After Action Report

Back from Paris, currently wrestling with a nasty cold. However, let's take a look at the remains of the election.

In the Puget Sound area, it was a good time to be an incumbent. People in office tended to stay in office. An exception was the head of the Seattle School Board, who was replaced with retired teacher Marty McLaren. The Seattle Times feels that this is not due to the lack of leadership or attention of the school board for all its recent scandals, or a solid and rational ground game by the challenger, but rather those darn unions (I swear, the Seattle Times is so darn CUTE sometimes).

Onto the initiatives. I-1125 (the Eyeman one) went down in flames, not getting enough support from the rest of the state to overwhelm the deep hatred of it in vote-dominant King County. If I-1125 was a movie, it would be one of those Uwe Boll clunkers. the ones that come out that everyone wonders how a movie this bad got made. And in fact, like Uwe Boll movies, the movie is not the reason for the project, but rather the deal to MAKE the movie. And once the deal for this initiative was made to draw off huge sums of money to launch it, really winning the initiative was besides the point.

If I-1125 is a Uwe Boll movie destined for perpetual repeat on the Syfy channel, then I-1183 (the Costco one) is the too-big-to-fail blockbuster that had star power and huge press going in. And like the blockbuster, it had its great opening weekend, carrying handily to allow the poor, impoverished big box stores to market megaliters of Jack Daniels. The deal won't go down for another six months, so we're about a year out before we start seeing the articles about what went wrong with this plan. For the moment, the Times feels we need to make the change immediately! The people have spoken!

(Actually, the Costco initiative not only shows that our initiative system can be bought, it sets a price tag on it - $33 Million (22 from Costco, 11 from the Beer and Wine lobby opposing it). Now we just need an initiative saying that you can pass your own law for $33 Mill, and leave us middle-men voters out of the process entirely).

And then there is I-1163 (the care workers one), the quiet indie picture that pops up, grabs the awards, and then disappears again. Lacking the hoopla of the Costco and Eyeman amendments, it coasted to an easy victory. Of course, the Seattle Times scolds that we don't have the money (having just sold off all our liquor stores) and we should ignore this. The people are fools! (Like I said, the Seattle Times is SO CUTE in its lack of self-awareness).

The Resolutions passed without any problems, and while it is nice to be asked, this is the sort of thing that is the second feature, the lower billed, less talked-about film. Nothing big on those ones, and no surprises.

So that leaves us with election 2011, the offist of the off-year elections. And now begins the slouching towards 2012. Oh joy.

More later,