VG: Governor's Race

So let's start our tour of the Voter's Guide with the Governor's race, which is the most packed of the group, with ten candidates who would normally be split up as minor challengers within the big parties and minor party candidates in the general. In the Voter's Guide, these were assigned an order based on a d20 roll (and no counting higher Dex or the Improved Initiative Feat), so you have a scramble of explanations, serious candidates cheek-by-jowl with the nutters. Me, I'm going to list them as the Inevitables, the Well-Intentioned, and the Deluded.

Let's start up with Chris (Christine) Gregoire, who is an inevitable because she is the incumbent. In her write-up, she naturally stresses a position of "Things don't suck" - We had a 2.7 Billion dollar budget hole, which we patched. We had huge unemployment, and now have the third-fastest growing economy in the nation. We had overcrowded prisons, so we built more. Things don't suck, so vote for me.

The other inevitable is Dino Rossi, who, being the leading challenger, represents the position of "Things Really Suck". We're heading for a 2.5 Billion dollar budget hole, traffic is horrible, and sex offenders are roaming our streets (Boo!). He promises to relieve the traffic problem and solver the budget hole without raising your taxes. No idea how this is going to happen - maybe we'll start taxing those sex offenders. But things really suck, so vote for me!

Then we move into the well-intended with Chris (Christopher) Tudor, the manager of the College Inn up in U-District, running as an independent. Now, he sounds frighteningly sane in his voter's guide - he's running against political parties in general. Downside is no political experience, but that's not a killer, particularly when dealing with state government. I strongly recommend that if you're sick of the top two, this is a great place for your protest vote.

John W. Aiken comes across as pretty sane as well, and is the leading candidate for the Republican Party (Rossi is campaigning as a member of the G.O.P. party, whatever THAT is). A lot of civics class basics here, but there is an interesting turn in the local Republican party to casting itself as pro-environment.

Also well-intentioned BUT HEAVY ON THE ALL_CAPS KEY is James White, pro-family and pro-Constitution, with side orders of energy and environment. Can't find a lot to hit him on from the Voter's Guide, so if you trend toward the law-and-order types, take a look.

Duff Bagley is the Green party candidate, and while I admire all the coolness he advocates, he does take a bit of poetic flight in his Candidate Statement - "Our Climate Crisis demands profound cultural change now. As in childbirth, pain will attend this change." And hopefully, as in childbirth, drugs will be readily available.

Chris (Christian) Pierre Joubert is definitely in the territory of candidate statement as expression of personal world-view. Here's part of the first (extremely long) line - he believe that "... Washington State should be leading the Nation in promoting a Spiritual Civilization based on holistic medicine, alternative energy, affordable housing..." That last can be attained through "compassionate solidarity and eco-construction technology (strawbale, wood, clay)". But if those don't work, there's always the non-compassionate house made of bricks.

Javier O. Lopez is running on Honesty, Ethics, and Integrity. Oddly enough, he is also running as a Republican. He is also the inventor of an "air engine", but is notably sketchy on the details.

We met Mohammad Hasan Said back in 2004 in the Voter's Guide, when he was a Democrat tracing our nation's problems back to Israel. This time out he rejects all parties, and gets deeply into his candidate statement before this line pops up: "Finally I would like to sound the alarm, that AIPAC and other Jewish Zionist Lobbies who represent less than 2% of American People are using the United States through their mighty power in the News Media, Financial Institutions, Hollywood and Entertainment Industry". Jewish Zionist Lobbies? Ah, it is good to see conspiracy theory represented - though next time he might want to go after the Knights Templar instead.

And speaking of conspiracy theory, we lastly have Will Baker of the Reform Party, who we also met in 2004 and noted then that he was well known for being arrested for disrupting public meetings (or to spin it slightly better - "familiar with the criminal justice system"). He devotes his candidate statement to declaring Christine Gregoire to be "The Cover-Up Queen". His logic seems unassailable:
A) Gregoire is corrupt
B) No one has found this corruption, so
C) Gregoire is a Master Criminal who is expert at covering up her tracks.
Um, yeah. Actually, I consider that having such a brilliant mastermind in charge of our state might just be a GOOD thing, but then I'm not running for governor.

More later,