Let's stipulate for starters that no Democrat is on their preferred rhetorical ground when they're debating whether or not Tim Eyman is getting the best of them in Olympia.
But that's not the real issue for the Governor. The disgruntlement of the Christine Gregoire's liberal base, as described here and here by David Postman, is. Postman's analysis that angry liberal bloggers and those of similar mind are not going to vote for Dino Rossi, but they're still a problem for Gregoire.
Any regular reader of Joel Connelly (insert joke of your choice here), for example, knows that left-of-center columnist has spent a fair amount of print space the last few years talking about Gregoire's troubles with run-of-the-mill Democrats; Dinocrats as it were. That isn't just anecdotes Connelly is talking about. Gregoire dramatically underperformed the rest of the Democratic ticket in 2004, right in the heart of the metropolitan Puget Sound area . Her undeclared re-election campaign does not want to repeat that trend.
Why? No candidate in their right mind wants to head into a race predicted to by highly competitive with a base that is likewise highly unmotivated. But what can Gregoire do about it?
Pander to her liberal base in the upcoming legislative session? Not likely. Such excess would just boost Dino Rossi's already strong position with the independent and moderate voters who supported him last time and who remain wary of Olympia and the general level of anxiety was made relatively clear in this month's election.
Odds are, Gregoire will struggle to make her base happy. Indeed, her best hope on that score is praying for Rossi and his campaign to make a mistake.
Needing your opponent to screw up to make things right with your own base is a bad place to be. That's why Gregoire is in a bit of a pickle right now.
Posted by Eric Earling at November 30, 2007 07:30 PM | Email ThisShe and her legislature cannot do SQUAT during an election year except pray that the sheeples memory span is less than 18 months.
Posted by: Andy on November 30, 2007 07:31 PMStand by for sorority story redux.
Posted by: Organization Man on November 30, 2007 08:42 PMLogically, Gregoire would be inclined to appoint a woman, since there are five men and four women on the high court right now, and replacing Bridge with a woman will keep four women on the court. And no one from eastern Washington has served for MANY years -- in spite of being 22% of the state's population. An eastern Washington appointee would help Gregoire with this area, where she has been politically very weak.
Out of eastern Washington attorneys and jurists, Kulik would be at the top of Gregoire's list. The first woman to ever serve on the Court of Appeals from eastern Washington, not to mention 25 years in the AG's office -- and working as one of Gregoire's top aides. Plus Kulik would seem ideologically compatible, given her I-747 decision and other indications of her judicial philosophy.
But a Kulik appointment could backfire. Kulik was arrested for drunk driving on November 15, 2003, Chelan County District Court No. C-14440-CHS-CT. The well-connected Kulik was able to get her friends in the Chelan County Prosecuting Attorney's office to immediately dismiss the charges. The prosecutor falsely told the judge that they were going to re-file the charges, but never did. This dismissal was highly unusual, since it was done immediately after the deputy sheriff filed the ticket with the court. Kulik was arrested on a Saturday. Two days later, on Monday morning at 9:30 a.m., Kulik didn't even have to appear for arraignment -- apparently being informed in advance that the charges would be dismissed.
Now, it is possible that the charges against Kulik were completely bogus, and that dismissal was appropriate. However, I imagine that the news media (and Republicans) might look into this matter, if Gregoire (as expected) appoints Kulik to the high court. Certainly, police reports exists, breath test results exist, and other records about the facts of Kulik's arrest exist.
If it turns out that Kulik was probably guilty of drunk driving from these public records, and that she was unfairly not prosecuted at all for this alleged crime, then this will sink Kulik if she runs (as expected) against strong opponents like John Groen for a full term in November 2008. It will also severely weaken Gregoire, whether or not Gregoire ever had any personal knowledge of Kulik's drunk driving arrest prior to making this appointment.
Of course, even if Gregoire doesn't appoint Kulik to the high court, she still appointed Kulik to the Court of Appeals in early 2006. While Republicans are probably hoping that Gregoire will appoint Kulik to the Supreme Court for maximum political damage, you can surely expect them to make strong political attacks against Gregoire simply because of the arguably flawed Court of Appeals appointment which has already taken place. Especially given Kulik's vote to strike down I-747.
Posted by: Interested Observer on November 30, 2007 08:43 PMspecial session, post mortem
What an exciting, invigorating, adrenaline-rush day. You should all be extremely proud of yourselves. The only reason Gregoire and the Legislature did what they did was because of all of you. The greatest reason for this special session to impose property tax limits was because of the voters' approval of Initiative 960 on November 6th. If that hadn't happened, politicians would have said 'the voters have spoken, they love higher taxes' and would have used that as an excuse to let the supreme court rejection of I-747 stand.
Your phone calls and letters and emails to legislators brought about this special session. And your phone calls and letters and emails reminded legislators the people were watching. They knew any shenanigans and chicanery would be exposed.
And it worked out beautifully. Even if for only a day, the people pushed and Olympia responded.
Is it what the voters want? No, the voters want a real 1% cap on property tax increases. Gregoire's bill promises a 1% cap but it doesn't fulfill that promise. But hey, we're dealing with Gregoire and the Democrats -- they're amateurs when it comes to tax relief -- it is not in their nature -- so we'll take what we can get, even a bill with a huge loophole in it. We're glass-is-half-full kind of guys. We can't help but be ecstatic by the results of this special session and you should be too.
There's something especially delicious about this: I-747 received 58% voter support. But in the special session, it received 91% support from politicians in the state house. It received 81% support from politicians in the state senate. So on this day, politicians supported it by a much higher rate than the voters did. And it was signed into law by a tax-hiking Democrat Governor. What's not to love about that?
Thank you all for your persistence, endurance, passion, enthusiasm, courage, and determination. You're the ones that made this possible.
Posted by: Tim Eyman, I-747 co-sponsor on November 30, 2007 10:38 PMVoter pressure put on legislators over the past three weeks (and frankly over the past 10 years). Nothing like having 5 state supreme justices calling the people stupid to motivate and galvinize the support of the 58% of the people who approved I-747 (and a whole lot of the 42% who voted no but who have come to rely on its taxpayer protections). It was a huge 200,000 vote margin. Under the court's theory, then, 100,000 voters voted yes, but 'mistakenly' voted yes (because of some magical hypnotism or voodoo, i suppose) when they would have voted no if only they had known 'the truth'. Unbelievably absurd.
As for Adam Kline, he is fantastic. The media loves conflict and he and I provide lots of it. But the reality is that when he looks at me, he gets angry because he sees himself. Same aggressiveness, bombacity, and media whorishness. Different political philosophy, sure (he wants government to have 100% of taxpayers' paychecks), but the tactics are identical. No, don't think for a second that I don't like and appreciate him and accept him as he is. What's not to admire about his aggressiveness and yes, rudeness -- civility is overrated. He believes in what he's doing and he's working the press to get his message to the people. It's the challenge we all face when dealing with a manytimes lazy press.
The problem is that his philosophy didn't have the support of the people (58%), his colleagues in the state house (91%) nor his colleagues in the senate (81%). Every Republican and probably 80% of elected Democrats, including tax-hiking Democrat Gregoire, voted against his philosophy.
I didn't call the special session, Democrat Governor Gregoire did. I didn't write the bill, his Democrat colleagues did. I didn't vote for their bill, his Democrat colleagues did. He called me names, but the reality is he really wanted to call Gregoire and his Democrat colleagues those names but that'd hurt his own party so he does some gratuitous Eyman-bashing to try to keep the D's base energized. Not a bad strategy if you think your base is stupid and won't recognize the hollowness of his tactic. But again, he's playing with the cards he's been dealt and making the best of it.
I thought it was funny that you were called a coward, when the Democrats only did this 1 percent thing because they were afraid of what voters would do next year if they didn't. :-)
Of course, SOME legislators are in safe districts, and could vote for higher taxes ...
Posted by: pudge on November 30, 2007 11:49 PMHowever, Gregoire's base will be plenty excited about the presidential race. What she has to worry about is what happened in 2004. Voters turned out and voted D all the way till they got the Governors race, then switched to R. I don;t think this was liberal angst, but more of a problem with moderates. They saw Rossi as a "different kind of politician".
Her actions on I-747 is an effort to avoid that this time around. Essentially she knows liberals will turn out to vote for a president after 8 years of Bush, so she really doesn't have to worry to much about them. Once their in the booth they'll vote for her. What she has to worry about is moderates seeing her as to extreme and falling for Rossi's moderate veneer.
Hence over the next year you'll she her play up her moderate problem solving cards, and try to show Rossi as an extreme conservative.
They sense a weak swimmer.
Posted by: John Bailo on December 1, 2007 01:51 AMTim, that there is funny stuff....
I don't care WHo y'ar!!
I'll bet Adam reads your comments Tim and seethes.....and his sphincter seezes up.
He cannot help himself!!!
This LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS are oh so serious and oh so self-rightious.
Adam Kline is incapable of laughing at himself....just like his mentor KARL MARX!
"Seattle & Olympia would not be in such a SNARL..
If Marx had been Groucho, instead of KARL!"
You can use that one Tim...be my guest.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on December 1, 2007 10:37 AMYou'd have a good argument, if the incumbent in question had a good record, or even an undistinguished one.
But Mrs Gregoire has a terrible record: she reneged on her promise not to raise taxes, failed to uphold strong standards for schools, etc, etc.
After she called the special session, Goldy and the other lefty wingnuts called her a coward, for caving in on the tax-cap issue.
Which leaves me in the odd position of being in agreement with Goldy, something I can't recall ever happening before. (Of course, I've thought Gregoire was a coward ever since her mismanagement as State AG cost the State a huge default judgement. Instead of taking responsibility, she blamed the attorney that she had overworked to the point of collapse, and who was on medical leave when the State failed to meet a filing deadline.)
As I see it, based on her lousy performance, nobody who voted against Mrs Gregoire in 2004 is going to change their mind in 2008, and now she has managed to alienate a large (well, loud anyway) portion of the people who did vote for her.
Posted by: ewaggin on December 1, 2007 02:23 PMRestore I747 and forget all the Banked taxes before I747.
That is like the Democrats offering us Gas at 1 cent a gallon!
But requiring that we have a 3 inch hose at the bottom of our gas tank, leading right back into the the Gas station's holding tank.
Perpetual motion
Or Perpetual BS
Your call!
Posted by: GS on December 1, 2007 05:01 PMActually the arguement that incumbents always win goes for more than just good incumbenants. POliticians once in office really have to screw up bad to get the boot from citizens unfortunatly. It has alot to do with the campaign finance laws that they keep throwing at us.
Anyways with gregoire, I am no fan, but she is not rocking the boat. My dad, a lifetime republican has even apologized to me a couple times saying that he actually likes her cause she has not raised taxes much for him and has done things like call the special session to put this cap back.
RIght or wrong that is what the average voter has seen. She will be re-elected. I wish it were not true, but it will happen unless we try something drastically different... like a candidate that truly wants to scale back government, not just slow its growth.
Travis
Posted by: Travis on December 1, 2007 09:01 PMNo County should release their counts until all counties are complete.
It spews corruption