Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest

Hans Zeiger

If 2010 does turn out to be a year when a lot of incumbents get tossed out, it’s also likely to be a year when a number of problematic – poorly vetted, little-understood – candidates get elected, or come close. Today’s case study is in Washington’s District 25 (eastern Pierce County), where incumbent Democrat Dawn Morrell is being challenged by Republican Hans Zeiger.

In the primary election, with six candidates on the ballot, Morrell got 40.3% of the vote and Zeiger scored an upset among the Republicans with 35.9%; another Republican, Steve Vermillion, was thought to be Morrell’s likely opponent, and the Tacoma News Tribune described him “as qualified a political newcomer as we’ve seen this year.” Zeiger was only lightly reviewed. But by the standard math of Washington primaries, this looks like a highly competitive contest.

Zeiger’s website is generic and says nothing most any challenger might not say, and makes little reference to Morrell. He remarks there, “That is why I am running for State Representative in the 25th District: for jobs, tax relief, and educational excellence.”

Start Googling Zeiger, though, as David Goldstein of Horse’s Ass has, and another picture emerges.

Notably on the very conservative WorldNetDaily site, where Zeiger is a regular contributor. (Zieger is also on WND’s speaker’s bureau, and their description of him there makes clear that he is highly plugged into the more ideologically-driven parts of movement conservatism.) This, for example (September 2005), writing about “the Girl Scouts USA national convention will be held in Atlanta. It will be a gathering of radical feminists, lesbians, and cookie peddlers …”

Not that he’s ignored the Boy Scouts. He is described as a spokesman for the Scouting Legal Defense Fund, and has written a book (which WND sells) called Get Off My Honor; the net’s description of it notes, “Hans shows how those who wish to destroy the scouts are attacking it for what it represents at its core – Christian values.” Doesn’t seem to be much mention of those sexual abuse cases that are what have gotten a lot of people’s attention.

Ideological as political attack? Another example, from Intellectual Conservative: “We speak much of terror networks in our time, and here is one of the vilest, for it has made greater progress in the tearing down of American institutions and ideals than Iraq or Al Quaeda have. NEA and GLSEN are not the only groups in the network; the ACLU and NARAL and Planned Parenthood and Americans United for Separation of Church and State and others come to mind. They mean to wage war on the most sacred and most enduring things of our civilization: our faith, our heritage, our character, our self-government, and our family structure.”

It’s not a reach to call this an appeal to hatred. Another sad case, in other words, of trying to set Americans against each other as if organizing a dog fight.

There is much, much more – it goes on from there. Jobs? Tax relief (other than the routine calls for tax cuts)? Educational excellence? Among these mass of high-profile, exceedingly ideological writings, there’s previous little to indicate those subjects gave him a moment’s pause. Until, maybe, filing for the House.

Now the question is: How much will the voters know about Zeiger before they cast their votes in Washington’s 25th?

In the Slog, writer Dominic Holden writes about numbers and what they indicate, or don’t, about public priorities.

In 2003, Seattle voters passed (59% in favor) a ballot issue declaring marijuana enforcement the lowest priority for city police. In the years since, the number of arrests on pot busts declined, and fr years stayed well below levels from 2003 and earlier.

In “Pot Paradox,” Holden wrote in August about an oddity: Arrests on pot offenses this year have (on a per-month basis) more than doubled. He wrote, “This year, 147 people have been referred to prosecutors with pot as the only charge, according to records from the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and the city attorney’s office. That is a fivefold increase in the number of pot-only cases (last year, only 28 of the 120 arrests were referred for prosecution with pot as the only charge). In other words, pot-only arrests rose from 23 percent to 85 percent. This is a drastic shift toward busting people solely for pot.”

Seemingly in response, Seattle Mike McGinn‘s office on September 1 posted a response. It said: Continue Reading »

Just how much we should make of the results in Washington’s primary election last week – beyond the determination of who will be on the ballot in November – won’t be clear until after the general election voting is done: Only then will we be able to do some conclusive matchups. But if you operate under the assumption that the primary results offer at least a general foreshadowing of what’s to come, we can at least draw some rough conclusions.

We can reasonably conclude that the U.S. Senate race is competitive, though incumbent Democrat Patty Murray has a discernible edge (for now anyway). We can realistically say that there are two competitive U.S. House races, in the 2nd and 3rd districts, with the latter being the tougher call.

And after reviewing results in the 123 state legislative races on the ballot, we can fairly say this: Republicans are not likely to win either chamber at the statehouse (though that could happen), but they are highly likely to pick up enough seats to trim the Democratic edge to only a bare hold.

Let’s unpack this, starting with the Senate.

Of the 49 Senate seats, 31 are held by Democrats and 18 by Republicans – team red would need to gain seven seats to take control. Of the 49 seats, 24 are not up for election this year – 12 each held by Republicans and Democrats, which will mean Republicans will have no structural advantage in 2012. This year, they do: Of the 25 seats up, Democrats now hold 19 and Republicans six. That defense challenge is heavy on the Democratic side; it would be a tough year for maintenance under the best of circumstances.

Of those 25 seats, candidates are unopposed in five of them: Three Democrats and two Republicans. And in two other districts, both candidates headed to November are Republicans. That means in total, Republicans now are guaranteed 16 seats and Democrats 15.

Democrats did a little better among seats competitive between the party. Nine scored well enough (over 50% and substantially ahead of the opposition) to be considered likely winners in November, while six Republicans scored comparably.

There are three other odd-case districts. In 38, incumbent Jean Berkey came in a narrow third against two other candidates, a Republican and a Democrat. But because the two Democrats on the ballot pulled 67.6% of the primary vote overall, the seat has to be considered safe Democratic. In District 32, Maralyn Chase got 47.7% of the vote, while a Republican got 39.9% and another Democrat got 12.4%; again, when you add the party totals, that looks like a Democratic win, though it could enter the gray area.

And then there’s District 44, where Democratic incumbent Steve Hobbs and his main Republican challenger, Dave Schmidt, nearly tied (Hobbs very slightly edged Schmidt), in a race also involving two other candidates. This one has to be called a true tossup.

Add these together, and the Washington Senate overall is beginning to look like 38 Democrats, 34 Republicans, and one too close to call – based on primary results. So you could say the odds favor continued Democratic control, but with a narrow margin. And the possibility of Republican control if their candidates run the table.

The House has a similar overall look. Continue Reading »

A Crosscut piece definitely worth the read: About the shift of ownership of one of the key churches, University Baptist Church near the University of Washington – a landmark among liberal churches in the area.

Now the Mars Hill Church, an Evangelical church known for its conservative stances and its criticism of the region’s dominant culture, has bought the place.

Takeaway quote from the Crosscut piece (which goes into some detail, with nuances beyond but largely backing the quote): “Once, in the not too distant past, Protestant Christianity was the religious expression of the prevailing culture and its values. Increasingly, it seems that Christianity, at least in its currently thriving expressions like Mars Hill, plays a more oppositional role in relation to the prevailing culture and its values.”

Seattle: As a prevailing matter, you’re either Evangelical or secular? Historically, that hasn’t been a realistic formulation. But it may be getting that way.

When Jerry Brown, who is running for governor in California this year, ran for that office the first time in 1974, he spoke of “moving left and right at the same time.” Is Snohomish County taking that to heart 36 years on?

First, and most significantly, the 2nd congressional district – which runs north to the Canadian border but gets close to half of its votes from Snohomish County – showed signs of being competitive in November. It used to be highly competitive, and in the 90s even Republican-leaning, before starting to elect Democrat Rick Larsen, now seeking his sixth term. Larsen took a solid 62% in his last election, and 64% in each of the two before that. In his first two, he won closer, 50%-46%. In the first of those, he faced Republican John Koster, who is running – hard – this year.

In yesterday’s primary results, Larsen leads Koster but just barely, 42.8% to 40.9%. Slipping that far below 50%, against an opponent who’s running as close, is a clear danger sign. While none of the other Washington U.S. House incumbents showed signs of serious danger in the primary numbers, Larsen clearly will have to run seriously in the couple of months from here to there. His edge is not overwhelming.

Their strategists may notice something of interest in those primary results: The two candidates didn’t fare equally well everywhere. Of the five counties in the district, Larsen won five, three (King, Skagit and San Juan) strongly, two narrowly (Island and Whatcom). He narrowly lost one: Snohomish (43.2% to 41.5%).

Then there’s this.

The most central of the several legislative districts in Snohomish is the 38th, which includes Everett and various points north and south of it. What happened there on Tuesday is also notable.

The Senate seat there is held by Jean Berkey, an Everett Democrat who ran afoul of several unions and other interests for her centrist votes in the last couple of sessions. Unwilling to go along, they backed an insurgent candidate from the left, Nick Harper, who also collected a batch of support from assorted liberal organizations. While Tea Party insurgencies in Washington largely faded out, this run from the left worked: Harper took 35.3% of the vote to Berkey’s 33.6%, meaning that those two Democrats will go on to November (shutting out the Conservative candidate Rod Rieger).

There are indications, especially in some of the suburban districts that Democrats won initially in the last few cycles, that Republicans likely will gain some pushback this year. But the results from Tuesday also show a more complex picture than just that.

Did the primary election results in Washington say a lot we didn’t already know about what to expect out of the November election?

Not a tremendous amount, although the results should give everyone some reason not to get comfortable.

In the Senate race, incumbent Democrat Patty Murray took 46% to Republican Dino Rossi‘s 34%. For Murray, her portion of the vote is less than she should have wanted; there’s a line of thought that anything under 50% for an incumbent in a generally open primary like this one is dangerous. Certainly the figure suggests some vulnerability. But Rossi’s task is formidable. While he will surely get a lot of the Republican vote that splintered off in other directions in this election, he’s also going to have to appeal powerfully to the independents. Rossi’s climb here is steeper than Murray’s, though both have some work to do.

In the U.S. House 3 race, which is open, Democrat Denny Heck led as expected with 31.5%, to Republican Jaime Herrera‘s 27.2%. If you add the votes from all the Democratic and all the Republican contenders together, though, you get 43% for the Democrats and 53% for the Republicans – which suggests an edge for Herrera. Balance that against financial and other structural advantages Heck has, and you get a highly competitive race. This one can truly go either way; a lot really will depend on how well each of these (highly polished and articulate) candidates, and their organizations, perform, not least in the area of November voter turnout.

One other factor should be considered: Most of the competition in these and other major races around Washington was on the Republican side, which may have helped inflate Republican turnout, compared to Democratic, a bit. How much? Hard to say.

Regional. Among the Republicans: Didier won just two counties, Benton and Franklin, doing well enough in the latter to give it to Murray in a Murray-Rossi faceoff. Which won’t happen in November. But check out the overall state map for the election and you’ll get a familiar-looking picture: Murray won a plurality or better in all counties west of the Cascades except Lewis, plus Spokane and Klickitat. Against a Republican unencumbered by splinter candidates, Murray likely cannot win as many. But then, she wouldn’t need so many to win. And she has an opportunity to pick up more votes in the Democratic precincts that didn’t turn out this time. Chances are good, for example, that she can improve on the 58% she got in King County today. (In 2008, Barack Obama got 70% there for president, and Democrat Chris Gregoire, running for governor against Rossi, took 63.9%.)

Consider for a moment the subject of the media political frenzy – that supposedly powerful, big grassroots movement going by the name of the Tea Party.

To judge from Washington primary results, they don’t look so big and powerful tonight. They look, rather, like minor players – the establishment favorites carried the day. (Or at least have so far, but the results seem decisive enough that reversals in the week to come are highly unlikely.)

In the U.S. Senate race on the Republican side – not the “Republican primary” since this is a top-two, all comers considered election – the establishment, non-Tea candidate was Dino Rossi, the former state senator and twice a gubernatorial candidate. He was much better known, had much more organizational and financial support than his opponent, and his win Tuesday wasn’t a surprise to much of anyone.

But here’s the numbers (as of this evening): Rossi 33.9%, Tea Party (and Sarah Palin) favorite Clint Didier 11.95%, and Tea second-runner-up Paul Akers 2.5%. For all the splash Didier made, and he made a lot of splash, the votes weren’t there – not nearly. Voters taken as a whole didn’t seem to have a problem with Rossi the (conservative) establishment candidate, as such. So much for the tsunami insurgency which Rossi, to his strategic credit, seems to have recognize was overrated (though, yes, he did cater to it more in the last two to three weeks than he had before).

The other key race was for the one open U.S. House seat, in Washington’s 3rd district (southwest Washington, from Olympia to Vancouver to the coast). All three significant candidates ran as conservatives, but of different shades. State Representative Jaime Herrera, widely considered the front runner, was probably the most establishment of the group in overall approach. David Castillo, who also had some backing from highly visible party people but also had some Tea support, was more or less in the middle. David Hedrick, a newcomer, ran full steam on Tea concentrate (privatize Social Security, for example).

The result? Herrera outpolled the other two put together (27.2% to 12% for Castillo and 13.8% for Hedrick). The perils of being flanked on both sides may have weighed down Castillo. But the overall strength ran heavily to Herrera.

Not a good night for the hard-core insurgency. We’ve had the suspicion for more than a year that it has been overrated. And for the most part, it seems to be, except when actual voters weigh in.

Denny Heck

David Castillo

David Hedrick

Jaime Herrera

Tuesday’s election day in Washington will be one of the first real Northwest indicators of how November’s elections will play out. One of the best places to examine for clues may be the Washington 3rd district: An open House seat – incumbent Democrat Brian Baird is retiring – in a district closely split between the parties, and strongly competed for by both parties.

A quick reminder: This is not a normal primary election, where party nominees are chosen, but rather a “top two,” where the two best vote-getters proceed on to November. They could even come from the same party, though in the case is of the 3rd, the odds are strong the finalists will be one Democrat and one Republican.

Not a lot here by way of outright predictions, but some thoughts on what to watch for.

This much is pretty easy: One of the candidates to clear the top-two bar almost certainly will be Denny Heck. Heck is not the only Democrat on the ballot – Cheryl Crist, who has run for the office before without accumulating many votes – is running, and to his left, which will likely mean some peel-off. How large that is may be an indicator of just how well Heck, who has run as a Democratic centrist, has been able to bring his party’s base on board.

One other point to watch: What is the combined Democratic percentage, compared to the combined Republican percentage? That may be a useful indicator for November. To be noted: Heck has a hefty financial advantage, according to the most recent reports, $707,840 cash on hand, which is more than six times as much as anyone else.

The biggest interest, though, is on the Republican side, where the results seem less clear than on the Democratic, and where the race is much harder fought.

The weight of opinion has given an informal frontrunner status to Jaime Herrera of Ridgefield.

There’s a case for this. She has connections, worked for U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, who has backed her campaign and attracted additional help. On her own, Herrera is a state representative, first appointed and then easily elected in 2008. She is articulate, photogenic (not a knock – it’s an asset) and energetic – a solid candidate on her own merits; the external help is just a plus. She has amassed what are probably more substantial batches of endorsements than her Republican rivals. She also has raised more money ($410,627) than any of the other Republicans, and has more on hand ($113,838). She’s been spending, and is alone in running spots on cable TV.

Still, the cautionary notes abound: Don’t write this race off yet. David Castillo of East Olympia has raised competitive amounts of money ($257,815) and spent the bulk of it; David Hedrick of Camas has raised and spent far less, but has had a highly energetic campaign and gotten attention.

Castillo especially merits some attention. Like Herrera, he has gotten backing from a cadre of well-placed Republicans including Attorney General Rob McKenna and state House Republican leader Richard DeBolt of Chehalis – a key figure in Republican politics in the district, and personally representing a district that’s a part of the Republican core.

Another indicator of sorts: Castillo has done very well with newspaper endorsements, winning those of the Seattle Times, the Vancouver Columbian, the Longview Daily News and the Centralia Chronicle. (The Columbian was the only one to endorse two Republicans – Herrera was the other – for the top two.) Point here is not that endorsements make winners, but that – like campaign contributions – they often do reflect a candidate’s viability.

If all of that sounds like an argument for tossing the third Republican, Hedrick, off the train, well, not quite. And that is partly a reflection of this particular year.

Hedrick’s web site calls him a “constitutional conservative Republican” (“patriot” and “Christian” show up a lot too), and this is a dog whistle you can hear. All three Republican candidates call themselves conservative, and fit the description by any usual standards, but Hedrick’s message sounds distinctly different, much more Tea Partyish – and his appeal is aimed squarely in that direction. He seems to have aligned himself loosely, for example, with Senate candidate Clint Didier, who has lots of Tea Party support; but while the Senate race has two TP candidates and one establishment Republican (Dino Rossi), the 3rd district Republican scene has two more establishment Republicans (Herrera and Castillo) and one partier – Hedrick. And Hedrick doesn’t mind some boat-rocking. In a radio forum last week on Oregon Public Broadcasting, Hedrick came out flatly for privatizing Social Security, which left Heck in definitive opposition and the other two Republicans scrambling.

Consider this from Matthew Trent, a blogger, a council member at Centralia and himself a Tea Party backer: “I was already a supporter of local tea party icon David Hedrick. So I am biased, but I’m going to say he dominated the 3rd district speeches to the assembly Saturday. Fellow candidates Herrera and Castillo lacked Hedrick’s fire and substance. It felt like they were telling us what we wanted to hear, while Hedrick spoke with conviction about the liberty he loves. The delegates (almost 1200 of them this year) responded much more vigorously to Hedrick than his competitors.”

So how large is the Tea Party impact in this week’s election? We may find out, and more clearly here than in the Senate race. Watch for this on Tuesday.

Wer’ll be getting into looks at the legislative situation, but for the moment an overview from Governing magazine, where veteran Louis Jacobson has taken a look at prospects in all 50 states.

No reason here to quarrel with the assessment, which ranks Idaho “safe Republican” and Washington and Oregon “likely Democratic.” A fair number of states are teetering in party control, but these three don’t seem to be among them.

Have you seen or heard (depending on whether you’ve caught the video version) of the theme song for Senate candidate Clint Didier?

It’s on his web site, and although he’s not the singer it probably expresses about as well as anything where the appeal is, and why the caution among quite a few conservatives.

Key lines, from the chorus: “I won’t be be polite/cause I’m looking for a fight/There’s gonna be hell to pay.”

The candidate, in other words, of the angry thrash, and not a lot else.

One of the more powerful video takedowns of an opponent so far in this year’s cycle. And it could be replicated in a lot of places outside of Washington’s 2nd district, which – Democrat Rick Larsen‘s consistent wins there notwithstanding – is leans Democratic only a little, and could readily elect a Republican.

Probably not, though, one like the local voters think of in the way Republican John Koster is portrayed here.

Hat tip/Horse’s Ass.

A QUOTE A reader sent, a few weeks ago, this quote about the Tea Party and similar aggregations, which synthesizes some of what this ad seems to be getting at, maybe a little more pungently (but no less usefully):

“A new strain of populism is metastasizing before our eyes, nourished by the same libertarian impulses that have unsettled American society for half a century now. Anarchistic like the Sixties, selfish like the Eighties, contradicting neither, it is estranged, aimless, and as juvenile as our new century. It appeals to petulant individuals convinced that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone, and that others are conspiring to keep them from doing just that. This is the one threat that will bring Americans into the streets. Welcome to the politics of the libertarian mob.”

Oh, and this: “They are apocalyptic pessimists about public life and childlike optimists swaddled in self-esteem when it comes to their own powers.”

In fairness to candidates for office, quite a few actually are (putting aside philosophical points of view) reasonable contenders and worthy of consideration. And then there are those who just make you shake your head.

Leading 2010 contender for the bottom rung in the Northwest may be David R. Fox, an attorney. The factors that may give him that distinction are recounted in a new blog post on the Spokesman-Review‘s Spin Control.

Start with the filing choice: Fox lives and works in Port Angeles, on the far west side of the state up in the Olympic Peninsula. He is running as one of four Democratic contenders for the U.S. House in 5th district, on the far eastern side of Washington, based around Spokane. (The incumbent, very strongly favored for re-election, is Republican Cathy McMorris-Rodgers.) Maybe 300 miles away. That’s not legally disqualifying, but why would you do it? Maybe the legal issues he’s had with law enforcement out in Clallam County – which Spin Control describes – is a factor. Call his Port Angeles phone, which is listed in the voter guide, and (Spin Control says) the person who answers says “I really, honestly don’t know” how to reach him.

He has spent time in Spokane this summer, but that has not improved matters. There, he has been accused of walking out on a bar tab and writing a bad check. And, one night on a downtown Spokane street, asking a man he encountered for sex. The man slugged him. Then Fox ensured that the incident would go public by filing a complaint with Spokane police against the man.

So . . . how many votes does this guy get next month?

When it is jus talking trash, when is it a real threat? The difference isn’t small: One may be an annoyance, and the other a crime and possibly an alert to imminent harm. It’s a legal question with absolutely practical applications.

The issue came up in Washington v. Glen Arthur Schaler, decided today by the Washington Supreme Court.

The law itself isn’t of terrific help here. Washington law says a threat – this being a form of “unprotected speech” – is “a statement made in a context or under such circumstances wherein a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted as a serious expression of intention to inflict bodily harm upon or to take the life of another person.” Sorry, that doesn’t allow for a really objective standard – you and I, reasonable persons both, may disagree about whether a statement was a threat, an offand or angry statement, or even a joke.

To an extent, the Supreme Court punted on this one. It found error in the way a jury was instructed, keeping the case alive. What it said by way of clarifying what a threat was is this: “The speaker of a “true threat” need not actually intend to carry it out. It is enough that a reasonable speaker would foresee that the threat would be considered serious. Importantly, only threats that are “true” may be proscribed. The First Amendment prohibits the State from criminalizing communications that bear the wording of threats but which are in fact merely jokes, idle talk, or hyperbole.”

The whole story of the Schaler case makes for a fine case study of divining the fuzzy lines in this area. Its retelling in the court’s decision follows on the jump. Continue Reading »

Thing is, massive construction projects tend to – customarily do run over estimated costs. That’s the way it usually goes. Small projects often, too, but this one – the Alaskan Way Viaduct reconstruction in Seattle – is enormous, and the size of possible overruns is a very big deal.

Most specifically, for whoever has to pay.

There’s some uncertainty about that right now, and some people in Seattle, including Mayor Mike McGinn, are concerned about it. But that’s not the only worrisome point. Something has to be done about the Alaskan Way, and soon, and negotiations over it among the involved parties, which include a variety of governments, took years and nearly came undone last year. The people who went through all that, including many of the city council members, are loathe to want to start all over again.

So on one side, the city council which today had this in a release: “Seattle City Councilmembers today announced the completion of negotiated Alaskan Way Viaduct agreements and their intent to authorize these agreements among Seattle City Light, Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities and the Washington State Department of Transportation. After months of negotiations, the City Council has reached agreement with the State and introduced Resolution 31235. This resolution implements Ordinance 123133 and details the Council’s intent to authorize the agreements once the State awards a contract consistent with the program’s scope and budget and subject to environmental review.”

On the other, McGinn, who has been pushing for a public signoff before the commitment is made: “It appears that Council is doing everything possible to prevent a public vote. Yet they still have not dealt with the underlying issue – who will pay for overruns given the $2.4 billion cap in state law. Until the state law is changed, Seattle remains at risk of paying cost overruns.”

Things have been a little tense in Seattle since McGinn’s investiture. They’re about to go to a whole new level, on the biggest issue the city now has to deal with. The real politics is about to crank up.

Most useful column of the weekend: Danny Westneat’s in the Seattle Times today, deconstructing the myth of the West as a place of “rugged individualism.” Not that a lot of people don’t buy into it; many do, and even more are the politicians who traffic in it. But none of that makes it any more true.

Westneat: “Of all stories we tell ourselves, the one about how we’re a merit-based nation of lone wolves has got to be the most enduring. The most intoxicating. And the most baloney.”

Westneat aims his barbs most directly at eastern Washington, prompted by campaign rhetoric from senatorial candidate Clint Didier. (Didier: “We’ve got to get rid of this ‘protecting the weak’. If we keep the weak alive all the time, it eats up the strong.”) But eastern Oregon and, even more, Idaho are just as much swept up in the tale of the hard-bitten but often brilliant loner who can do it all by himself if the damned government would just stay off his back.

Except for providing for his public education, of course. Or roads. Safety. Waterways. Electricity. And on and on.

Read, by all means. We’ll be returning to this, no doubt.