Guthrie

Guthrie said he had not planned to spend his own money but changed his mind after campaigning around the state.

"I'm disappointed, as most people are, that money is what drives politics in this country. But I realize if I didn't go in all the way, if I didn't do the best job with the campaign I thought I could do, I would have regretted it later.

"My heart is really in this race, and I decided it was just time to put my money where my heart is."

"It is absolutely everything I could scrape together. I mortgaged my house, my only house, in Bellingham. I mortgaged it as much as the bank would let me mortgage it. And I put up all the savings that my former wife and I were able to save in our 17 years of marriage."

It's unclear how this changes the race that has naturally focused on Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell and her Republican challenger, Mike McGavick.

It is difficult to know which side Guthrie is more likely to take votes from. In 2000 former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton blamed his close loss to Cantwell, in part, on Libertarian candidate Jeff Jared. Jared got more than 64,000 votes and Cantwell won by a little more than 2,000.

Guthrie's top issues are most likely to attract liberal voters. He is a strong proponent of same-sex marriage and is ardently anti-war, calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and a permanent reduction of U.S. troops abroad and a critic of the Patriot Act.

There are some more traditionally Libertarian fiscal positions, too, including support for reducing the federal deficit. Guthrie told me, "We Libertarians are fiscally responsible and the Republicans have definitely made themselves vulnerable with their overspending."

He criticizes Cantwell on that as well. From his campaign website:

Maria Cantwell has done nothing to shrink the huge budget deficits. In fact, she's approved every Republican request for an increase in public debt. That debt has become a huge burden for ourselves (just paying interest) and for our children.

He said he thinks he'll take votes from both major party candidates and may do polling to see which of his messages resonate the best with voters.

"Libertarians are traditionally thought of as taking votes from Republicans in the way that Greens could only take votes from Democrats. And I think there's a good argument to be made that I'll take from both sides.

"But right now we don't have any idea how we're going ot influence the outcome of the election. What we do know is we are going to take the Libertarian Party to a new level and the voters of this state are absolutely disgusted with the two big parties. They're screaming for an alternative.

"I believe the Libertarian Party is that altenriave. I think this $1.2 million is going to do a lot in that direction."

Guthrie said he thinks his campaign could now be the best-financed Libertarian campaign in state history.

As required by the Federal Election Commission, Guthrie sent written notice of his personal spending plans yesterday to his opponents in the race. The self-financing triggers the FEC's so-called "Millionaire's Amendment," a law that will allow contribution limits to the other senate candidates to increase.

(CORRECTION: This does not automatically trigger the Millionaire's Amendment. Richard Pope raises this in the comments and another readers points me to the FEC explanation that says:

A candidate with a significant fundraising advantage over a self-financed opponent might not receive an increased contribution limit. In this way, the regulations avoid giving increased contribution limits to candidates whose campaigns have a significant fundraising advantage over their opponents.)

Guthrie was a Libertarian candidate for the 2nd Congressional District in 2002 and 2004.

Cantwell has raised $16.8 million so far. McGavick has raised $7.7 million, including $2 million of personal money he loaned his campaign. He said last week he has no plans to donate any more of his own money.

McGavick spokesman Elliott Bundy said the campaign did not yet know what to make of the news of Guthrie's donation:

"I have no idea what it means or what he intends to spend the money on. He says right up front that he disagrees with Mike on gay marriage and the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq."

I haven't heard back from the Cantwell campaign.

Green Party candidate Aaron Dixon is also running for the senate. As of June 30 -- the most recent report available on-line at the FEC -- he had raised $33,826.

Three liberal political action committees have joined together to try to defeat state Sen. Luke Esser, R-Bellevue. Seattle-based groups pushing for gun control, abortion rights and gay rights formed the Save the 48th Committee and will begin a TV ad campaign against Esser Sunday.

The committee is composed of the Ceasefire Action Committee, Equal Rights Washington PAC, and Planned Parenthood Votes. In an announcement, the groups said it is the first time they have banded together.

Their new PAC is focused on defeating Esser and replacing him with Rep. Rodney Tom, a former Republican who switched parties this year and filed to run against Esser.

Washington CeaseFire says it "has already produced a hardhitting TV ad highlighting Esser's poor record on gun safety" that begins airing Sunday. The group criticizes Esser for voting against a bill sponsored by Tom that would have required background checks to buy guns at gun shows.

There is also a fundraiser scheduled in October at the home of Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina.

"I'm busy that night," Esser told me. He said that one of the group's main arguments against his candidacy is false. The group says on its website about regulating pharmacists:

Rodney believes all women should have access to birth control pills and plan B emergency contraception. Esser takes the extreme view that pharmacists should be able to deny you prescriptions your doctor has already approved.

Said Esser:

"They actually got my position wrong. The only time I announced a position was on Robert Mak's show and I said I agreed with the governor. Maybe they think the governor is an extremist, I don't know. I'm pro-life, but I'm not anti-contraception."

UPDATE: Jon Scholes, vice president of Washington CeaseFire, said the groups "are following the Jim Horn model here -- teaming up with other progressives, focusing our resources and taking the chance with TV." Horn was the veteran Republican senator from Mercer Island defeated in 2004 by challenger Brian Weinstein.

The will run during Meet the Press Sunday morning and in the evening on KONG. Here's the ad:

I'm participating in a couple of events I thought some of you might be interested in.

Monday night I will moderate a panel on the state Supreme Court's decision on the Defense of Marriage Act. It is before the Puget Sound Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society.

The panelists are a distinguished group: Dale Carpenter, a professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School and contributing blogger to Volokh Conspiracy, Steven O'Ban, an attorney who represented intervenors in the case who argued to uphold DOMA and Bradley Bagshaw who represented same-sex couples in the case arguing against the law.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Washington Athletic Club. You can get more information here.

On Saturday October 7, I will be at Town Hall for an 8 p.m. event called "Janeane Garofalo and Friends discuss Politics and the Press: Fair and Balanced or Lazy and Cowed?"

I'm a little worried I've been invited to represent the lazy and cowed side of things. I'll be the lone mainstream media type among a panel of liberals. The event is sponsored by Foolproof and is headlined by Garofalo, an actress and activist who until recently was host of a liberal talk-radio program. Also on the panel are David Goldstein of horsesass.org, Duncan Black, aka Atrios, and Matt Stoller who writes at Mydd.com. It will be moderated by Angie Coiro of Mother Jones Radio.

You can get more information here.

It doesn't seem to be getting attention in the papers this morning but Sen. Maria Cantwell and her Republican challenger, Mike McGavick, have a substantive disagreement on the military tribunal bill approved by the Senate yesterday.

The bill would set up military trials for terror detainees and the debate had been forecast by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist as an important measure of where senators stand on the war on terror. That strategy stumbled some when Republican senators balked at President Bush's original proposal.

But in a race where McGavick has spent more time saying he and Cantwell held nearly identical position on the war in Iraq, the vote draws a distinction on a major national security issue.

The bill which would severely limit defendants' rights, passed 65-34.

Cantwell voted against it. McGavick said he would have supported it.

The New York Times points out that among the 12 Democrats who voted for the measure are some senators in the most difficult re-election fights.

But most Democrats saw little political danger in opposing Bush, according to the Times:

The most vivid example of the Democratic assessment came from the party's many presidential hopefuls in the Senate. All of them voted against the bill, apparently calculating that Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq has undercut the traditional Republican strength on national security and will insulate them from what are certain to be strong attacks from Republicans not only this year but also in 2008.

Cantwell issued a statement yesterday after the vote saying she supported an earlier version passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee but that the bill voted on yesterday "still has critical flaws."

The legislation voted on by the full Senate will permit the Bush Administration to undermine the Geneva Conventions, broadly expand the definition of enemy combatants, allow for coerced and secret evidence and abandon habeus corpus. For more than three years, our ability to try terrorists has been hampered by the Administration's refusal to abide by U.S. law. The provisions in this legislation may be once again deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, only further delaying our goal of bringing the terrorists to justice. Short-term political goals should never come ahead of America's long-term success in the war on terror.

McGavick issued two statements on the issue yesterday, one before the vote and one after. He found it "terribly disappointing" that Cantwell voted against it.

Too often in recent years the Senate hasn't made progress. This bill is an exception. The Bush administration came together with thoughtful critics like Senator McCain and produced a compromise bill designed to strengthen national security.

Very simply, this legislation is a necessary piece of the long term struggle against radical Islamic terrorism. Our security depends on our military and intelligence communities possessing intelligence gathering tools, and we are in need of a system to try our terrorist enemies. This is common sense legislation which 53 Republicans and 12 Democrats supported.

Another vote today is likely to show differences between the candidates. The Senate is set to vote on a bill that would build a 700-mile fence along the border with Mexico. Cantwell has opposed the move in the past and McGavick has supported it.

Today is the last day of full-time work for Hal Spencer.

Hal works now in the governor's Office of Financial Management helping to translate budget talk into English and explaining complicated things with numbers to math-dopes like me.

Two consecutive governors have been lucky to have him. But when he slips off to retirement at the end of the day today I'll remember him much, much more for his 26 years of work as a journalist.

Hal was a mentor to me, whether he wanted to be or not. I've known him since 1982 when I got my first full-time journalism job. I was a public radio host in Alaska and he was in charge of the Associated Press bureau in Juneau. I knew him from his incredibly fast, sharp and accurate reporting of the Legislature as well as his yelling and arguing that were a frequent backdrop when I was on the telephone with reporters in the Capitol pressroom. Things had to be right for Hal. He'd always say, "When in doubt, leave it out." Don't guess, or fudge or think you remember something. Get it right the first time.

Later he took over the entire AP operation for Alaska. The first day I actually met him he was in the newsroom of the Anchorage Times. He was wearing wrinkled chinos and a beat up corduroy jacket. I remember standing a step or two back waiting for him to finish his conversation with the managing editor and noticing that the hem of his jacket had been repaired with staples. Lots of staples.

"Man," I thought. "That's one real reporter. I want to be just like him some day."

We later worked together at the Anchorage Daily News and then near by when we both ended up in Olympia. He has a temper and a sensitive soul and he can whip through the rage-shame cycle faster than any living human. If Hal left my office after dropping some F bombs as he critiqued my work, I'd know the phone would ring in minutes or an e-mail would pop up soon apologizing for the outburst -- though not for the substance of comments.

And he most often was right. In my 25 years or so of journalism I can think of few reporters who worked harder than Hal or were any more committed to fairness and objectivity than he was. He wasn't afraid to call bull; on sources, colleagues, competitors, bosses, family members, pets, or strangers.

He really loved being a reporter and always pushed those around him to be better at it. I don't expect his badgering to stop just because he's retiring. He's not quite 61 and has a lot of years left to keep pushing.

In honor of his retirement all of us in the press corps should work a little harder and be unafraid of what anyone in power will say about our work. And when we lose it and tell an editor off or tell a source he's boring the hell out of us, we should honor Hal again and be quick to apologize.

(I'm pretty sure he still wears that coat, too.)

THE PUBLIC DISCLOSURE COMMISSION

The PDC calls this graphic showing funding sources of independent expenditures "The Wheel of Fortune."

Members of the Public Disclosure Commission say independent expenditures are corrupting the state's elections. The commission wants to consider a ban on corporate and union involvement in independent expenditure campaigns. At a meeting in Olympia where they were briefed on the $2.6 million spent on independent expenditures in the primary, commission members asked the staff to look at ways the spending can be controlled.

Commission Chairwoman Jane Noland said the commission wants "to reduce the amount of independent expenditures ... and to ensure that yhey come from a broader array of sources."

Commissioner JohnMike Connelly said:

"The only reasonable conclusion you can draw from those facts is that the entities, the corporations, trade associations, unions, have taken control of the election process. By the simple volume of the money being spent, they have taken over that, pre-empted if you will the voters and individual citizens.

(...)

"And I think we also have to assume that influence has a dramatic adverse effect on the public confidence in the political process."

Noland said:

"We have two different concepts clashing here. As a state we have approved contribution limits and on the other hand though, we have these independent expenditures which make a mockery of those contribution limits ... and so I'm hoping that we can look at this broadly in terms of the spirit of campaign contribution limits and what we can do to really enhance that so that they work and so individuals feel they have a part of this and it's not controlled by a few very wealthy entities."

The Public Disclosure Commission is meeting now on the Capital Campus to get a briefing on independent expenditures in the 2006 primary campaigns. You can watch the meeting on TVW on the TV or on the web.

PDC Executive Director Vicki Rippie is walking the commission through a PowerPoint presentation on independent expenditures. That should be available online later and I'll post it here. You can see all independent expenditures done in the primary here at the PDC site.

There was a total of $2.1 million spent on independent expenditures in the state Supreme Court races. The PDC tally shows that in the two big races, Chief Justice Gerry Alexander vs. John Groen and Justice Susan Owens vs. Sen. Steve Johnson, conservatives far out spent liberals.

Backers of Johnson and Groen, primarily the Building Industry Association of Washington, spent $1.5 million, while Alexander's and Owen's backers spent $402,461.

Other findings include that 54 percent of all independent expenditures was spent on TV advertising, 27 percent on mail, 8 percent on radio, 4 percent on billboards, 2 percent on newspapers, 2 percent in movie theaters and 1 percent on doorbelling.

MORE: In all primary races, $2.6 million was spent on independent expenditures. In addition to the $2.1 million on Supreme Court races, there was $11,243 on Court of Appeals races and $547,550 on legislative races.

Of the legislative races, more than half of that was spent in the 35th District Democratic Senate primary between incumbent Sen. Tim Sheldon and Kyle Taylor Lucas. Sheldon won that race easily. Rippie said that 39 percent of the independent expenditures in that race came from out of state. And most of that went to oppose Sheldon.

MORE: Rippie told the commission that she thinks that the amount of money spent on independent expenditures makes it "ripe for discussion" whether current state laws are enough to regulate the spending and "if there are approaches that have been implemented at the federal level that are worth considering."

Rippie said that federal courts have upheld further restrictions on the "power of aggregated" money seen in independent expenditure campaigns because it distorts the "process and actually constitutes a kind of corruption in the political arena."

On Mike McGavick's campaign blog his staff digs into Maria Cantwell's new TV ad on drug prices.

They compare it to an ad Cantwell ran in 2000 in her race against Sen. Slade Gorton, McGavick's former boss. (They found a bit of identical footage in the two ads. It's a good thing Cantwell doesn't age like me because a six-year-old picture of me would show a whole lot less gray.)

The McGavick campaign also questions Cantwell's position in support of "safe reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada."

That's a fine idea as well, and Mike supports it, but Senator Cantwell hasn't always thought it such a good idea.

Back in 2000, then candidate Cantwell said the following:
Cantwell Called Reimportation A "Gimmick."
"Sen. Gorton promoted his new 'reimportation' law that allows U.S. consumers to buy drugs at the price they sell for in Canada. Cantwell called that a gimmick." ("Highlights From Monday's Debate Between Republican Sen. Slade Gorton And Democratic Challenger Maria Cantwell," The Associated Press, October 30, 2000)

Cantwell Conceded That Reimportation Would Lead To Drug Companies Raising Prices Abroad.

"Cantwell criticized Gorton's education and prescription drug proposals as 'gimmicks' that wouldn't solve the nation's core problems. For example, she said, under Gorton's plan, drug companies are more likely to raise drug prices abroad than lower them in the United States. 'I just don't think the public is looking for gimmicks,' she said. 'They're looking for people who are going to roll up their sleeves, sit down with people who disagree, and forge compromises.'" ("Running Toward The Middle," National Journal, October 21, 2000)

(I like how McGavick's campaign is using the blog in blog fashion. It's not just a series of press releases or photos. There's a little bit of attitude there and links to the videos and back up information.)

I sent a link to McGavick's blog to the Cantwell campaign and asked for its response. Spokeswoman Katharine Lister said prescription drug policy is a major difference in the campaign and said Cantwell has been trying to lower the cost of drugs and called McGavick "an insurance industry lobbyist and CEO, who cut health benefits at his company and has taken tens of thousands of dollars from big drug and insurance companies ... ."

"The other thing worth noting is McGavick's continuing cherry picking of the facts to attack Senator Cantwell, while refusing to state any clear position. "For example, after 18 years in the Senate, Senator Gorton, in an election year conversion, filed a bill. But once again, McGavick's campaign isn't telling the whole truth. The Gorton bill that Cantwell and others called a gimmick had nothing to do with reimportation. It was a bill no one would even co-sponsor when he introduced it. "Does McGavick support Gorton's bill? He won't say. Does he support Cantwell's legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices? Once again, he equivocates. McGavick keeps attacking Maria Cantwell, when she has fought for changes only to see them blocked by a Republican Congress."

That Monday Wall Street Journal article that focuses on our Senate race in a national round up of sorts contains this nugget I missed in my first reading:

Ms. Cantwell has more money than Mr. McGavick, and while Republican leaders had hopes the wealthy businessman would spend more of his own money, he says he has no plans to go beyond the $2 million he has lent his campaign.

So no more money moving from McGavick's personal bank account to the campaign? If he put more of his own in it would lift campaign donation limits for Cantwell, something McGavick wants to avoid. I asked McGavick campaign spokesman Elliott Bundy about it and he said only:

"At this time, there are no plans for a further personal contribution."

UPDATE: The Hill covers self-financed candidates today, including McGavick:

McGavick, who received $28 million after leaving as CEO of Safeco Corp. last year, plugged $2 million into his noncompetitive primary in August and declared that he didn't plan on contributing any more. He told The Hill on Wednesday that he is sticking with that plan for the time being and that he doesn't anticipate he'll need to supplement his fundraising.

Horsesass.org says that newspapers in Washington are helping to fund the initiative to repeal the estate tax. And it's not this paper. That's still an opportunity for Goldy to trash Times publisher Frank Blethen some more. But wade through that and you'll see The Columbian has given $5,000 and Pioneer Newspapers, which owns a chain of small papers, including the Skagit Valley Herald and the Ellensburg Record, has given $25,000.

Blethen has said he will not make financial contributions to the campaign and I have not heard anything to think that has changed. Blethen and Times lobbyist Jill Mackie have discussed the initiative with its sponsors and backers and, Blethen said in August, "may be involved on the periphery."

I feel for the reporters in Vancouver and at Pioneer papers in the state, because there's no question that when the corporate side of the paper involves itself in politics it makes it harder for those of us on the news side.

Blethen and I talked about that in August for a post here about his lobbying on the federal estate tax:

Blethen said he knows that people in the newsroom are uncomfortable with his political activity on the estate tax. He said editor Mike Fancher has made it clear on many occasions and said former Managing Editor Alex MacLeod was "far less subtle. He just looked me in the eye and said, 'You shouldn't be doing this.' And I'd say, 'Your job is to make sure we don't affect anything you do.' "

MORE: Yhese newspaper contributions did not go to Dennis Falk's group that sponsored the initiative and got it on the ballot. Instead the papers are giving to Keeping Washington Family Business Alive, the group started by the NFIB and the Association of Washington Business to push 920.

As Blethen said above, news people don't like it when the business side gets involved in politics. But the editorial side needs to worry, too. The day after The Columbian donation, the paper ran an op-ed piece by AWB President Don Brunell promoting I-920, with no mention of the paper's involvement in the campaign.

The Legislative Ethics Board has dismissed a complaint against Rep. Toby Nixon, R-Kirkland, that had been filed by the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee. Nixon is running for the Senate in the 45th District.

The board called the complaint nonsense and found it "unsupported by any facts."

Democrats filed the complaint after seeing a press release about Nixon's Senate candidacy in the Woodinville Chamber of Commerce newsletter. At the bottom of the release it said to contact Rebecca Japhet for more information. Japhet is a legislative employee and heads the Senate Republican communications office. She is barred by law from doing any campaign-related work.

But she didn't. It turns out that the attribution to Japhet was an error on the part of the chamber staff and she had nothing to do with Nixon's release — as Nixon has maintained.

Last week the Democratic campaign committee asked the ethics board to remove Japhet's name from the complaint because, "After further investigation, we are satisfied that Ms. Japhet had no role in her name appearing on Rep. Nixon's press release in the May 2006 edition of the Woodinville Chamber of Commerce publication Off the Vine."

But Democrats wanted Nixon's name to remain on the complaint. That made no sense to the ethics board. In its dismissal order today, the board said that recognizing that Japhet did nothing wrong means the entire complaint is without merit:

If that is true, and we conclude today after investigation there is no evidence to the contrary, the complainant seems to be left with only the inference that Rep. Nixon or his campaign staff would for some reason intentionally place a partial attribution to this legislative employee on the campaign release. That inference is nonsensical as well as unsupported by any facts.

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, pursuant to RCW 42.52.425, which grants the Board the authority to dismiss a complaint after investigation if it finds that the complaint is unfounded, that Complaint 2006 — No. 9 is DISMISSED.

UPDATE: Here's the board's order.

In the spring when Sen. Maria Cantwell was still routinely getting beat up by anti-war activists in the Democratic Party I wondered in this space how much of a problem this really would be for her re-election chances.

No one really thought it would cost her the primary, much less the election. There were concerns that Cantwell's position on the war could cost the party volunteers during the campaign season.

In May, thinking I was clever and ready to move the story, I asked, "Any chance this all could help Cantwell because it makes her appear more moderate, not part of the Seattle liberal elite that Republicans love to bash?"

But maybe I wasn't clever enough. Since last week's primary I've been wondering — and only partly in jest — if Cantwell didn't concoct or at least play up the anti-war criticism of her. Why? Because when she creamed her primary opponents she'd emerge in the fall as a powerhouse.

Look at this story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that focused on Cantwell's race with Mike McGavick:

After she refused in January to call her war vote a mistake, liberals' rebelliousness built. Two potentially worrisome candidates surfaced. Meanwhile, state and national pundits were praising Mr. McGavick. By late June, a Seattle paper headlined its poll story, "Cantwell's Lead Nearly Gone."

The senator explains her recovery simply: "We had a lot of meetings with people." She met with groups to let them vent. Supporters promoted Ms. Cantwell's work on other issues important to liberals — for abortion rights and against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in particular. In July, the two rival Democrats had joined her campaign, leaving just Ms. Tran. And Ms. Cantwell issued a statement that if she had known the U.S. wouldn't find weapons of mass destruction, she wouldn't have voted for force against Iraq.

And this from the McClatchy News Service roundup of Senate races:

Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell survived a primary challenge over her vote to authorize the Iraq war. Now, antiwar voters may have nowhere else to go, and Cantwell leads Republican Mike McGavick, a former insurance executive.

Were Cantwell's primary opponents ever "worrisome"? Was there any question she would survive that challenge? That poll about Cantwell's evaporating lead was splashed on the front page at a time when the average lead she had in public polls was almost 10 percent.

There were several million reasons and dollars that separated Connecticut's Ned Lamont from anyone running against Cantwell. There never was a serious challenge here.

Maybe McGavick should have played up Brad Klippert's campaign and stories this week would mention how he beat back a challenge from Right to Life forces.

MORE: Speaking of Cantwell's anti-war critics: When Mark Wilson was still running against Maria Cantwell I don't think he had a stronger supporter than Chad Shue, a Democratic peace activist in Snohomish County who writes at The Left Shue.

Like me, Shue now wants to hear directly from Wilson about the allegation that he tried to talk Green Aaron Dixon into dropping out of the Senate race.

Mark, please tell me it isn't so. Please tell me that you would not be involved in any effort to buy off the competition! Tell me this isn't the type of outreach Senator Cantwell had in mind when she hired you to work on her campaign. Or, wait! Maybe you should say that you did do this and that you were acting alone as a sort of "rogue operative" and that Senator Cantwell had no knowledge of this action! That would be much better. Or not! I don't see, if there is any truth to this allegation, how this makes anyone at Camp Cantwell look good.

• Darryl at Hominid Views interviews Darcy Burner about her time with the Civil Air Patrol. Burner was apparently a successful young cadet, but maybe she, Darryl and Goldy infuse that experience with a bit too much meaning?

  It was the place where she learned how to run an efficient operation, how to get along with people of disparate political stripes and learned the meaning of leadership. From Darryl's interview:

  Darcy: For example, it was from the Civil Air Patrol that I internalized the principle that a true leader will not ask somebody under their command to do something they are not willing to do. You have to be willing to do anything that you ask of those working for you. Darryl: ...something that we aren't getting from our national political leaders these days. Darcy: Right, exactly, there seems to be a tremendous lack of basic principled leadership right now. And being principled is something I learned in the Civil Air Patrol.

• In the Tri-City Herald, Chris Mulick fact-checks a TV ad running against Rep. Bill Grant and says Republican Kevin Young's spots "bend the truth."

  Young said he wasn't directly involved in the ad's production and added he'd look into any discrepancies.

  Shouldn't candidates know enough about their ads before they run to know if they are truthful?

• The state Senate has decamped to Spokane for committee meetings. They're at the luxurious Davenport Hotel, though The Spokesman-Review's Rich Roesler says the senate is paying $99 a night for a room rather than the usual rate that runs from $165 to $195.

  The hotel gives the lawmakers, staff and lobbyists a chance to spread out in a way that's tougher in the capitol — on Monday, Sen. Bob McCaslin was holding court at one table with business lobbyists while other lawmakers were sprawled out on nearby couches. Up in the mezzanine — a balcony encircling the vast lobby — Sen. Brad Benson chatted with lawmakers, while election rival Chris Marr talked with other folks at a table below.

• Also in the Spokesman was this AP story about the Idaho governor's race and the debate raging over "canned elk hunts." That is not hunting for elk meat in cans, but hunting on fenced-in hunting grounds.

  Democratic candidate Jerry Brady called a news conference Tuesday at the Boise Zoo, calling for a ban on the hunts of big game animals on fenced-in grounds.

  "Canned hunts are ruining the American heritage of public access to wildlife," Brady said in a statement. "They signal a return to an elitist, European system of land ownership where people have to pay to hunt. This is not a trend Idaho should follow."

• A long-running dispute between the Evergreen Freedom Foundation and the Washington Education Association will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Olympian's Brad Shannon says:

  The case pits the conservative, Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation and allied interests against the Washington Education Association over the question: Should the WEA teachers union ask its nonmembers for written permission before spending a portion of agency fees on political purposes? Or, as WEA argued, should the employee have to opt out, as its practice had been?

  Here's the Times story on this from D.C.

• And be sure to read this Times story by Jonathan Martin on Dave Reichert's environmental record.

  Could it really have been that Reichert was close to getting the Sierra Club endorsement until he told them his view on global warming?

  "The problem is, you have some scientists who say it's happening, and some who say it's not happening. The problem is the Sierra Club says that every scientist says it is," said Reichert, a member of the House Science Committee.

  "I'm going to wait until all the facts are in. There were many scientists who used to say the world was flat."

UPDATE: Eli Sanders points out that Reichert's position makes him even more a skeptic of global warming than President Bush is.

Chase Gallagher of Shelton is the winner in the Postman on Politics Pick-a-Party Primary Prognostication contest.

Gallagher, 22, is campaign manager for Democrat Mike Rechner who is running against House Republican Leader Richard DeBolt. Gallagher graduated from UW last year.

There were a few other entries that came close to Gallagher. But where he sealed his victory was in the 43rd Legislative District. He picked the correct finish for four of six candidates.

Most entries picked the Supreme Court races correct and most chose Tim Sheldon to win in the 35th. Most guessed wrong in the 26th Legislative District Senate race, where Jim Hines beat Lois McMahan in the Republican primary.

Congratulations to Gallagher. His prize is on the way.

If Mike McGavick is looking for more daylight between him and the Bush Administration he can look at his call to ban Iran from the World Cup. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says it's the sort of thing that could have strengthened anti-American sentiments in Iran.

In an interview yesterday with the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, Rice was asked, "What do you think about a gasoline embargo on Iran?"

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I just ... I don't think that it was anything that you have to look at it in the near term and I'm not sure that it would have the desired effect. One of the problems that we have is if indeed you would like not to have a situation in which you reinforce the leadership's desire to make their people feel that America is anti-Iranian people, then you want to stay away from things that have a bad effect on the Iranian people to the degree that you can. You know, we've talked ...quot; people have talked for instance about barring Iranian students or barring Iranian ...quot; there was at one point the World Cup, you know, bar them from the World Cup or something like that.

The Iranian regime has been pretty insistent on a line of reasoning that this is not between the United States and the Iranian regime; this is between the United States and Iran, the culture, the people, its great national pride. And that's something we really do have to fight against and some believe a gasoline embargo might play into that.

The Building Industry Association of Washington commissioned a poll immediately after last week's primary to see what worked and what didn't in their expensive, but unsuccessful, campaign to elect John Groen to the Supreme Court and to try to figure out what to do different in their effort to help Sen. Stephen Johnson beat Justice Susan Owens in November.

Among the 400 or so people polled was reader Frank Shoichet, a Seattle attorney and no friend of the BIAW's. He's a donor to Owens and the trial attorneys' PAC. Shoichet took excellent notes as he was polled and sent me a list of 27 questions he was asked. BIAW executive vice president Tom McCabe — who I must say was impressed with the accuracy of Shoichet's list — confirmed it was his group that paid for the poll.

Among the questions were favorable/unfavorable ratings for BIAW, the SEIU ... the union that was one of the top donors to Citizens to Uphold the Constitution which opposed BIAW candidates ... as well as for Groen, Chief Justice Gerry Alexander, Owens and Johnson.

Respondents were asked who they voted for in the Groen/Alexander race and why they voted that way. They were asked if the vote was more for supporting Alexander or opposing Groen and were given a sliding scale of one to five to show how important different factors were in their vote. Those included whether they thought Alexander had been on the bench too long, Alexander's support for Justice Bobbe Bridge after her arrest for drunken driving, that John Groen was a "right-wing extremist," that Groen opposed stem cell research and abortion, that Groen was funded by big-money special interests, and whether Alexander won because he was more experienced or because of the BIAW's attack ads against him.

McCabe said he learned some things from the poll. He doesn't think his ads were negative. But, he said, if you accept that they are as the Times and other papers said, the poll showed "negative ads are successful. They were successful in generating a lot of no votes for John Groen and yes votes for Gerry Alexander."

"The other side's ads were really good," McCabe said. The most successful lines of attack, he said, was calling Groen a right-winger and saying that he opposed abortion and stem cell research. "The numbers really jumped considerably on those two issues."

"When you say he is a right-wing extremist in a state where most people identify themselves as moderate or liberal, that really makes an impression on people."

Looking ahead to the Johnson/Owens race, the BIAW asked, "If you knew nothing else about two candidates besides the fact that one was a man and one was a woman, for whom would you vote?"

McCabe said the poll found a 13 percent advantage for the female candidate.

"We've got a sisterhood in this state that is just interesting. ... It's not a surprise that we have two U.S. senators who are women, a governor who is a woman, four Supreme Court justices who are women. Is that different than in other states? I think it is."

And that poses a challenge for Johnson and his backers at the BIAW.

"Susan Owens' positives are really high primarily because she is a woman. People don't even know what she looks like or how she voted or where she's from."

A man running against a woman needs to watch his image carefully. It is difficult for any anti-abortion candidate to win statewide here. And to try to neutralize the gender gap as much as possible a candidate needs to avoid appearing as, say, a "shifty brute," which is how Ralph Thomas described the portrayal of Groen in an opposition ad.

Instead, McCabe said, Republican men running statewide need to appear "as a sensitive, caring guy, like Rob McKenna or Dino Rossi, and I think they both did a pretty good job."

MORE: Steve Johnson issued a press release this morning with a letter he sent supporters "outlining his plan to run a clean, fair and truthful campaign in the remaining weeks of his campaign." Johnson had no specific criticisms of ads run so far, but said in the release, "This action was precipitated by a series of controversial ads aired on both sides of the Groen/Alexander race leading up to the recent primary election."

Johnson said he wants Owens "as well as outside interest groups" to honor his three guideliens: "All facts and statements shall be grounded in truth and relevance. Personal attacks are out of bounds. My campaign will focus on my judicial philosophy, my qualifications and decisions of the Court.

Also, in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, a column by Kimberley A. Strassel says that the Groen/Alexander election was reason "for good cheer in the business community."

How could an expensive loss be good for business? Because it showed business was willing to strike against creeping "Spitzerism." Strassel calls New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer "Chief Persecutor of Wall Street."

Mr. Groen lost last week, but barely. Across the country, incumbent judges--who are rarely challenged, much less seriously so--began shaking in their robes.

Call it business's revenge, or better yet, business's new political strategy--one that may prove a rare bright point for conservatives in upcoming elections. Somewhere among the Spitzer campaigns, the endless trial-lawyer suits, and the adverse verdicts in state courts, the corporate world realized it needed to address root causes. Local chambers of commerce and tort-reform groups encouraged businesses to start putting some skin into state elections.

Green Party Senate candidate Aaron Dixon says someone on Maria Cantwell's campaign tried to talk him into quitting the race with the promise that the senator's supporters would donate money to the non-profit group that Dixon founded.

Cantwell campaign spokeswoman Katharine Lister said she did not know of any staffer in contact with Dixon and said no one on the campaign "was authorized to speak with Mr. Dixon about his candidacy This is consistent with the Cantwell campaign's strict policy of not hiring felons."

(There was no allegation that he was offered a job, but Lister is obviously referring to Dixon's criminal record, as reported by horsesass.org and the Spokesman Review. Dixon responded to the reports on his website.)

Dixon's allegations were reported today by Joshua Frank at World News Trust, a "grassroots, independent news media project." Frank wrote:

As Dixon tells it, "Mark [Wilson] called and basically told me that a lot of people have a lot of money within the Cantwell campaign, and he said that they could put on a fundraiser for Central House that would 'blow my mind.' He called a week later and basically told me the same thing. I didn't bite, ending this war is too important."

When asked if exiting the race would have been contingent on there being a fundraiser for his organization, Dixon answered, "It wasn't said directly, but it was certainly implied."

Dixon also said that Mark Wilson was not the only Cantwell staffer to call his campaign headquarters with the hope of convincing him to drop out, but Dixon declined to elaborate. The Cantwell campaign declined to comment on Dixon's allegations.

Wilson is Cantwell's former Democratic primary opponent who folded his campaign and took an $8,000-a-month job with the senator's re-election campaign.

Earlier tonight I talked with Dixon spokesman Mike Gillis. He confirmed Frank's report. He says the calls came in July right before the deadline for filing for office.

"There were heavy implications that Central House would be getting a lot of money if Aaron would drop out of the race, which is about as close to a buy-out as you can get.

"There was another one a week later, a bit more urgent."

Dixon founded Central House in 2002 to provide housing for homeless teenagers.

Gillis said Dixon has not talked about the calls publicly until the interview with Frank. "We were planning on it coming out eventually," he said. When Frank asked Dixon about the calls, Dixon told him what happened.

Gillis repeated the allegation that someone else with the Cantwell campaign also contacted Dixon, but he wouldn't say who it was. Gillis checked with the campaign manager to see if he could tell me who it was, but he called back to say the campaign was not ready to release that information. But he said the name would be released in the future.

I'm not sure why the Dixon campaign would withhold that bit of information while confirming the rest of the story, or why the campaign sat on the story since July.

I wish I could talk to Wilson about this directly. But he has not responded to questions since going to work for Cantwell and the campaign says he will not be made available to talk about this. Lister's statements clearly say there was no official approach made to Dixon and she didn't know of anything unofficial, either. But she doesn't say it didn't happen. Wilson is the one who could answer that.

UPDATE: I missed Frank's post when it first appeared at BrickBurner.org and counterpunch.org.

Gov. Christine Gregoire says she won't host a dinner in the Governor's Mansion for a couple who won the honor at a fundraiser for Darcy Burner. Instead, the governor says she'll take them out to dinner.

"They don't want to embarrass me and they don't want to embarrass Darcy. So they'd just as soon not do that. ... They'd like to have the opportunity to have dinner with myself and my husband. So I'll probably take them to dinner somewhere."

The governor made her comments this morning in response to questions about the $4,000 dinner at the mansion auctioned off at a recent fundraiser for Burner, the Democratic candidate in the 8th Congressional District.

There's no embarrassment on Gregoire's part. She seemed more angry than anything about questions raised about the propriety of using the mansion for political purposes. She makes living in the beautiful home sound like an awful burden — and perhaps unlivable if she isn't able to have dinner with whomever she wants:

"I think there's fundamentally something wrong when I can't invite somebody into my private quarters at the mansion, buy food and my husband and I make them a dinner. I think there's something wrong with that, OK?
I don't think you're going to get any governor who's going to want to live over there if that's the criteria by which they have to live there — that they can not invite anybody and have a private dinner at their own expense, made by themselves. There's just something wrong with that.

(...)

"If I'm going to have it in my own private kitchen upstairs, I bought the food, I made the dinner — I can't invite you to dinner because you're a member of the press? Somebody might think there's something wrong with that? I think that's wrong.

"I ought to be able to live in that house. As restrained as it is to live in that house. Come live in it for week. Come live in it for a week. ... It's a difficult place to live in, folks. You've got guards there all the time. You're not free to do a whole lot. So I can't invite somebody to my private quarters, pay for the food, make the food myself? There's something wrong with that."

Gregoire's statements were firm, but she was not exactly clear. In general she makes no distinction between overtly political events like the dinner to raise money for Burner, charity events like something to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club, or her own private life.

She said she's never done a political event there and never before auctioned off a dinner for a campaign fundraiser.

So by not doing that now all the fun has been sapped out of living in the mansion? She makes it sound like a marble prison.

There's a clear difference between charity events and political events. There are social events, too. The press was invited to the mansion recently for a reception. Legislative leaders are there frequently during the session. The governor can have all the friends she wants to for dinner. She could invite random people off the streets.

In fact, there's no evidence she can't have fundraisers there if she wants to. But apparently the reaction in some quarters to the Burner dinner lead the winning bidders to change their mind and take their dinner elsewhere.

Gregoire said she and her husband, Mike, have worked to open the mansion more to the public. That's a great thing. It's a beautiful building and I wish more people could see it. They have guidelines for use of the building, including the very smart decision not to hold charity events there unless she or Mike are in attendance.

"So the place isn't up for rent," Gregoire said. "The place isn't up for sale."

I don't know why the governor seemed so perturbed about this. She thought it was OK to hold the dinner. Republicans complained, as did some bloggers. I questioned the political judgment of the move. But no one has ruled it can't be done. If she believes so strongly she should be allowed to do it, then she should go ahead.

But no one should confuse charity with politics.

At the Slog, Erica C. Barnett points out that whichever candidate is named the official winner in the Jamie Pedersen/Jim Street count:

The 43rd District is now the only legislative district in Seattle without a single female representative.

Barnett posted in response to what she said was sexism in the comments in this Slog post about Stephanie Pure.

Record spending in court races and the nasty ad campaigns have some on the left saying it's time to stop electing judges in Washington. The P-I editorial board said:

Rather than leave such important decisions to the vagaries of the public vote, or to the narrow scope of political appointments, Washington's justice system would be improved by a combination of independent committee selection of appointments and retention elections for judges.

For David Goldstein at horsesass.org, it's as much or more Richard Pope's good showing last week than the Supreme Court races that leads him to say:

It is time to stop electing judges. We need to create some sort of nonpartisan commission to interview and nominate slates of candidates from which the Governor is free to make appointments. And we need to institute regular retention votes, through which voters can remove sitting judges based on their performance on the bench, rather than in a name-familiarity contest.

It's not going to happen. This battle has been fought several times before. And in a state that still — in some counties — elects partisan coroners, there is little support to take away voters' power in electing judges.

There's been teeth-gnashing over politics in judicial races for nearly 100 years. Judges used to run partisan races, according to "A Century of Judging," the late Charles Sheldon's excellent history of the state Supreme Court. (No one should be allowed to argue about the court without having read the book.) That ended in 1910 because of fears the judiciary was being politicized.

The current system was the reform. And it's hardly news to criticize it as being too easily swayed by money, or a candidate with a familiar name. Justice Robert Utter wrote in a 1972 University of Washington Law Review, "Facing an election, the judge realizes that he probably will be elected or fail to be elected on the irrelevant issue of name familiarity."

There have been attempts to change the system since at least 1966 with the Citizens Committee on Washington Courts. The group's call for retention elections went nowhere.

The most recent major effort came in 1996 with the Walsh Commission, which called for judges to be appointed and then stand for retention elections.

The report got some media coverage, but little traction. It was criticized as a move to take power from voters, as Seattle attorney Todd De Groff wrote:

The Walsh proposal, in effect, shows no confidence in the voters and drains all of the blood from the judicial election process. The citizens deserve a direct voice in the judicial selection process. Insulating Supreme Court justices from the sound and fury of short-term political pressures while preserving the right of the people to freely choose their judges is the best compromise.

Gov. Christine Gregoire has criticized the role money is playing in the court races, and also has been raising money for court incumbents. She says voters here don't want Washington judicial races to become like some other states' races, "where literally, it's about money and politics."

But she doesn't support changing how judges are elected. I asked her about it at a July 17 press conference and she said the Walsh Commission report "didn't catch on politically."

"The public really wants to vote and I respect that."

I'm confident that the system we have will be around for a long time to come.

I had all these really smart things I was going to write about last night's primary but then I remembered I'm on my way to take my son to college. So I'll largely let the primary results stew for a few days.

I'll also be sifting through the entries in the primary contest.

In short, I don't think the primary results tell us anything at all about what might happen in November. But please use this comment thread to disagree if you have found some deeper meaning.

Former New York City Mayor and potential presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani will come to the state Oct. 9 to help Mike McGavick. Giuliani is the sort of moderate and independent Republican McGavick wants to surround himself with. No details yet.

In case there was any question, Republicans in the 4th Congressional District still seem to like their congressman.

It is not at all clear to me why King County is so slow in counting ballots.

Before the election, the election office posted the "2006 King County Primary and Special Elections Results Schedule." It explained that polling place votes would be counted slower this year because results would not be electronically transferred from polling places. But, the county said the posting of absentee ballots counted will not be affected.

But last night, when the count of absentee ballots was slow, the county issued a press release: "Pick-a-party primary slows vote tabulation".

Interim Elections Director Jim Buck said it was a matter of being extra careful. He was quoted as saying, "We are taking the extra time necessary to make sure everyone's vote is counted accurately."

Buck went on to explain that because many voters didn't pick a party on their ballots, tabulation machines spit the ballots back and staff were forced to first manually inspect the ballot and then manually override the tabulation machines so non-partisan races could be counted.

But numbers provided by the county in the press release show that workers were actually counting faster this year than in 2004. In 24 hours in 2004 they counted 70,299 absentee ballots. Yesterday they counted for 12 hours, and counted 45,521 absentee ballots. Math is not my strong suit, but at that rate they were on course to count 91,042 over 24 hours.