Political Desk: Redux and Reax

So while I was gone, we had a primary here in Washington State. And remember when the conventional wisdom was that the incumbents were all in trouble because a new wind was breaking across our land? Well, forget about that, because things ended up pretty much as expected, and now there is a NEW conventional wisdom in place. Let's do the numbers:

The big number, a week after the polls close, is 40%. That's the turnout for the election. Not great, but not bad by any means. King county ranked in at 37%, which means that we need to do some work.


United States Senator: The top of the ticket will be Patty Murray (46 %) versus Dino Rossi (33%) with more conservative Clint Didier (12%) dropping out of the final. The conventional wisdom says this is a defeat for the Democrat, because an incumbent must have more than 50% of the primary vote to have any chance in the general.
I will note that Norma Gruber, who did nothing on her voter's profile, did better than most of the minor candidates because she was first in line. Just saying.

United States Representative Congressional District No. 8: The general will be Dave Reichert (47%) against Suzan BelDene (26%), and the conventional wisdom says this is a defeat for the Democrat because the incumbent got a larger percentage vote, even if he didn't get a majority. Didn't the conventional wisdom just say that the incumbent must get at least 50%. Yeah,but  the conventional wisdom hates Democrats - I thought you knew that.
Alas, my favorite candidate, Caleb Love Mardini, scraped by with a mere .61% of the vote.

Legislative District No. 47 State Senator Will be Joe Fain (56%) against incumbent Claudia Kauffman (44%). Ahah! rebellion against the incumbents. Well, actually, Fain has been blanketing the area with a strong ground game of pamphlets and yard signs, hitting early and often. A lot of cash being dropped here.

Legislative District No. 47 Representative Position No. 1: Will be traditional GOP candidate Mark Hargrove (40%) against Geoff Simpson (39%), with Seattle-Times endorsed Nancy Wyatt getting only 21% (It is the yard signs, I tell you).

Legislative District No. 47 Representative Position No. 2: Pat Sullivan (54%) against Rodrigro Yanez (45%)

State Supreme Court, Judicial Position No. 1: Jim Johnson (61%) keeps his job without further consideration. Why yes, we ARE comfortable with an incumbent owned by the BIAW. Thanks for asking.

State Supreme Court, Judicial Position No. 6: Richard Saunders (47%) against Charles Wiggins (40%) with Bryan Chuchcoff taking 12% and dropping out. Again, Conventional wisdom figures the slightly-more conservative incumbent is going to win it, but then, conventional wisdom has been hitting the sauce as of late.

And that's it, with a general election shaping up consisting of all the people we thought would be in the general election. But it will COMPLETELY DIFFERENT this time because we're looking at Initiatives this time!

More later,