The Tacoma News-Tribune reports on yesterday's meeting of the state Democrat party central committee:
Leaders of the state Democratic Party voted overwhelmingly Saturday to support Lt. Ehren Watada, the Fort Lewis officer who refused orders to serve in IraqThe endorsement of Watada's mutiny is inimical to the fundamental principles of American democracy, in which the military is subordinate to democratically elected civilian governments and not the other way around. Adding insult to injury, some of the WSDCC equate the United States with Nazi Germany:
To say [Watada is] required to follow all orders would be to negate the Nuremberg trials," said Mike Mosbarger, a Mason County DemocratThe Democrat leadership also refuses to respect the wishes of their party's own supporters in selecting a presidential nominee:
The party's central committee also decided to continue the Democrats' tradition of ignoring results of the state's presidential primary election.Whatever the Washington Democrat Party stands for these days, it isn't exactly democracy. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 29, 2007 02:02 PM | Email This
Only the D's completely ignore the Primary.
Posted by: Right Wing Wacko on April 29, 2007 02:31 PMI sincerely hope more state Democrats follow them, shouting their nonsense (that the rest of us know is hate-America rhetoric) as often and loudly as possible.
I firmly believe having Rosie and Imus driven off the air, having a spoiled jerk like Alec Baldwin exposed for the angry hypocrite that he is, having Washington rejoice in the states Supremes decision about KVI, having the country celebrate the Supreme Court decision about partial birth murder, having a plethora of states tighting "rules" before a woman is allowed to kill her child and so many recognizing the Democrat party as white flag cowards is a sign that the giant slumbering electorate WITH common sense is waking up.
We Americans shocked the world as a slumbering giant awoken with 9/11. Now it's the socialist/communist/marxist LIBERALS turn to be shocked when right thinking America wakes up and says "Enough of your bullshit".
Oh, and Ivan... go... adjust your tinfoil hat.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on April 29, 2007 02:41 PMI hate primaries; they are the spawn of Satan.
That people with no commitment to or identification with a political party are allowed to participate in selecting that party's nominee is heinous. I say abolish them altogether.
To those who contend that voters should decide, I respond they should...in elections, not nominating processes. Aside from judicial contests, primary voters don't elect anyone to anything.
If who the Democrats or who the Republicans nominate is so important to you, then become involved in that party. Go to meetings, join, contribute, doorbell, or whatever, but don't just sit in the Barcalounger...
As to other junk the Demos did (Watada, et al), of course we know they're totally out to lunch. It is, after all, the party of perdition.
The Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott on April 29, 2007 03:01 PMHere have a better laugh!
Meet the Press: Harry Reid's Plan for America
Now that was funny!
Posted by: dcat on April 29, 2007 06:17 PMyet we, the younger comfy sheep, just take it as "politics"--yea--sure--
too busy with soccer games or American Idol--inch by inch we are softening like warm butter. only to have a nation like China or any group in the Middle East step in & take over as we have jaws agape.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on April 29, 2007 07:23 PMIf you refuse to identify with a party, why should be permitted to muck about in its affairs??? Go figure...
And come general election time, you're still free to vote for whomever is on the ballot.
Again...primaries are of the devil; they're the spawn of Satan.
The See-You-at-a-Caucus Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott on April 29, 2007 11:52 PMFirst off, if the political parties are not footing the bill for the primary elections then they should have no rights to exclude anyone from voting. The school districts, fire districts, counties, they all have to pay for their elections...but guess what, the legislature has yet to see fit to charge the political parties for running their primaries. Don't give me any crap about the political parties having ownership rights to the primary elections.
Secondly, this is a state that historically has a very high percentage of independant voters, those people who will vote 70% republican at the general election and 30% democrat or the other way around, or will vote straight republican ticket when it comes to executive positions and democrat when it comes to legislative. They don't identify with a party, they identify with candidates. This is one voter out of a couple dozen people I know that won't vote in primary elections because of that change, and I would vote a straight line ticket if they didn't make the change.
Thirdly....1988. I was a delegate at the state convention for George Bush. It was a perfect example of why not to have caucuses in determining nominations in this state. The powers that be, those who ran the Republican party made this state an embarrassment. If there was a primary election, chances are we would have went overwhelmingly for Bush instead the caucuses were loaded up with Pat Robertson supporters and guess who took the state. Not that I don't like Pat Robertson, but come on...don't give me any crap about the caucusus, you will lose every time.
Posted by: Doug on April 30, 2007 07:58 AMAlso, Doug, the government pays for the primary according to state law: the state is not allowed to, by fiat, take away the party's right to association (which is precisely what a blanket primary does). The government does not have to pay for the partisan primary, but the public wants to participate, so they pay for it to accomodate that.
And finally, your thinking is muddled about 1988. Yes, Bush might have won otherwise, but that is an argument for greater participation in party politics, fixing the party, not for taking away the right of association of the party members.
That makes as much (or as little) sense as saying that because people say bad things, we should take away the right of free speech.
Piper Scott: partisan primaries in this state no longer allow you to participate unless you identify with the party, so your criticism (which specifically allows for such identification) is no longer specifically valid.
Perhaps you want more significant identification, but the point is that the parties WANT public participation. And the public WANTS to participate. So we compromise: we allow them to participate with minimal effort and meaning, and they agree to only participate in one party's system per primary, and to foot the bill.
Yes, I know you have to identify with a party in order to receive a ballot. Thank God for small favors...
As to the complaint about public funding of primaries? No problem...eliminate them.
There's no way to objectively prove that cross over voting ever affected a primary outcome. Still...I find the very thought of doing it appalling. Vote for Democrat? My grandmother would rise from her grave and smite me with her DAR gavel, and her father, Ol' Col. Roberts, late of the North Dakota National Guard (he was Master of Horse) and the 20th Maine of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain fame would petition St. Peter to deny me entrance into heaven. Shaky theology, I know, but you get my point.
Minimal participation? Ghastly thougt that, eh what? I suppose you get what you pay for. The idea of minimal participation is anathema to the concept of eternal vigilance. Still...in a free society, that freedom includes the freedom to be ignorent and make ignorent choices.
Independent voters? Hmmm...More rumored than seen in my experience. Most people have a POV of some type, and they tend to vote it. I vote beliefs, principles, and, yes, ideology. No shame, but much honor, there.
But I don't simply vote the party line. When a real chucklehead survives the primary to make it onto the geneeral election ballot, then I'll skip that race or opt for the Libertarian or write in a name. Frankly, the Republican Party needs to do a better job of disavowing certain candidates who are both perennial office seekers and permanent embarrassments. Frankly, that's another problem with both public primaries and weak party leaders.
1988...I, too, was a Bush delegate...at least to my caucus. I was steamrollered by Robertson people. OK...welcome to Democracy. But in the end, who won the office? If the purpose of the policial process is to avoid embarrassment, then why bother? Politics can be a messy business! And the lesson to be learned from '88? Organize, baby, organize!
If we want more QUALITY public participation, then we need to spend more time doing grass roots organizing, and I'm not talking at the precinct level. In the schools and the public forums, 24/7/365 dissemination of the message and the value of participating in the process. Frankly, I don't see local GOP officials taking visible stands or publicly participating save for putting their hands out. Know what I mean?
And we have to encourage people to enjoy the fray! Some of the best times of my life have been in caucuses! I remember 1980 when I lived in Longview where I had a blast taking on all those jelly headed John Anderson delegates who came in thinking they had truth by the tail on a downhill grade. NOT!
My point? Participating in a community conversation with your neighbors in a caucus is a good thing, and it needs to be encouraged. We need more commitment and courage, not convenience and casual connection.
The Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott on April 30, 2007 09:35 AMPudge, don't talk to me about the right to association. Republicans fight long and hard against the teacher's union's right to association to keep them from spending money campaigning against republicans but then the two-faced republican leadership cry out 'right to association' and deny any citizen who wants to vote 95% republican, the right to have any of their votes count, because they choose one candidate for one position that the party doesn't support. They don't support it unless it's to their advantage...so much for having a moral compass.
Same situation but one deals with involuntary contributions and the other deals with the right to vote....I guess I consider the right to have a vote counted more important than a couple dozen dollars.
Pudge, the public pays for the primaries because the legislature doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds it and make the political parties pay for the primaries. It amounts to a multi-million dollar gift of public funds to the political parties. And like any recipient of public dollars, the parties can't claim 'right of association' and limit who gets to vote. Can you imagine if the transit authorities or the like decided to limit those who get to vote to those who ride the metro? How about the Seattle School district limiting those who get to vote for school board to women and minorities?
Someday the Grange will go back to court on this issue and either the political parties will have to pay for the primary, or they won't get to make the rules on how the votes are counted.
I personally believe that the parties have the right to only count those party line ballots if they choose, but only if they pay for the election, which they don't, so until they do they will have my wrath.
Posted by: Doug on April 30, 2007 12:46 PMPudge, don't talk to me about the right to association.
I do, and I will. *Shrug.*
Republicans fight long and hard against the teacher's union's right to association to keep them from spending money campaigning against republicans
That is false. No one has fought to keep the union from spending money campaigning against Republicans. What is being fought is using SPECIFIC funds that people, by law, were forced to give to the union in order to have a job as a teacher.
THAT is the free association violation here: forcing teachers to pay dues to fund candidates they don't like. You have it completely backward by sticking up for the union: the union is violating free association of their contributors, with the consent and approval of a Democratic legislature.
I mean, do you really want to stick up for this practice? The elected Democrats force teachers to give money to a union which, against the will of the teachers, gives the money back to the Democrats. This is corruption of the first order, and you're saying that the union is getting a raw deal by being disallowed to engage in such corruption?
It boggles the mind.
Pudge, the public pays for the primaries because the legislature doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds it and make the political parties pay for the primaries.
That may be a part of it, but only a small part. The people simply do not want to be left out of the process. They are angry about losing the blanket primary, but most of them would be angrier still at losing the primary entirely.
It amounts to a multi-million dollar gift of public funds to the political parties. And like any recipient of public dollars, the parties can't claim 'right of association' and limit who gets to vote.
No, it is no multimillion dollar gift. That would only make sense if the parties were actually getting something of monetary value. They aren't. They are getting public participation which the parties may or may not want, and even if they do want it, they want primarily for purposes of principle, and has no significant monetary value.
The public gets a hell of a lot more out of it than the parties do.
Even if you were right that this is a handout, this point would still be wrong. The government choosing to fund your event does not take away your rights. If the government doesn't like it, they can simply not pay for it. This isn't a contract or a budget item, where the parties are free to decline the expenditure. This is State Law. The money is not going to the parties, and it will be spend, and the primary conducted, with, or without, the consent of the parties.
The parties are, of course, free to simply ignore the primaries, which is what we we did in the Snohomish County GOP a couple of years ago for the "off year" county elections.
Someday the Grange will go back to court on this issue and either the political parties will have to pay for the primary, or they won't get to make the rules on how the votes are counted.
The parties don't make the rules NOW on how the votes are counted. The parties only make the rules on how their own candidates are selected. Who gets to have an "R" or "D" next to their name. And there is no way that's going to change, no matter how much money the Grange wastes on more illegal initiatives and frivolous lawsuits: a supermajority of the Supreme Court has said that is how it is (the California Democratic Party case of several years ago), and how it will remain: the parties get to choose their own candidates, and make up their own rules for how they will be selected.
The only question here is simply whether the State will choose for the government to pay for it. That is literally the only real question here. They can take it or leave it. If they take it, things remain as they are. If they leave it, then the public is ticked off at the state legislature for failing to allow them to participate in the primary.
You may not like it, but there are literally no other options for your side here.
I reply to this separately because it show perfectly represents how wrong-headed your thinking is.
According to you, the government can pass a state law for any private organization, against the will of that organization, and thereby take over that organization's right to association.
So the Democrats could pass a law calling for public election of the editors of Sound Politics, and Sound Politics would be obligated to follow the will of the electorate.
It goes without saying, I think, but I'll say it anyway: that's total bunk.
So the union is violating free association of it's contributors with consent of the state? And is my political party violating free association of this contributor by not allowing me to vote in a way that shows political dissent from my association? Same principle. I don't support the WEA on this issue or the lawmakers who hurredly passed the law, but if a Republican is complaining about the WEA on this issue then they should be supporting free association of 'it's contributors" as well.
It doesn't matter what the public gets out of it, if the parties are getting something of value from the government without paying for it, it's a public gift of funds. The parties are happy to sit back and say 'we don't want the primaries so you pay for it,' but if they use the primaries or make demands on how the primaries are run - for example requiring voters to specify which party they want to vote, then they are receiving a service that is worth millions to them.
I'll reword that last point you discussed: The state has the right to run the primary election anyway it chooses, including allowing all voters to vote any which way they want to, as long as the state or counties are paying for it...and there is nothing that the political parties can do to change that.
One major flaw in the reasoning here, is that the right to association would entail members gaining access to the association or becoming members or the like. Of course in this state no individual needs to become a member of the Republican or Democrat party in order to have their votes counted, the law presumes an 'affiliation' with the party upon completion of a ballot. Your California supreme court case, even written by my beloved Federalist Scalia was severely flawed in it's opinion - the last lines being:
"the State of California has made them so by forcing political parties to associate with those who do not share their beliefs. And it has done this at the "crucial juncture" at which party members traditionally find their collective voice and select their spokesman."
You can see the flaw. There is no proof whatsoever that in the state of Washington, our primary ensures that those who share the Republican beliefs don't vote for the democrat ticket in the primary. Scalia referred to this in a dissent in a prior case, however sticking to your California case, he and the court used a 20% number from polling data to make their decision. Yes, if 20%, or whatever it was, of voters were crossover voters, then that was not insignificant and could cause harm to the right of association of the parties.
Similar polling can show that our current primary system does the same thing by allowing party-line cross-over voting, then where are we at? That would be either a top-two primary run by the state and required of the political parties, or an acknowledgement that the 'political identity' of each party isn't set in stone but actually changes constantly with the make up of those who choose to support all, some, or even just one of it's candidates.
FYI, The state republicans should get on the ball and take the high road, they should come out and support the primary, tell the voters they will count all the votes, no matter who voted them. History is full of examples where the party that took the high road is the party that gained in popularity. We still are seeing benefits from the 'contract with America', granted some areas are still FDR New Deal voters 70 years later. This is a huge political opportunity for the state republicans to gain long term support and goodwill, but they won't, they will use the Democrats decision as an excuse to follow suit.
Posted by: Doug on April 30, 2007 11:21 PMI am fairly certain you misunderstand the right of free association.
I have the right to associate with you, but only if you want to associate with me. I do not have the right to associate with you against your will. And I do not have a right to associate with the Democrats against their will. The Democrats excluding me from their system does not take away any right of mine.
The first part of your post (and then again later) assumes that anyone has a right of free association to be a member of, or participate in, any political party they choose, but that's just not the case. The GOP has every right in the world to tell Dwight Pelz he is unwelcome to participate.
I support the right of WEA contributors to free association, completely and entirely. However, I define it the way the courts traditionally have, which is different from how you're defining it.
And again, please understand this fact: there is nothing (legal) the state can do to force the parties to accept the result of primaries, or even to allow candidates on the primary ballot with R and D labels next to their names, without the permission of the parties. The parties are private organizations, and they own the rights to their names. Period.
And the Scalia quote you mention is not a flaw. It's an obstacle to a perfect system, but we've already discussed that very thing above: our system is a compromise. Just as the parties have the right to not accept any public primary, or the right to accept a blanket primary, they also have the right to accept our current system, and they do accept it. The right to exclude people who may not share Republican values does not create an obligation to do so.
Also, accepting the primary result would not be the high road, it would be the low road: instead of sticking to principles of republicanism and democracy, it would be pandering to score political points. Most of the public may like the GOP to do just that, but most of the public does not understand the system.
And again, you were wrong when you said it the first time, and you remain wrong: there is simply no chance whatsoever that the Republicans will completely ignore the Presidential primary. I am on the Executive Committee of the Snohomish County Republican Party, as chair of the 39th LD. I've spoken directly with people who have a say in the decision itself. There has been no indication from anyone involved that the Republicans will ignore the primary, and Luke Esser himself even said just yesterday (on Upfront with Robert Mak) that a change is not going to happen (unless it is to count the primary for even more, if the Democrats do likewise, which isn't going to happen). So please stop spreading the FUD.
Let him or his supporters visit Arlington National Cemetary. And the Tomb of the Unknown. And all the graves lined up in rows.
Then, shout their tratiorous views there for all to hear, if they are so righteous. The ground would quake with disgust.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on May 2, 2007 10:47 AM