m sure I’ll hear much more about the trip, the stage, and the performance when my nephew, sister, and brother-in-law return to Seattle tomorrow night. In the meantime, to get to Carnegie Hall either “practice, practice, practice” or take the F, N, Q, R, or W train.
