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Posts published in “Day: February 18, 2008”

When historic isn’t

February 18, 2008

Afine post in the Slog (of the Seattle Stranger) about the historic area at Columbia City, and the perversity of applying rigid standards in the face of contrary facts.

The site may be historic, but what's being preserved from development - in the present case - is a very ordinary small strip center; the proposed new development would have a shot at a genuine improvement for the neighborhood. From the Slog:

"While I’m sympathetic to concerns about preserving the historic district (as my coworkers know, I even think they should preserve the Ballard Denny’s), that isn’t what’s at stake here. What is at stake is an ugly plastics warehouse and an uglier parking lot that fronts on a small mall selling hip-hop clothes and cigarettes—both of which are available at many other places in the neighborhood. Both sites are underutilized (Columbia Plaza turns its back on a park that’s a crime hot spot for the area) and would benefit tremendously from new housing. What’s more, the teams associated with both the projects have a history of making developments fit in with the neighborhoods where they’re located."

An Andrus blast

February 18, 2008

Been a while since we've seen Cecil Andrus, the former four-term Idaho governor, stride very deeply into highly visible partisan politics. But today, he jumped up on the national stage, letting loose a strong blast at the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Andrus has never been a stong Clinton supporter, so his decision last month to announce for Illinois Senator Barack Obama was no shock. But you get the sense that he's genuinely ticked at one of the latest argument lines out of the Clinton campaign, that many of the red states (like Idaho mostly won by Obama) are somehow less important than larger blue states. From an Obama campaign email:

Today, former Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus called on the Clinton campaign to apologize for remarks made by Joel Ferguson, the Co-Chairman of the Clinton Campaign in Michigan for calling delegates in red states “second-class.” Ferguson said, "Superdelegates are not second-class delegates. The real second-class delegates are the delegates that are picked in red-state caucuses that are never going to vote Democratic."

This is the latest in a string of attempts by the Clinton campaign to discount the votes of Democrats in the red states. In an effort to spin their losses, the Clinton campaign has repeatedly criticized Senator Obama’s wins in red states.
Governor Andrus said, “Today, a Clinton campaign surrogate took it to another level and said flat out the Democrats in Red States are second-class citizens. This is a step too far. Senator Clinton’s surrogates are telling Democrats in almost half the states in the country that they don’t matter, and that they are second class. Senator Clinton needs to immediately denounce these comments and tell her campaign surrogates to stop taking cheap pot-shots at committed Democrats across the country.”

Andrus added, “We have a senate race and a congressional race that we are going to win. I have been elected four times so don't tell me a Democrat can't win. If we tell people that their votes don’t matter, of course they aren’t going to consider voting for Democrats in the general election. This attitude doesn’t just hurt us in the Presidential campaign, but it also hurts down-ballot candidates and our efforts to build the party. We can’t have another polarizing election that starts with a candidate If you tell telling people living in smaller states that their voices don’t matter. Obama has been successful in earning support from voters of all races, genders, in red states and blue states. We need to continue those efforts and not stifle them before the election even begins.”