As we round the far turn and head toward the homestretch of the 2006 election year, I’ve revised and enlarged my set of endorsements. One of my earlier endorsements is gone ... my choice for the open House Position #1 in the 43rd Legislative District didn’t quite receive enough votes to win the six-way race. Now that the primary is over, there’s little need to trumpet the Democratic nominee for that seat; Jamie Pedersen will breeze to victory here in Washington’s most Democratic LD.
But other candidates, in other races, aren’t in quite the same position. I’ve chosen a few to emphasize, and you’ll find links and icons representing those favorites at the top of the sidebar over on the left side of the page. I think they’re all great candidates for the offices they’re seeking, and I know they’d appreciate it if you’d click on their icons, drop by their websites, and contribute some political mother’s milk—that is, money—to some or all of them.
Shown first is a link to the collective Pacific Northwest progressive blogosphere’s BlueNorthwest ActBlue page. That’s a one-stop opportunity to contribute to your choice of three Congressional candidates (two from Washington, discussed below, and ID-01’s Larry Grant) as well as five state-level candidates from Oregon (one for Senate, four for their House). Bloggers from these three states have been working together for a while, developing collaborative activities and finding ways to influence our respective political environments.
While you can, and should, use the BlueNorthwest ActBlue page to contribute to Peter Goldmark in WA-05 and Darcy Burner across Lake Washington in WA-08, I’m also displaying direct links to those two Congressional campaigns.
I’ve talked about Goldmark before, and everything I said back then is still in effect. In the interim, he’s really made inroads in the name-recognition gap over on the dry side of the state. I still assert that once people actually get to know something about Peter—sometimes difficult when the Spokesman-Review pays so little attention to his campaign—they can’t help but be impressed by him and become supporters of his efforts. He’s the absolutely perfect candidate for WA-05.
As for Darcy, I’ve seen her grow rapidly and exponentially as a candidate and as a potential representative for the Eastside. She’s sharp as a tack, knows the important issues backwards and forwards. She’s Sheriff Hairspray’s worst nightmare—a smart woman, unafraid to wade into any fray, quick of mind and sharp of thought, with an immense capacity to grow into the role and become a true leader. There’s a Seattle Times-sponsored candidate debate tomorrow evening (Tuesday, October 10) at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, during which the contrast between the dimwitted, befuddled, short-tempered incumbent and the thoughtful, intelligent, well-prepared, understanding challenger should be plain as day to those who watch it.
Though he’s not in my LD, I’m extremely enthusiastic about the candidacy of Derek Kilmer for the State Senate. Derek has spent the last two years as a State Representative in the 26th Legislative District (northwestern Pierce County, southern Kitsap County). He defeated an established Republican incumbent to win that 2004 race, and is now vying for an open Republican seat in the Senate. Having known Derek for almost six years—he used to live in the 36th LD, just to the west of me, and participated with my sister on that district’s Democratic organization—I’ve seen his intellect, his commitment, his progressive values and ideas, close up. Derek is a rising star in Washington state politics, but winning the Senate seat in the 26th isn’t a sure thing. It’s a swing district, though (like much of western Washington) it’s trending Democratic. His House seat, consistently GOP before Derek took it two years ago, is expected to stay in the blue column this November, and if Derek wins the long-Republican Senate seat, then all three LD offices will be held by Democrats. Derek’s strongest issue is economic development; he has both academic and professional expertise in the field, and is already acknowledged as one of Olympia’s leading lights on the topic. Please help Derek win that Senate seat ... you’ll be hearing a lot about him over the next years and decades.
Finally, an endorsement in an election happening far, far away from Seattle or any other part of Washington. Paul Hodes was an undergraduate classmate of mine at Dartmouth. Now he wants to represent Dartmouth, its town of Hanover, and the rest of New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District. I know Paul to be a good man, a solid progressive Democrat, a talented attorney and musician. His opponent has been in Congress for over a decade, and comes from a well-established Granite State GOP family. However, while NH-02 has become steadily more Democratic and liberal (it went for both Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004), the Congressman has turned his back on his rock-ribbed traditional New England Republican roots. Instead, he’s just another lockstep radical-right DeLay/Boehnert/Hastert acolyte, doing his bidding as required by his overseers. This is a race that Hodes can win—current polling shows it to be very close, well within the margin of error—if he can obtain enough name recognition to be in the minds of the voters on Election Day.
I urge all readers of this blog to make contributions to the candidates on my endorsement list. They’re all superb candidates who will make superb representatives of their respective districts. I’m going to scrape together enough money to make contributions to all of them, and I hope you’ll do the same.
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