Behind the Curtain

October 31, 2004

Take the pledge

Chris Suellentrop of Slate, recorded this: "PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.-'I want you to stand, raise your right hands,' and recite 'the Bush Pledge,' said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: 'I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States.' " Apparently now out of conventional wisdom stories, The New York Times' Todd Purdum tries a different tack. All the rancor might be a good thing. "WASHINGTON - Somewhere along the way between the big money and the big lies, the Swift Boat slash attacks and the farrago of "Fahrenheit 9/11," a conventional wisdom congealed that this was an awful campaign: too much heat, too little light, so much wrong, not enough right. It was long, costly, raw and nasty - and that means no good. Oh, really? Then why is voter turnout projected to be at its highest in at least 12 years, and perhaps in 36? Why are millions of first-time registrants expected to flock to the polls Tuesday, or cast absentee ballots or vote early? Why have both candidates raised large amounts of small donations, often over the Internet? Why are Republicans vowing to out-knock Democrats in the door-to-door ground game that Democrats pioneered?" Our own Eric Lacitis spent time in Kennewick and a Seattle neighborhood and draws us portraits of voters red and blue. They don't seem all that different. Republicans are nervous that President Bush doesn't have a bigger lead going into election day. Who's to blame? The media, of course. "Buck and Nichols say the election is much too close. Bush should be trouncing John Kerry. Something is not quite right, and like many of their fellow Republicans, they share the belief that the media have played a role by skewing coverage in Kerry's favor. For unsettled Republican voters in closely contested states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Hampshire, the last leg of the presidential contest at times has been more of a group-therapy session than a victory march. In turning out by the thousands at airports, in stadiums, on farms and along roadsides - some waiting four or five hours for a chance to spend 40 minutes listening to the president - many Republican loyalists are seeking the strength and comfort that large numbers often bring. Bush's visits are ticketed events overseen by local Republican officials." Expect a big turnout in King County, says Dean Logan, head of King County elections. Underdogs. "Each election year, people like Lord, members of a Quixotic clan who can't rely on campaign funding, party backing or name recognition, are somehow moved to file their candidacies. With virtually no shot at winning and with varying combinations of vanity and principle, they run." Quixotic clan. Nice phrase. Suellentrop has a fine piece of analysis about President Bush's strategy to hold on to everything from 2000, plus get the 4 million evangelicals who allegedly didn't vote last time. The nut: "For the 2004 election, Rove's static political analysis was that appealing to the 4 million evangelicals who didn't vote in 2000 would bring President Bush a decisive re-election victory. Bush's campaign - and his presidency - have appealed almost entirely to the base of the Republican Party. In a static world, that strategy makes sense: Consolidate the support you received last time, and then find new conservative voters who weren't motivated to turn out four years ago, whether because of the late-breaking news of Bush's DUI arrest or because they weren't convinced of Bush's conservative bona fides. But Rove may have missed the dynamic analysis: the effect that such a strategy would have on the rest of the nonvoting public." By trying to appeal to those 4 million non voters, in other words, Bush got himself in trouble with some of the 96 million other people who didn't vote in 2000. But The Note seems to think Bush is on his way, so maybe not.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 10:26 PM

October 29, 2004

Recycle

Department of recycled material, via Larry David: Can't go on. Must go on. Can't go on. Just a few days now, and then, no more tracking polls, no more Tad Devine or Ken Mehlman. No more Alex. No more Alex. No more "Wrong man...." No more "He took his eye off the ball...." No more 527s. No more boring Senate race. No more white noise. No more politics. David Ammons, our very own Ron Fournier (Uggh. BtC is turning into The Note), wraps up state polls for AP. "Washington’s gubernatorial race has tightened, with Republican Dino Rossi pulling closer to the longtime Democratic front-runner, Christine Gregoire, in new polls. Polls also had Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry with a continuing slim lead over President Bush in the state, and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray with a broader lead over GOP nominee George Nethercutt." Note the big undecideds in the Senate race. Undecideds break to the challenger, so that race might be closer. Bon Jovi is campaigning with Jon Edwards. A colleague suggests a campaign slogan: "Bon Jovi/Sambora in 2004a" (rhymes with Sambora.) A fun game. The laugh track is killer. The Yakamas are working to get out the vote, the Herald reports. This follows earlier reporting done by Sara Jean Green in The Seattle Times. A reservation in South Dakota delivered the election to Tim Johnson there in 2002. This story in the Skagit Valley Herald doesn't quite live up to the hyperventilating lede. "The race between two Whidbey Island residents has taken a negative turn as the candidates wage a war of words in the final days of battle for an open seat in the state House of Representatives." Down in graf 25 or so, we learn about some mildly negative mailers. Ya'll don't know negative campaigning. At all. You want negative campaigning? Check this out. "OWENSBORO - A top state Republican called Demo-cratic U.S. Senate candidate Dan Mongiardo 'limp-wristed,' and another GOP state legislator said she questions whether 'the word "man" applies to him' in speeches during Sen. Jim Bunning's campaign bus tour yesterday." Marc Ramirez profiles young conservatives on campus. Oregon Kerry leads by six in an Oregonian poll. Alaska Here's a wrapup on the third and final debate between Tony Knowles and Lisa Murkowski. Fun exchange: "But Murkowski stretched the baseball metaphor into extra innings when, given the opportunity to ask Knowles a question, said that in Congress he would have to decide which team he was on. 'You're either a member of the Boston Red Sox or the St. Louis Cardinals. You only score a run if you're on one of these. Will you be on the Democratic team?' she asked, trying to pin Knowles to such bogeymen for Republicans as Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. But Knowles didn't bite. 'I'm gonna be on Alaska's team," he said, to the roar of the audience. He said he would work with either party, or fight either party, "to put Alaska first.' Murkowski said "that defies reality. There's only two teams.' " National Tom Delay, the Republican majority leader in the House, is in some trouble. No, not ethics or legal trouble, though that, too, but electoral trouble, in his usually reliably safe seat. He leads by seven in a recent poll. We'll be posting all weekend, so log on.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 12:50 PM

October 28, 2004

Yes, Johnny has an 'h.'

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 04:40 PM

Send money now!

The Curse is broken, and exactly 40 weeks from now there'll be a baby boom in New England, children born with the unfortunate names like Curt, Trot, Johnny and such. We begin with a story about the College Republicans, who have been using an "aggressive and misleading" fundraising campaign on old people to raise $6.3 million, with all the money being plowed back into fundraising. The guy at the center of the scandal is Scott Stewart, who's running Bush/Cheney operations in the battleground of Nevada. David Postman and Jim Brunner: "Many of the top donors were in their 80s and 90s. The donors wrote checks - sometimes hundreds and, in at least one case, totaling more than $100,000 - to groups with official sounding-names such as 'Republican Headquarters 2004,' 'Republican Elections Committee' and the 'National Republican Campaign Fund.' But all of those groups, according to the small print on the letters, were simply projects of the College Republicans, who collected all of the checks. And little of the money went to election efforts. Of the money spent by the group this year, nearly 90 percent went to direct-mail vendors and postage expenses, according to records filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Some of the elderly donors, meanwhile, wound up bouncing checks and emptying their bank accounts. 'I don't have any more money,' said Cecilia Barbier, a 90-year-old retired church council worker in New York City. 'I'm stopping giving to everybody. That was all my savings that they got.' " At a joint appearance in front of the Rotary Club of Seattle, candidates for attorney general Rob McKenna and Deborah Senn were asked which cartoon character they most resemble. Stuart Eskenazi: As the campaign season draws to a close, questions get repetitive and candidates give programmed answers. But attorney-general candidates Rob McKenna and Deborah Senn both were caught off-guard yesterday when they were asked something straight out of the funny pages. 'If you were a cartoon character, which one would you be, and why?' The written question came from within the audience of Seattle Rotarians, one of only two queries during an event advertised as a debate but truncated into more of an oddity. 'Linus,' answered McKenna, because the Peanuts character is serious but with a sense of humor, and others seek him out for advice. 'Supergirl,' answered Senn, who revealed she was barred as a girl from reading comic books and had to sneak over to a friend's house to peruse the pages of 'Superman.' " Linus? Here's a nice profile of McKenna.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 12:18 PM

October 27, 2004

Yesterday was Democracy Fest day. BtC went back to school, streaking unsuspecting students on the quad of the University of Washington, ala Will Ferrell, and Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas. Not really. Sharon Chan: "Sparkle Girl, Uncle Sam and Sherman Alexie came together yesterday at the University of Washington to promote one point to students: Do it in a booth." But not The Booth. More: "That message about voting, splashed across red T-shirts, reached hundreds of students at Democracy Fest, a local effort to raise political consciousness sponsored by The Seattle Times, the UW, Rock the Vote, radio station KEXP and Jones Soda. 'I am planning to vote,' said Kurt Delaney, a UW senior who came to the festivities to hear author Alexie speak. Delaney said he'd voted in every election since 1990, when he first registered at an erotic bakery in Wallingford. 'It seemed appropriate," he said. "What is voting if not an expression of desire?' " Indeed, but dude, how old are you? How many senior years in college can one guy have? Turns out he's 35. Yes! Awesome! Today is geek day. Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, the class nerd of the political reporter pros -- always factchecking and whatnot -- looks at all the odd combinations of electoral college "victories." "President Bush and Sen. John Kerry deadlock Tuesday with 269 electoral votes apiece - but a single Bush elector in West Virginia defects, swinging the election to Kerry. Or, Bush and Kerry are headed toward an Electoral College tie, but the 2nd Congressional District of Maine breaks with the rest of the state, giving its sole electoral vote - and the presidency - to Bush. Or the Massachusetts senator wins an upset victory in Colorado and appears headed to the White House, but a Colorado ballot initiative passes and causes four of the state's nine electoral votes to go to Bush - creating an Electoral College tie that must be resolved in the U.S. House. None of these scenarios is likely to occur next week, but they aren't all that far-fetched. Tuesday's election probably will be decided in 11 states where polls currently show the race is too tight to predict a winner. And assuming the other states go as predicted, a computer analysis finds no fewer than 33 combinations in which those 11 states could divide to produce a 269-to-269 electoral tie." The Wall Street Journal talked to computer geeks who've used software to figure out who will win. (You need a subscription, so we can't link.) "To prepare for next week's election, Lawrence N. Allen taught himself the Matlab statistical programming language and built a database of 1,700 state polls pulled off the Internet. His program runs a "likelihood analysis" on 15 closely contested battleground states. It takes 50 minutes to run on an old computer he got in return for a bunch of parts from a broken laptop. The unemployed computer programmer in Oakland, Calif., identifies his politics as "to the left of standard Democratic candidates" and says he flirted with voting for Ralph Nader in 2000 before opting for libertarian Harry Browne. His calculations, made on Oct. 20, give Mr. Bush a 78.1% chance of victory. Mr. Allen says he drew inspiration from Sam Wang, an assistant professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University, who devised a computer program to analyze state polls and step through all the possible outcomes of 22 supposed battleground states. There are 4,194,304 of them. (That's 2 to the 22nd power: two possible choices -- Bush or Kerry -- in 22 states.) As of yesterday evening, Mr. Wang's "median outcome" was a razor-thin majority for Mr. Bush -- 279 votes in the decisive Electoral College, versus Mr. Kerry's 259, not counting undecided voters. But if the results followed historical patterns in which undecided voters generally break for the challenger, the Massachusetts senator would wind up with 307 electoral votes and the Oval Office, Prof. Wang says, based on his computations." Ceci Connolly, also of The Washington Post, looks at the California initiative that would create a massive stem cell trust fund. "If the bond measure is approved, supporters say, it would revolutionize the fledgling science - with California and its legions of academic laboratories and biotech firms at the epicenter. The payoff, proponents say, could be treatments for chronic conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease and spinal-cord injury. Opponents counter that the price would be high, in both moral and financial terms. To pursue those treatments, scientists must destroy 5-day-old embryos, a process that Roman Catholic leaders here call a "direct attack on innocent human life." Payments on the bonds would cost the state nearly $6 billion over 30 years, a sum many say California cannot afford." More later.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 12:57 PM

October 26, 2004

The president addressed the bulge that appeared on his back during the first debate. Rumors have flown around the Web that it was a system allowing him to hear advice through an earpiece. Via Froomkin at The Washington Post. "This morning, in part two of his interview with Bush on ABC's "Good Morning America," Charlie Gibson spit it out. Brandishing a copy of the photo, he asked: "Final question. What the hell was that on your back, in the first debate?" Bush chuckled. Bush: "Well, you know, Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett have rigged up a sound system -- " Gibson: "You're getting in trouble -- " Bush: "I don't know what that is. I mean, it is, uh, it is, it's a -- I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt." Gibson: "It was the shirt?" Bush: "Yeah, absolutely." Gibson: "There was no sound system, there was no electrical signal? There was --" Bush: "How does an electrical -- please explain to me how it works so maybe if I were ever to debate again I could figure it out. I guess the assumption was that if I was straying off course they would, kind of like a hunting dog, they would punch a buzzer and I would jerk back into place. I -- it's just absurd." Well, Behind the Curtain is certainly persuaded and will let it drop at that.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 11:51 AM

Local. Oregon. Alaska

Go to Democracy Fest at UW now!!!!!!!!!! One in five Clark County voters has already voted with an absentee ballot, The Columbian reports. Deborah Senn profile from Susan Kelleher in The Times. "In the final weeks leading up to the election, Deborah Senn's bid to become Washington's attorney general has morphed into something of an anti-campaign. Instead of offering the usual litany of groups who support her, the Democratic nominee for the state's second most powerful office is mostly talking about who doesn't want her there. There's the United States Chamber of Commerce, which spent $1.5 million on an ad campaign to try to knock her out of the Democratic primary last month. The Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) was by far the biggest contributor to a campaign that began airing attack ads against her last week. And a political-action committee that exists to elect Republicans to state and local office is spending $1.3 million to defeat her. To Senn and her supporters, every dollar big business spends against her is another reason to vote to make the consumer advocate and former insurance commissioner the state's top lawyer. As attorney general, Senn would be charged with enforcing state laws and regulations, and she'd have the power to investigate and prosecute businesses." Craig Welch, also in The Seattle Times, profiles the race for Public Lands Commissioner. "Sutherland, who is finishing his first four-year term as commissioner of public lands, has moved to have state forests certified as environmentally sustainable by using an independent auditing process created by the timber industry. He recently completed a long-term plan to increase logging on state trust lands in Western Washington by at least 30 percent to help supply money for public-school construction. And his campaign is supported overwhelmingly by more than a dozen sawmills and timber companies. Cooper, a firefighter and state legislator who chairs the House Fisheries, Ecology and Parks Committee, wants to certify Washington forests as "green" according to criteria preferred by environmentalists, and wants a permanent ban on logging old-growth trees. He is the beneficiary of a massive campaign contribution by the state's wealthiest environmental donor, and has a member of the Washington Environmental Council working on his campaign." A profile of the 18th LD Senate race, the most expensive legislative race in the state, from the Longview Daily News. $440,000 spent between the two of them. Oregon Watchers watch the poll watchers watching the other poll watchers in a postmodern electoral exercise, The Oregonian reports. "As a voluntary observer at Washington County's Elections Division office, Cornish is allowed to watch, but not object, touch or, for the most part, speak. She and a group of fellow Republicans, mostly retirees, organized through a series of shifts, have taken the tradition of poll watching to another level. Instead of showing up at the election office on Election Day, as usual, poll watchers such as Cornish have been streaming in and out of the office since Oct. 18, the first business day after ballots for the Nov. 2 general election were mailed. A few days later, volunteers from a nonpartisan group, Count Every Vote, showed up. And then a few Democrats started to appear. The office responded by hiring its former elections manager, Ginny Kingsley, to observe the observers, some of whom are observing other observers." This is happening all over the country, and could definitely determine the outcome. Alaska An interesting initiative on the ballot would end the governor's right to appoint someone to fill a vacant Senate seat. This puts Lisa Murkowski in a very awkward position. The incumbent Republican was appointed by her father, who won the governor's mansion; he left his Senate seat to do so. Whether for or against the initiative, it reminds voters of this nepotism incident. Murkowski has come out against. Her opponent Tony Knowles holds a slim, within-the-margin-of-error lead. Control of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 11:41 AM

October 25, 2004

How to read polls

Charlie Cook, guru of elections and master at predicting outcomes, gives a primer on reading polls before election day. Verbatim: First, don't focus on individual polls. With recent surveys from highly reputable firms showing everything from a 5-point lead for President Bush to a 4-point lead for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, the temptation is to focus upon the poll whose outcome matches the result you would like to see. A variation of this fallacy is to pay too much attention to the most recent poll. The news media tend to exacerbate these tendencies by hyping poll results that seem particularly newsworthy, that is, unlike most of the other recent polls. Go, instead, with an average of the major national polls. A handy way to do that is to look at www.RealClearPolitics.com, which each day computes a seven-day moving average of these polls. Although the Web site includes a few polls that aren't among my favorites, it excludes those with the most dubious methodology, such as Internet polls. Currently, the average shows Bush leading Kerry, 47.8 percent to 45.8 percent, with Ralph Nader drawing 1.6 percent. Off-the-record assessments by top people in the Bush and Kerry camps are quite similar to RealClearPolitics's rolling average. Second, don't focus on the point spread between the two candidates. Look at Bush's percentage. Given that in races with well-known incumbents, undecided voters tend to break overwhelmingly in favor of challengers, Bush's level of support is the most important number now available. Democratic pollsters Guy Molyneux of The American Prospect Online and Mark Blumenthal (aka mysterypollster.com) make this argument exceedingly well. To win a two-way race, an incumbent needs to be approaching the 50 percent mark in the polls. In this race, Nader and other minor candidates will likely draw 2 to 3 percent of the overall vote. (Nader received 2.7 percent in 2000; my hunch is that he'll get only 2 percent this time.) So, Bush needs to be around 48 or 49 percent to win. He might be able to win with just 47 percent. But below that, his chances of winning plunge. Third, keep an eye on Bush's job-approval ratings, again looking at the average (currently 50 percent on RealClearPolitics.com). A rating below 50 percent spells trouble for an incumbent. The predictive value of the job-approval score is best in the summer; the trial heat becomes a better predictor in the final two months of the campaign. Fourth, ignore the Electoral College. If someone wins the popular vote nationally by at least 1 percentage point, the electoral vote will almost certainly go the same way. But if the popular race is really, really close, there will be so many true battleground states that it will be futile to try to predict which way the Electoral College will go, particularly if one has to rely on state polls of doubtful quality. Even if one were privy to the high-quality survey research that the two campaigns and the largest "527" groups have, it would be impossible to know which way the handful of most critical states are going to go. Does anyone think a poll could have forecast Bush's 537-vote victory in Florida four years ago, or Al Gore's 366-vote win in New Mexico? Trying to push the last five or six states into a "red" or "blue" column is a fool's errand. While these are the gauges that the pros use, remember that none of them is perfect. Keep in mind, as Emory University's Alan Abramowitz has pointed out, that in the final week of the 2000 campaign, Bush led in 39 of 43 national polls, Gore led in two, and two were tied. In those surveys, Bush had an average lead of 3.6 percentage points, yet he went on to lose the popular vote by half a percentage point, so the national polls overstated Bush's strength by 4.1 percentage points. While some of that discrepancy was due, no doubt, to the late-breaking news story about Bush's having been stopped 24 years earlier for driving under the influence, that doesn't account for the whole 4 points. In 2000, Democrats unquestionably had the superior get-out-the- vote operation. (This year, both sides have magnificent ground games.) And Bush's "compassionate conservative" message may well have left 4 million white evangelicals unmotivated and not voting. But the point is, when a race like this year's presidential contest gets really close, nobody actually knows what's going to happen.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 05:37 PM

This. That.

A possible Kerry cabinet, The Washington Post reports. This is known as measuring the draperies in the Oval before victory. Good news for the Bush campaign, as a recent poll shows Bush getting double his 2000 support from African Americans. Democrats are apparently concerned, as Al Gore made a ton of appearances at churches yesterday in Jacksonville; Bill Clinton had a massive conference call with African American ministers as well. The poll had a small sample, so who knows if it's reliable, but the Democratic response means something. Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times has been writing glowing profiles of Karen Hughes, Bush's communications adviser, for years now. Here's another. If the Republicans are to hold on to their advantage in the U.S. House, they need to retain three seats in Pennsylvania. A profile of the races, here. The Republican Party in Ohio has hired people for $100 bucks each to challenge the eligibility of voters in inner city areas of Ohio, reports The New York Times. Republican officials said they had no intention of disrupting voting but were concerned about the possibility of fraud involving thousands of newly registered Democrats. 'The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters - I call them ringers - have created these problems,' said James P. Trakas, a Republican co-chairman in Cuyahoga County. Both parties have waged huge campaigns in the battleground states to register millions of new voters, and the developments in Ohio provided an early glimpse of how those efforts may play out on Election Day. Ohio election officials said that by state law, the parties' challengers would have to show "reasonable" justification for doubting the qualifications of a voter before asking a poll worker to question that person. And, the officials said, challenges could be made on four main grounds: whether the voter is a citizen, is at least 18, is a resident of the county and has lived in Ohio for the previous 30 days. Elections officials in Ohio said they hoped the criteria would minimize the potential for disruption. But Democrats worry that the challenges will inevitably delay the process and frustrate the voters."

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 04:41 PM

Bush relatives for Kerry

Here's the Bush relatives for Kerry Web site. Spoke to Hilary House, a third-year law student at UW. Her dad Frank was first cousin of the president's father, George H.W. Bush. The family went to Bush 41's inaugural. She and siblings, Sheila House and Tracy House Cannon, both on the East Coast, and Christopher House in Olympia, as well as cousin Henry Kimsey-House in California, are all urging a vote for Kerry. No angry emails or phone calls yet from family members, House reported.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 04:23 PM

Bush/Cheney done in Washington, NYT reports

Washington state is no longer a battleground state, according to yesterday's New York Times lead-all, which says the presidential race has come down to 11 states. BtC got a tip about 10 days ago that Bush/Cheney had moved staff from here to the true battlegrounds, but Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Leah Yoon wouldn't comment on personnel matters. The NYT doesn't attribute the information to anyone, but says staff have been taken from Washington state and some other former battlegrounds and sent to actual toss-up states. But you heard it here anyway. Bush/Cheney has essentially conceded Washington. The real question is how this will affect other races, like the Senate and gubernatorial? Will the Republican ground game have less energy? Speaking of those other races, profiles of Murray and Nethercutt, courtesy Alex Fryer and Jim Brunner. And, the governor's race, headlined, "How will they lead?" which could have used the tag line : "-- if at all." Though Chris Gregoire has been in public life for some time, she remains an enigma, Andrew Garber reports. "Asked what she'd do to fix a budget shortfall, Gregoire wouldn't provide specifics. On gay marriage, Gregoire says she can't comment because the matter is in court. Questioned about promises to close tax breaks for business, she talks about appointing a panel to decide." That's leadership! Dino Rossi, once a proud social conservative who called for teaching "creationism" in the schools and criticized an opponent for sponsoring a gay and lesbian art exhibit in the state capitol, now underplays those themes, pushing instead for fiscal conservatism and job creation and a friendlier business climate. No, that's leadership! Check out the unflattering photos. The secretary of state race, profiled here. Superintendent of Public Instruction race, profiled here. What impact will new voters have on this election? The LA Times tries to answer the question. "Nationwide, at least two polls in the last week showed that newly registered voters favored Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry by double-digit margins. The Massachusetts senator holds an even greater lead, the polls found, among voters 29 and younger, many of whom will be voting for the first time. Democratic strategists cautiously postulate that there exists an even greater Kerry vote 'hidden' among young and new voters whom pollsters aren't reaching. But, in an interview, President Bush's campaign manager dismissed many of the opposition's registration gains as inflated. It has been a truism of U.S. politics for generations that new and young voters tend to diminish in significance when it comes time to go to the polls. The percentage of young registered voters who actually cast ballots has slipped steadily in recent times. It hit a low in 2000, when just 15% of the electorate was 29 or younger, according to a Los Angeles Times exit poll. Asked about the chances that newly registered voters would prove key to winning an election, Democratic political strategist James Carville once said: 'You know what they call a candidate who's counting on a lot of new voters? A loser.' " Yet this year's campaign has played out against a backdrop of unparalleled events, most obviously the 2001 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war in Iraq. It also follows a 2000 election in which voters learned that their ballots really could decide who won the presidency. Aside from the nationally spotlighted Florida contest four years ago, margins of a few hundred or few thousand votes determined the outcome in Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin." Bill Clinton, still recovering from bypass surgery, is out stumping for Kerry. Kerry could especially use him to get African-Americans to vote. Polling indicates they're not in love with Kerry.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 12:00 PM

October 22, 2004

Lata

BtC is on deadline. We'll post a bit later, including a rundown of Senate races around the country.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 11:02 AM

October 21, 2004

Curse still on

Remember, the curse remains in place until the Red Sox win a World Series. Sen. Patty Murray and her challenger Rep. George Nethercutt faced off in a televised debate last night, each acting as surrogates (albeit, boring ones) for their parties' respective presidential candidates. "The live debate, sponsored by The Seattle Times and KING-TV, was often an argument about Bush administration policies, which are mostly supported by Nethercutt and opposed by Murray." This boring race, which features boring candidates and has shown no movement at all recently, will end mercifully for all of us a week from Tuesday. Next Tuesday, join us at Democracy Fest. What: A fun, informative event celebrating democracy and the power of our vote When: Tues., Oct. 26, 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Where: University of Washington HUB (student union) Sponsored by: The Seattle Times NEXT, the Univ. of Washington, Rock the Vote In the maze that is politics today, we should take a step back and celebrate and study the cornerstone of America: democracy. What are our individual roles in a democracy? What will the power of our vote mean on Nov. 2? How can we repair the rift that seems to be increasingly dividing us? This non-partisan event is free and open to the community. It will also serve as a hub for last-minute election information, with several student groups on hand. Democracy Fest Happenings HUB Auditorium 11:00 -- Welcome from NEXT Editor Colleen Pohlig, and ASUW and GPSS 11:15 -- Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, writer: "Reclaiming the F-word: Women Voters Deserve More Than Pick-up Lines" 11:45 -- Frank Blethen, Seattle Times publisher: "Who's Controlling Your Information?" 12:00 -- Sherman Alexie, writer: "America the Beautiful" 1:00 - Panel: "Election '04: What's In It for You?" John Carlson, KVI Radio Host; Ron Sims, King County Executive; Sue Donaldson, former Seattle City Council president and UW lecturer in law and public affairs; Gerald Baldasty, UW Communications Professor and Chair; Marsha Richards, Evergreen Freedom Foundation; Frederick Michael Lorenz, retired Marine Corps judge and UW and Seattle University professor in international law 2:00 - Jim McDermott, Congressman for the 7th District 2:30 - Krist Novoselic, former bassist for Nirvana and writer: "Time to Move Our Democracy Forward" HUB Lawn Stage 11:30 --- Left Hand Smoke 12:00 - Breakdancing crew 12:45 -- Blue Scholars Speaker's Corner, HUB Lawn (Step up on the soap box and have your say) All day -- Matt Gano, Spoken word poet 11:15 - Rep. Dave Upthegrove, 33rd Legislative District 11:30 -- Tim Eyman, Initiative sponsor 1:00 - Congressman Jim McDermott, 7th District 3:00 - David Domke, UW Communications Assoc. Professor Arts Area, HUB Lawn All day: Artists and students create a mural -- grab a brush!

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 01:28 PM

October 20, 2004

The curse

BtC apologizes to his faithful reader(s) for being tardy. He woke up with a crushing headache following the Yankees loss on a bad call last night. Did you see the fans throwing baseballs and water bottles on the field? Real fans from whom Seattle's sushi eating wine swillers could learn a thing or two. We begin with Danny "Don't call me Dan or Daniel" Westneat, our fine columnist, who's in his native Ohio (how can you not like a guy from Ohio?). It's ugly there, he reports. "The first thing you notice in the center of this year's presidential campaign is how violent it is. Cars explode. Masked men tote machine guns. People recount horrific events, such as beheadings. I'm not talking about on the streets, of course. It's in the barrage of political ads playing nightly on television screens across Ohio, a state that, along with Florida, has become ground zero in an intense and concentrated campaign. I am back in my home state this week to see what's happening in the presidential race. They say Ohio is so crucial that voters here essentially get to pick the president." Susan Kelleher has taken a hard look at Dino Rossi's career as a real estate developer. He's gone from no money to slowly building a tidy little business by buying cheap properties, fixing them up and selling them. Kelleher: "Some tenants who have lived in Rossi's rentals speak well of him. 'Whenever there was a situation that needed to be taken care of, he was right there,' said Gloria Thompson of Moses Lake, who lived at Rossi's Hartford Court apartments with her husband in the mid-1990s. 'They were constantly keeping it up.' Yvonne Florek, who also lived in Hartford for about a year, said: 'I thought he tried to keep them clean and nice.' " Others, mmm, not so much. "However, Barbara Brindle, who was a telecom manager for Bristol-Myers Squibb at the time, said Rossi never responded to complaints about mold and moisture when she lived on the ground floor of his Magnolia triplex with her two daughters, ages 2 and 4, in 1993. The moisture was so bad, she said, that green mold grew on boxes, clothing and toys, and a foot-size mushroom sprouted in the carpet beneath her toddler's crib. About a month after a broken water heater in the unit above hers exacerbated the problem, she complained to the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health and notified Rossi she was moving. Rossi's campaign spokeswoman, Janelle Guthrie, said Rossi didn't recall the specifics of Brindle's case but remembers the broken water heater. An inspector, who recorded relative humidity of 61 to 75 percent 'plus' in the apartment, verified the mold, and wrote: 'I recommend you move away as soon as possible due to possible adverse health consequences from such a polluted environment.' " Who doesn't love mushrooms? Especially "foot-size"? Is that 12 inches, or the size of a human foot? Not sure. More: Rossi's campaign spokeswoman, Janelle Guthrie, said Rossi didn't recall the specifics of Brindle's case but remembers the broken water heater. 'He says he thinks he thought the apartment would just dry out naturally,' she said, adding that the unit was subsequently remodeled and dry enough to pass inspection when he sold the triplex a month later." Dry out naturally, like sheets on a clothesline. Read the story for more. Also, Rossi likes to talk about how his nephew left Washington to start a small business elsewhere because of a bad business climate here. According to the nephew, mmm, not so much. Rossi's finances. Michael Moore was in town. The Senate candidates debate for the second and final time tonight: Oct. 20: U.S. Senate Debate Co-presented by The Seattle Times Newsroom and KING5 Candidates: Patty Murray and George Nethercutt Time: Televised on KING5 TV at 8 p.m. As colleague Jim Brunner points out, it's the race that never moves. A Strategic Vision (R) poll; conducted 10/16-18 for their own consumption; surveyed 801 likely voters; margin of error +/- 3% (release, 10/20). Tested: Sen. Patty Murray (D) and Rep. George Nethercutt (R-5). General Election Matchup Now 10/7 9/24 9/09 8/25 8/13 Murray 49 49 48 48 49 49 Nethercutt 41 41 41 41 41 40 Undec. 10 10 11 11 10 11 Murray's inability to crack 50 should worry her a bit, because undecideds break to challengers, though Nethercutt seems to be making no progress. In the big dance, $350 million on get-out-the-vote efforts, The New York Times reports. And, Alessandra Stanley of The Times judges the smackdown between Jon Stewart and the "Crossfire" hosts. Stewart, she writes, was the winner.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 03:09 PM

October 19, 2004

Oniongolf

Two funny items. The first is an Onion infographic, with details about what voters care about in the battleground states. Here's a taste. In New Hampshire: "Finding candidate who's not under sticky thumb of Big Syrup." Washington: "More/less logging, banning/protecting abortion, blowing up Seattle/letting Seattle secede." Bush carrying the pro golfers easily. In a print-only piece, Golf Digest surveyed 34 pro golfers and asked them about voting preferences. Of those who have decided, 26 said Bush. Eight said they were undecided or weren't voting. Here's the best quote, from Brad Faxon: "I hate to say I'm personal friends with the family ... but I'm personal friends with the family." Recall, Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather, was once president of the USGA.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 01:43 PM

Slots

The Seattle Times does a little of its public duty and covers in nice detail the gambling initiative, which would allow cardrooms and bars with pull tabs to have slot machines. Currently, only Indian casinos can have them. They're the loud, annoying, dumbest of all forms of gambling, and people love them. "Sponsored by anti-tax crusader Tim Eyman and bankrolled by casino interests, I-892 would allow electronic slots in neighborhood bars, restaurants, cardrooms, charities and bingo halls all over the state - anywhere with a gambling license. Taxes on the proceeds would pay for a state property-tax cut." Washington state is pretty much the Wild West on this stuff, Lynda Mapes reports: "Washington is the only state in the country that doesn't levy a gambling tax. It puts no limits on the number of operations any single gambling interest can run. It imposes no residency requirement on gambling-license holders." Snip. "It's gambling interests that would hit the jackpot: They'd get 65 percent of slot proceeds off the top, and their long-coveted prize: the same slots as the tribes, up to 18,225 machines in all, doubling in one stroke the number of slots allowed in Washington. Not only doubling it, but bringing it close to home. In most cases, tribal casinos can be built only on trust land, and many are in remote locations. But under the initiative, any operator with a gambling license, whether charity bingo or mini-casino, is eligible for slots." The elections office, which BtC visited yesterday, was a crazy scene, a last-minute frenzy to get people signed up. There's about 140,000 new registrants in King County this year, and at least 330,000 statewide. It was a fascinating celebration of democracy -- people in their thirties who'd never voted before, new immigrants signing up, new Washington residents absolutely intent on voting. Recall this story from two weeks ago. Pick up our paper today for a quarter and get a mini-voter's guide, which you can use to fill out your ballot or bring to the polls. Florida has started early voting in an attempt to head off the problems it faced in 2000. There were some problems yesterday, too. Also, related to all the new registrations, will these people vote? This story tries to answer the question. In the 8th congressional district, the National Republican Congressional Committee has an ad you may have seen, which says Dave Ross would "empower" terrorists and wave a white flag against them. Can't you see Ross with a giant white flag, like a college football cheerleader, standing on Tiger Mountain and waving it, empowering terrorists? Warren Cornwall: "A new television spot by the National Republican Congressional Committee cites Ross' statement that he opposes a $100 billion missile-defense system sought by the Bush administration. The ad accuses Ross of wanting to cut defense spending $100 billion without mentioning that his objection is to missile defense. It superimposes the words 'empower terrorists' following images of children and terrorists. A voice then states that Ross is 'waving the wrong flag' as the ad shows a U.S. flag turning white behind an image of Ross. Ross dismissed the ad as a smear that won't pass muster in the suburban 8th District, which includes much of east and south King County and east Pierce County. 'They're so over the top, I doubt that any serious-minded person is going to pay attention to them,' Ross said of the new ad and others by the Republican committee." As Cornwall points out, a lot of experts don't see any link between radical Islamic terrorists and missile defense. He quotes Steve Kosiak: "Clearly a ballistic missile is one of the least likely ways a terrorist would attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction," said Kosiak, director of budget studies for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a non-partisan defense think tank. For that matter, while a lot of defense analysts favor missile defense, many think it's an overpriced boondoggle. We'll spend about $10 billion on it this year. Hard to say whether this ad will really work in the suburban 8th, where voters are rather savvy. The 41st LD is a changing district, Natalie Singer reports. Jim Horn faces a tough challenge from a very well financed challenger, Brian Weinstein. BtC again: watch this race. If you've ever visited South Carolina, you know they use those weird minibar/airplane bottles to make their cocktails. On the ballot there, a constitutional amendment to bring along free pour liquor. The mini bottles are a bit more convenient at a place like Bob Jones University, where you can't just pull out a big bottle of Jack and take a pull.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 11:34 AM

October 18, 2004

Fun/not fun

BtC has much to report this a.m. Some of it is fun and funny, some of it is boring but required reading if you want to be a good citizen. We'll alternate: a shot of whiskey, a sit-up, a shot of whiskey and so on. Fun: Jon Stewart gets salty. Via Romenesko. From Friday's Tucker Carlson-Jon Stewart exchange on CNN: STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably. CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think. STEWART: You need to go to one. The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk... CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny. STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey. ... STEWART: I watch your show every day. And it kills me. CARLSON: I can tell you love it. STEWART: It's so -- oh, it's so painful to watch. ... CARLSON: Is this really Jon Stewart? What is this, anyway? STEWART: Yes, it's someone who watches your show and cannot take it anymore. Not long after, it looked as though Stewart was going to punch Tucker. Funny exchange. Read the transcript here. Not fun: Nothing-new debates. The final Gregoire-Rossi debate apparently offered nothing new. "Attorney General Christine Gregoire and her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi, used their last televised gubernatorial debate yesterday to rip each other's records. In an exchange that broke little new ground, the candidates spent much of their time bickering over Rossi's handling of the state budget as a state senator, Gregoire's stewardship of the Attorney General's Office, and who was being most honest with the voters. The debate was taped before a small audience at KIRO-TV yesterday afternoon and then broadcast at 6 p.m. It was the last of four debates. Although it largely rehashed material covered previously, the candidates seemed more aggressive in their attacks." Here's The News-Tribune's account. More not-fun. Fun: Pot and anti-pot guy argue. DEA guy and former editor of High Times will debate about legalizing pot at Central Washington. The Yakima Herald previews. Not fun: nuclear waste and where to put it. AP on a ballot initiative: "YAKIMA - Supporters call an initiative on the Washington state ballot a no-brainer: Bar the federal government from shipping nuclear waste to the Hanford nuclear site until all the existing waste there is cleaned up. The 586-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington created decades ago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb remains the most-contaminated site in the nation. But opponents of Initiative 297 said interfering with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) national plan for nuclear-waste disposal could spell doom, especially if other states follow Washington's lead and ban Hanford waste." Fun: Simpsons-like political advertising: Vote for Jesus, vote for me. "LEXINGTON, Ky. - A City Council candidate is protesting a billboard put up by his incumbent opponent that proclaims 'Elect Jesus Christ Savior' and includes a box stating 'Jacques Wigginton for Council.' Wigginton, a preacher, said the sign, which went up Thursday, was intended not to promote his candidacy but to support the 'Elect Jesus' campaign, a local initiative he started to promote faith and community involvement. He said he had the 'Wigginton for Council' box printed as small as possible." Not fun: education sales tax increase debate. "No doubt about it: The statistics are stark. State colleges and universities are overenrolled by more than 16,000 students, meaning the schools don't receive enough money for the number of students enrolled. Preschool programs are serving about half of the eligible low-income children in the state. Public-school classrooms are among the most crowded in the nation. A proposal on the Nov. 2 ballot would use a penny sales-tax increase to funnel $1 billion a year into all areas of education. Supporters describe Initiative 884 as a crucial step forward, at a time when the state Legislature and the local economy are demanding more of graduates than ever before. But critics say the measure is too costly and the benefits unclear. The proposal would raise the state sales tax by 15 percent, making it the highest in the nation. And even some education advocates have described the initiative as a risky investment, saying there is no consensus yet on how to improve student achievement, or how much money is enough for the education of a child." Fun: Americans for War satirical (we think) Web site. "Trey Anastasio. He has never renounced terrorism and refuses to do so." Not fun: Angry, emotional debate about gay marriage in Oregon, replete with tired Biblical metaphor from source. "PORTLAND - Among the 11 states where voters are being asked to amend their constitutions to ban gay marriage, Oregon may be the gay-rights movement's best chance for victory this fall. Supporters of same-sex marriage hope to eke out a win in this state, which is known to lean toward the unconventional, and are outspending amendment proponents almost 3 to 1. 'Everywhere in this David and Goliath battle, we are the David, the underdogs,' said Roberta Sklar of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which has pumped about half of its national budget for fighting such measures into Oregon. Fun: Dan Froomkin's White House briefing column in The Washington Post. Not fun: Lengthy profile of two candidates running for state House seat in the 17 LD downstate. Fun: Profiles of Bush and Kerry in The New York Times Magazine that neither candidate likes very much. (Kerry's is a week old, so you have to buy it. That's not fun. Sorry.) Question: Are you reality-based? (You'll get our meaning when you read Suskind.) A fortnight to go.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 10:03 AM

October 15, 2004

Wimblehack

If you get irritated by campaign coverage, by its shallowness, over reliance on polls, bad writing and such, you'll love this piece from Matt Taibbi, columnist for New York Press, which is sort of The Village Voice's Village Voice. Taibbi has ingeniously devised a tournament of sorts, wherein various political reporters are matched up, with the most hackish advancing to the next round. Here he is on The New York Times Elisabeth Bumiller: "WHEN TRYING TO judge campaign coverage, we utilize what we call the Jayson Blair Test. You apply the Jayson Blair Test to determine whether or not a campaign piece ostensibly filed from some remote trail locale could actually have been written from New York, in the tenement apartment of a $15 one legged hooker, with no props beyond a gram of coke, a television and a Rolodex. An on-the-road-with-Bush report Bumiller recently filed from Iowa ("Bush Calls Kerry's Policies a Danger for World Peace," Oct. 5) was a classic Blair test piece. The byline is Bumiller's and the dateline is Clive, IA, which means she was physically in Clive at some point, but you'd never know it. The first stage of the Blair test checks the quotes. Here, every source in the piece was either on the plane or sitting by a desk in Washington somewhere. Bumiller quotes Bush, Kerry spokesman Phil Singer and Scott McClellan. There are no Iowans in sight. Moreover, the piece only refers to a concrete physical setting twice. One of those moments takes place in Air Force One ("Asked by reporters en route to Iowa on Air Force One whether the change in Wilkes-Barre was because of polls that show the race tightening, Mr. McClellan demurred"). The other reference is to a Y.M.C.A. in Des Moines, which Bumiller describes mainly by saying it sure as hell wasn't the White House...."

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 03:48 PM

Vegas, baby.

The state's political reporters are all working like crazy on something, because there was next to no stories on Washington politics, so it's on to Oregon. Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. George Nethercutt debate tonight. The Oregonian has a big profile of incumbent Democrat David Wu, who represents the Portland suburbs in Congress. An Oregonian story earlier in the week revealed a decades-old sexual assault allegation against him, though the alleged accuser didn't speak to The Oregonian. He faces a strong challenge from Tigard business consultant Goli Ameri. Warning: The story has an eight graf walkup, the relevance of which is a total mystery. Also yesterday, President Bush sought votes in southern Oregon, which would indicate it's still a battleground state, though many analysts had written it off for Bush. Irony: "Three Medford schoolteachers were threatened with arrest and escorted from the event after they showed up wearing T-shirts with the slogan 'Protect our civil liberties.' All three said they applied for and received valid tickets from Republican headquarters in Medford." Here's The Oregonian's elections page. Alaska Sen. John Kerry is a drag on the campaign of Senate challenger, fellow Democrat Tony Knowles, who's taking on Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Daily News reports. ADN has a special page devoted to Senate coverage. Worth checking. National Dana Milbank of The Washington Post (and an object of real contempt in the White House, apparently) has a smart piece on how the Bush campaign's heavy use of negative campaigning backfired once the debates came around because they set up a caricature of Kerry that voters apparently perceived to be untrue when they saw the man in the flesh on stage. Republican pollster, and a guy with a fantastic name, Tony Fabrizio: "Leading up to the first debate, the Bush campaign very effectively defined John Kerry as a wishy-washy flip-flopper who never knew where he stood, and then they get on the stage and here's a John Kerry who differs from the perception." The New York Times reports that Ralph Nader has become the threat Democrats feared in nine key states. Vice President Cheney criticized Kerry for mentioning his daughter in the debate Tuesday night, noting that she's a lesbian. Gary Bauer, the diminutive Christian conservative who ran for president four years ago, thinks it's a cynical ploy to hold down the hard-right Christian vote. He may be right; in fact, he's probably right, though Republicans will have a difficult time arguing that Democrats have wrongly used sexual orientation as a political lever. There's all kinds of cynicism on both sides here. One thing should be noted: Cheney's daughter is publicly out, and a public person who did gay outreach for Coors before becoming her father's chief political adviser. The president is planning a trip to New Jersey, which should definitely worry Democrats. Bush wins New Jersey, which Gore won easily in 2000, and forget about it. The Times has a rundown of the two candidates' days. Both were in Vegas, and both invoked boxing lines: Bush: You can run but you can't hide. Kerry: That all you got George?

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 09:51 AM

October 14, 2004

Rovian

The Atlantic's Josh Green takes on the president's chief political adviser and the architect of his campaign, Karl Rove, describing the tactics his sources say Rove uses. Rove wouldn't speak to Green for the story. Tough stuff.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 05:45 PM

Debate watching

BtC watched the third presidential debate with College Republicans last night, during which we learned three things. 1. College Republicans, perhaps 50 of them, were willing to sit in uncomfortable college lecture hall chairs, and when it was clear the big screen wasn't going to work, they improvised and watched two small TVs. After the event, the College Republican leadership urged everyone to wait 20 minutes for the arrival of Rep. George Nethercutt, even though the baseball playoffs had reached their final innings, and in general the city was beginning to warm up as it does around 9 p.m. They stayed. They are committed. 2. BtC stepped out of the hall and asked some Republicans milling around what they thought of the president's performance. They looked at their shoes and said nothing. BtC was mistaken. They weren't College Republicans. They were Bush-Cheney staff, instructed to say nothing to the media. They are disciplined. 3. Leah Yoon, official spokeswoman of Bush/Cheney Washington lowered her shoulder to shake a vending machine (ala Homer Simpson in the "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" episode) to help BtC get an item loose. They are willing to lower a shoulder to get the job done. BtC has a hunch about a fourth thing, but he can't share it. Bush and Kerry met for the third time last night, ridiculing each other liberally. Bush said Kerry's on the left bank of American politics. You'll hear this charge from here on out. Librul librul librul. Kerry ridiculed the Bush record on the war in Iraq, health care and jobs. Instapolls gave it to Kerry, but again, another improvement for Bush over Debate One. The debates changed the race, no doubt. Fact-checking. BtC read a bunch of books so you don't have to. A review of campaign books by some of our best authors, including Norman Mailer, Hunter Thompson, Joe McGinniss, Teddy White and Richard Ben Cramer. Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi faced off in a TV debate last night as well. "Republican Dino Rossi, hoping to seize on his biggest television opportunity yet, last night rapped Democratic Attorney General Christine Gregoire's 27-year career in government and belittled her centerpiece proposal to use state money to help fund stem-cell research as a "political ploy." Gregoire fired back, accusing Rossi of distorting her record and misconstruing her plans. Appearing in their second debate in as many nights, Gregoire and Rossi ducked numerous questions and recycled much of the same rhetoric they have been using throughout the campaign." Lisa Heyamoto has a fun feature on snarky political T-shirts.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 11:55 AM

October 13, 2004

The final showdown is tonight, conflicting horribly, oh-so-horribly with Game 2 of the Yankees-Red Sox series. A warning to Bush and Kerry: You start boring us, we'll change the channel in a heartbeat. After watching the game last night at a certain terrible sports bar, BtC is convinced Red Sox and Yankees fans are like Irish pubs -- find them in every city. Sox fans, go here. Now, to politics. Here's what to expect in tonight's debate. Here are fact-checking Web sites. The New York Times says Democrats are saying this year has become reminiscent of 1980, when Jimmy Carter led through the fall while being dogged by an international crisis, the Iranian hostage situation. But then Ronald Reagan won voters over in the first debate, and the tide turned. Bush advisers reply that they always expected a tight race. Gregoire and Rossi squared off in a debate last night, the first east of the Cascades. Rossi said he'd improve the business climate. Gregoire said Rossi had kept poor kids from getting health care and cut teachers' cost of living raises. They debate again tonight after the presidential debate. Dave Ross and Sheriff Reichert debated again last night, probably for the final time, as Reichert has pulled out of the remaining ones. This is a great race because no one's pretending to be anything he isn't. Reichert's a top cop with a community college degree, and he's a Bush man. Ross is a talk show host policy nerd, and he's with Kerry. It's pretty much up to Eastside voters to decide what they want. Big story in Yakima, as a voter registration drive has signed up 4,000 Latinos there, The Yakima Herald reports. Btc wrote about new registration last week, here. It could decide the election here, and across the country. Lynda Mapes reports on the slot-machine initiative, and weird bedfellows. The initiative would allow slot machines where pull tabs are currently allowed, the money going to a property tax cut. Wherever you know of a pull tab bar, there could be slot machines. The tribal casinos, who have a monopoly on slot machines, are warning people about slot machines. The non-tribals, led by Tim Eyman, pretend slot machines have nothing to do with it. This initiative may have already been decided when Eyman won the court battle over the wording of it. Slots are referred to as "electronic scratch tickets" on the ballot. It's a weird enough euphemism that you might see a court challenge if it passes. We'll be at the UW with some College Republicans watching the debate tonight, just as we were with Dems last week.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 01:03 PM

October 12, 2004

Hiphop debate; streaking

Check out this "hiphop debate" between Bush and Kerry. Put your headphones on. Much fun. A redistricted U.S. House race between Democrat Martin Frost and Republican Pete Sessions has become a sophisticated, almost Oxford-style debate about issues: Democrats yesterday circulated old newspaper clippings about a 1974 college streaking stunt staged by hundreds of students -- including then-18-year-old Pete Sessions -- at Southwest Texas State University. The conservative Republican congressman, who wrote a column condemning Janet Jackson's exposure during her 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance, apparently bared his bottom with about 300 others in a stunt that ended with arrests and a clash with police, according to the Associated Press. Southwest Texas students were apparently trying to break a record set by another university amid a nationwide college streaking craze. Love the "amid a nationwide streaking craze." The story doesn't say whether they set the record or not. (Why are reporters consistently not answering the most important questions?) According to the Guinness Book of World Records, there is no current record for streaking. As we noted yesterday, the Bush/Cheney offices in Spokane were broken into early Monday a.m. This has happened in a few other places around the country, including Bellevue. There's also been shots fired at a few empty Bush/Cheney offices. This isn't insignificant. If the election is a repeat of 2000, there could be a lot of this activity.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 09:56 AM

Bush and Dred Scott

Over at Slate, Timothy Noah speculates on why President Bush invoked the infamous Dred Scott decision in Friday night's debate, answering a question about Supreme Court appointments. It was an odd answer. In pro-life/anti-abortion circles (use one or the other and we'll hear howls), however, Dred Scott is a sort of code word for Roe v. Wade, the abortion decision. "You're skeptical. You think your faithful Chatterbox is drifting into 'Abraham Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy territory.' Perhaps you've even done a little Googling of your own and discovered that while, yes, it's true, George Will once called Roe 'the most imprudent act of judicial power since the Dred Scott decision,' he has similarly compared Dred Scott to Brown v. Board of Education and even to France's attempts to slow down the United States' entry into the Iraq war (One imagines Will, looking out the window from his office, could on any given afternoon identify three or four cloud formations that remind him of Dred Scott.) But keep Googling, and you'll soon discover that Will is hardly the only conservative commentator who's compared Roe to Dred Scott. There's Paul Greenberg the Arkansas columnist famous for nicknaming Bill Clinton 'Slick Willie.' There's Jeff Jacoby, house winger at the Boston Globe. There's Michael Novak, the theologian-turned-think-tank-hack. There's Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter to Ronald Reagan (also Reagan himself, in his essay, 'Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation.' Several conservative legal commentators have made the comparison, too, including Michael McConnell of the University of Utah." In other words, Bush was sending a message to his pro-life supporters, albeit in code.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 09:31 AM

October 11, 2004

More burglaries of Bush/Cheney

Bush/Cheney offices in Spokane were burglarized and vandalized, the second office in the state hit, David Postman reports today. "Workers arriving this morning found a hole smashed through the wall from an adjacent, vacant office. Bush campaign officials say a small amount of petty cash is missing and a computer and television had been moved and left near the hole." There's been a string of these incidents across the country, although it's odd they didn't take the computer. More: "In Bellevue last week, computers that stored the Republican get-out-the-vote database were stolen in a burglary at the Republican headquarters there. Bush campaign officials believe the break-ins are part of a broader attack on the president's re-election offices around the country, including a burglary in Canton, Ohio, last night, gun shots fired in West Virginia, Florida and Tennessee and union protestors storming offices in three Florida cities and Minneapolis." Alex Fryer profiles George Nethercutt by looking at his relationship with political patron Ted Stevens. "Stevens' political-action committee (PAC) was the first to give Nethercutt the $10,000 maximum donation last June. And Stevens continued to raise money for Nethercutt at a breathtaking pace, bringing in more than $300,000 to Nethercutt this month alone." It's worth viewing just for the photo. George was pretty groovy back in the day. Ralph Nader was in town yesterday. Max Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran, campaigned for Kerry in Everett, The Herald reports.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 02:28 PM

Deadline to meet, so a weekend roundup will arrive in the early p.m.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 10:13 AM

October 08, 2004

Debate watching

BtC will be at a Republican debate-watching party for the final debate, but tonight we were at Timberline, a "gay friendly Western-themed" bar (yes, this raised all kinds of questions for us, too.) There were several hundred Democrats gathered, the lines for drinks were long and steady and hardcore Democrats seem to have really warmed to the John Kerry who's emerged from these debates. If this election is going to be about who can turn out their voters, as many suspect, keeping the base energized is huge, and Kerry has succeeded in the two debates. They especially liked lines like, "The military's job is to win the war, the president's job is to win the peace." They liked his claims about balancing the budget and providing better health care. There was also a lot of mockery for the president on the environment, education, his reference to the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, stem-cell research, and, of course, Iraq. Here's Bush Chairman Marc Racicot's response: “President Bush won a decisive victory tonight in St. Louis. John Kerry has a 20 year record of weakening national security and supporting bigger government, higher taxes and higher health care costs. President Bush was on the offensive tonight against John Kerry’s tired, political rhetoric." We'll follow the same format, in reverse, next time.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 08:20 PM

More on ad buys

More dark portents for state Republicans this morning, as David Postman and Jim Brunner report that the Bush/Cheney campaign seem to have lightened up on their ad buying, giving Kerry a big ad buy advantage. Bush folks say no decisions have been made: " 'From everything I'm hearing, it's not an indication that the president's campaign is pulling out of Washington,' said Pierce Scranton, chief of staff to Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Bellevue. Dunn is the chairwoman of the Bush campaign in the state. Scranton said he spoke with national Bush campaign officials yesterday. 'They continue to be watching us, and I do know from the campaigns they haven't made any final decisions on ad buys,' he said. The LA Times reports the same, with this money quote: " 'It's probably safe to start calling Washington for Kerry based on media buys,' " said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer for TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group. 'Bush is down below the watermark of reasonable advertising.' " Times database guru Justin Mayo, obviously carrying that hack with the pretentious name of J. Patrick Coolican, reports on registration numbers following the massive registration efforts of the churches, liberal groups and parties. "The massive voter-registration efforts of both major parties and their allied interest groups have contributed to more than 330,000 voter registrations in the state, mostly in counties that traditionally vote Democratic, according to figures from Washington counties. Many of the new voters were targeted by liberal interest groups, whose paid workers and volunteers stood on downtown street corners and knocked on the doors of subsidized-housing developments - an effort that came at considerable financial cost." What was frustrating reporting this story is that it's almost impossible to make an apples-to-apples comparison of registered voters now vs. Nov. 2000. That's because of a huge category called "inactive voters," people who've moved or died or not voted in awhile or otherwise had a piece of election mail sent to them and then returned to the elections supervisor as "undeliverable." But just because you're inactive doesn't mean you're ineligible. So there's lots (like hundreds of thousands of voters) on the inactive list who can and do still vote. The number is always changing, and some counties don't seem to have a good idea of how many of these people there are. The Secretary of State says they'll have a statewide voter database for the next election. So all we could do was collect data on new voters, and even that was inexact because some counties don't track that. Sheriff Reichert has started backing out of joint appearances with opponent Dave Ross, including a scheduled joint appearance at the PI editorial board, Warren Cornwall reports. "Republican congressional candidate Dave Reichert has backed out of two face-to-face encounters with Democratic opponent Dave Ross in recent days, drawing complaints from the Ross campaign that Reichert is trying to avoid debates. But a Reichert campaign spokesman says the King County sheriff has appeared in numerous forums with Ross and would attend another debate next Tuesday. They have appeared in three televised debates since the primary." Environmental activists have targeted longtime Mercer Island Republican state legislator Jim Horn, The Times' Natalie Singer reports. BtC met his opponent, Brian Weinstein, in July. He's well-funded and has been campaigning full-time since the spring. Watch this race closely. Also, check out this cool story in the Chronicle of Higher Education about how voters behave when they have anxieties about death. Advantage: Bush. "If the Bush campaign could somehow manage to flood the airwaves with ads like that on the days just before November 2, the president's odds of victory might be even better than currently forecast. That, at least, is one implication of a startling new series of experiments by a team of social psychologists who are scrutinizing voters' behavior. They have found that if people are haunted by not-quite-conscious anxieties about their mortality -- the kind of half-conscious anxiety one might suffer several hours after being asked to imagine one's own funeral -- they act very differently than do otherwise-similar people who have not been prompted to think about death. The death-haunted people are more likely to prefer charismatic (as opposed to "relationship oriented" or "task oriented") leaders. And in studies in which people are asked about real-world candidates, the mortality-conscious participants are much more likely than their peers to prefer George W. Bush to John Kerry."

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 12:31 PM

October 07, 2004

The Florida ballot

Check out this Florida ballot. Also, note our newly completed calendar. It should be a good guide for you true junkies. Be sure to submit your events as well. (This function actually works now.)

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 05:01 PM

Oh, George

26 days until election day. Second presidential debate, tomorrow night. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which supports Republican Senate candidates nationwide, has canceled the $1 million it had planned to spend on Seattle-area advertising for Rep. George Nethercutt, who's running against incumbent Dem. Patty Murray, Alex Fryer and Jim Brunner report. Money quote, from Nethercutt spokesman Alex Conant: "It doesn't mean anything." Did he say with a straight face? The story doesn't say. Susan Gilmore and Justin Mayo have looked at primary results. In the primary, voters had to choose either a Republican or Democratic ballot. They examined the results precinct by precinct. "In 90 percent of the precincts in King County a majority of the voters chose Democratic ballots. Of the 430,719 voters in King County who picked a party, 69 percent chose a Democratic ballot and 30 percent picked a Republican one. One percent went Libertarian." Smart, revealing story. Here's a color shaded precinct map that will let you see what party your neighbors chose. President Bush made what was billed an "important policy speech" yesterday, which enabled him to get the cable channels to give him free time, which he used to make his standard stump speech, retooled to stick it to Sen. John Kerry and say all the things he couldn't get off his chest at the debate last week. Smart politics, as always, from the White House. Also, take note of some of our recent additions to The Booth. We've added a closer look at some of the issues, which allows you to explore big topics before you decide who you'll vote for, as if you haven't already decided. A big thanks to our producer and designer, Mark and Todd, for their hard work.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 09:29 AM

October 06, 2004

Factcheck.org/com

Perhaps readers have already noted this, but something weird happened last night during the vice-presidential debate. Vice President Cheney directed viewers to factcheck.com to get information about his relationship with his former company, Halliburton. Whoops. He meant factcheck.org. Somehow, someone bought the rights to factcheck.com, and redirected Webbies to the site of billionaire George Soros, who wants nothing more than to see President Bush go down to defeat and makes it very clear on his Web site. How this happened is still a mystery. Warning: Factcheck.org's site is being overrun with hits and is hard to load.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 03:42 PM

Daddy

The Scowl and The Smile squared off last night in the vice presidential debate, and the scowl probably won, though it probably doesn't matter a whole lot. "Iraq and terrorism dominated a hard-hitting and sometimes personal debate last night between the vice-presidential nominees, with Vice President Dick Cheney accusing the Democratic ticket of lacking the judgment to lead, and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., responding that Cheney and President Bush lack credibility. The lines of attack were drawn within the opening moments of the nationally televised encounter at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, with Cheney asserting strongly that the decision to topple Saddam Hussein last year was justified by an 'established Iraqi track record with terror.' Striking an incredulous air at Cheney's claim, Edwards responded, 'Mr. Vice President, you are still not being straight with the American people.' " Cheney chided Edwards for his attendance record in the Senate, saying he met Edwards for the first time last night despite being on Capitol Hill every Tuesday, although fact-checking folks say the two met at least three times before last night's debate. Edwards brought up Cheney's record in the House of Representatives, where, despite being well-liked, he was also one of the most right-wing Congressman in the entire body, voting against Head Start, Meals on Wheels and a Martin Luther King Holiday. Cheney attacked the Kerry-Edwards position on the war in Iraq, which he charged has shifted to suit the prevailing political winds. The format favored Cheney, who's been sitting at tables like that, on live TV, most of his adult life. The pundits seemed to immediately score it a Cheney victory. Newsweek's Jon Meacham referred to Edwards as "Kerry Lite." Mostly, Cheney's performance will energize Republicans, who seemed a tiny bit demoralized following President Bush's debate performance last week and some chaos around the White House this week. Conservative commentator George Will keeps it in some perspective, via The Note. " … Friday night there's the (presidential) debate itself and by that time this (debate in Cleveland) is going to seem as ancient as the Peloponnesian war. This will be a very forgettable experience." You can always trust Will to come out with a Thucydides reference. Here's some fact-checking. Go here, scroll down and you can watch their closing statements. Dave Ross and Dale Reichert battled it out again last night, with Reichert more comfortable at a lectern and in a controlled format, Warren Cornwall reports. It's a classic conservative-liberal matchup, with each candidate mirroring the beliefs, and even some of the qualities of the presidential candidates. This race should be considered a bellweather for how the rest of the country will go Nov. 2. Will Republicans or Democrats win the suburbs? The 8th should give us some idea. Mark Rahner reviews political DVDs.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 11:46 AM

October 05, 2004

Burlection

This New York Times story details a new front in the rush to get voters registered: burlesque shows and other adult entertainments in Austin, Tex., and elsewhere. "Emo's, a downtown club, throbbed with the pounding sound of techno bass and drums on Sunday night. On a small stage a woman in pasties and fishnet stockings swung her body around a pole and then crawled across the floor as the crowd hollered. Away from the stage, a less titillating scene was playing out. As customers walked into the club, they were asked to show a voter registration card. The unregistered were sat down and signed up. The Austin event, Burlesque the Vote, was the brainchild of Audrey Maker, a local burlesque artist and activist, who brought together 14 strip acts, both amateurs and professionals, for an evening of erotica. By 10 p.m. 300 people packed the club. Ms. Maker had completed the coursework to become a Texas deputy registrar, and after the event ended, she rushed a box of new registrations to the local tax assessor's office, ahead of the Monday deadline in Texas to register for the November election. Over the last six months a range of adult performers - from performance art-oriented burlesque dancers at Emo's to harder-core strip clubs to online pornographers - have conducted voter-registration drives."

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 11:56 AM

Dead. Heat.

We begin with a fun, free video game that will have your boss hating BtC. You get to be President Bush, walking the streets of London, protecting the merry ole queen while you shoot terrorists. Put the mute on, or use your headphones. You'll kill hours. The vice presidential debate is tonight. The election is four weeks away from today. The presidential race is a dead heat. Democrats seem to have an edge in statewide races here, but Republicans Dino Rossi and George Nethercutt are within striking distance. Choose a sports metaphor of your preference. The state Republicans have formally issued a complaint against Dave Ross, claiming all the free radio time he got staying on-air after announcing he would run for Congress was illegal. This already came up during the primary, and the station lawyers ok'ed it, Ross says. Nothing will come of it before the election, Republican Chairman Chris Vance says. Here's a rundown of state and local ballot measures. Here's the Vancouver Columbian's elections page. Alaska U.S. Senate Race Lisa Murkowski will get 65 to 100 Republican volunteers from outside the state in the closing weeks of her re-election campaign against Tony Knowles, ADN reports. National The New York Times has a great interactive feature on Florida, the biggest of the battlegrounds. The race is dead-even, according to a New York Times poll. The Washington Post offers profiles of John Edwards and Dick Cheney. Edwards is the lawyer advocate. He's been under the radar of the national press, leading many to ask, "Where's Edwards?" But in fact, he's been working small media markets in swing states. He may be having a great word-of-mouth and free media impact that no one knows about. Or maybe not. We won't know until after the election. As for Cheney, two anecdotes about how effective and powerful he is, from The Post's Glenn Kessler: "At a crucial moment during diplomacy over North Korea's nuclear ambitions this year, Vice President Cheney late one night persuaded President Bush to draft new, more hard-edged instructions for U.S. negotiators in Beijing -- which Secretary of State Colin L. Powell only learned about the next day. And during negotiations on last year's tax-cut bill, when House and Senate Republican lawmakers were barely on speaking terms, it was Cheney who went up to Capitol Hill and in a series of closed-door meetings cut through animosity and arranged the deal that passed the Senate by a single vote -- his own."

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 10:33 AM

October 04, 2004

Sabarific

29 days until election day. VP debate is tomorrow night. 2nd Presidential debate is Thursday night. Warren Cornwall looks at the race in the 8th congressional district, a race between two local celebrities -- Dave Ross, the radio dude, and Dave Reichert, the cop. In the age of terror, or, rather, (one-syllable) terrerrr, the cop has an edge, according to the likes of Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. Here's Larry Sabato Googled. It's a wonder Sabato has any time to do research given all the time he spends on the phone with reporters. Wonder if he has a Leporello sidekick character who counts his media mentions. As for the issues? Issues? Yeah, like that matters. In any case, Reichert's a down-the-line conservative: pro-life, pro-tax-cuts, no on the assault weapons ban. Ross is a down-the-line liberal, just about opposite of Reichert on most issues. Also this morning, Ralph Thomas reports that Christine Gregoire, the Democratic candidate for governor, became a player in state politics after negotiating the big tobacco settlement. Now though, even some public health experts wonder if it was a good idea. " 'The settlement agreement has been the absolute worst thing that has ever happened in tobacco control,' says Michael Siegel, a physician and associate professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. 'Essentially what [Gregoire] did was sign a tobacco-interest bailout.' " Ouch. Of course, the deal also has staunch defenders. Relatedly, Gregoire's been getting cash from both sides of the tobacco settlement. "Overall, Gregoire has received more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from law firms on both sides of the tobacco battle." More: "Attorney General Christine Gregoire's efforts to raise money for her gubernatorial campaign include a visit to the New York offices of Meyer Koplow, the former lead negotiator for cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris." Like smoking from both ends of a filterless Camel: So smooth! Enough mockery for now.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 10:44 AM

October 01, 2004

And the winner is....

BtC promised a shot of Jaeger for every time terror or terrorism was mentioned during the debate last night, and, oh man, did it get ugly. Who won the debate? Go here and watch the video and read the transcript. All the instant polls and all the punditry -- left, right and squishy journalists ta boot -- seemed to think Sen. John Kerry was the winner. He jabbed hard on the Iraq war and the missing Osama bin Laden. Bush scored well himself when he noted how hard it would be for Kerry to lead American soldiers in a war he denounced as a diversion, the wrong war at the wrong time etc. Joe Scarborough, former Republican congressman from Florida, class of '94: "As far as the debate goes, I don't see how anybody could look at this debate and not score this a very clear win on points for John Kerry." President Bush looked irritated at having to participate in the exercise. He was hunched and made the faces of someone confronting an annoying task, like a man ordered to clean the gutters by his wife when he really wants to watch college football and drink beer. Can't blame him, really. No reason to be surprised, however. The president is at his best on the stump, speaking with a prepared text or riffing off it. This is why politics can be fun. The race changed in 90 minutes. In fact, it probably changed in the first 10; after that, most people went back to reality TV. The national political parties are pouring money into the 8th congressional race over on the Eastside, Warren Cornwall reports. Each party has already reserved a million bucks each in TV time in the race between the talk radio nerd and the tough cop.

Posted by J. Patrick Coolican at 10:47 AM