This is a quiet year in elections around here, at least it is if you're not living in Seattle proper, which is electing its entire City Council. For the rest of us, we're looking at two initiatives, four referendums which don't meet squat, a couple Port positions, and nothing in the way of state legislature, judges, state executive offices, Congress, or the Presidency.
There is is a lot going on, politically, but most of it is going on behind the ballot. There has been a lot of activity in the state legislature, the judiciary, and the state executive branch, as well as news within the nature of initiatives themselves. Plus the run-up to the national elections.
So I'm going to be talking politics beyond the borders of the ballot box for a while. But when I am talking about the elections themselves, I tend to do the following:
- I don't talk much about positions that have only one candidate. I always prefer a healthy choice, but I am denied that sometimes, and I can live with it.
- I don't talk much about elections I am not voting in. I don't live in Seattle, so the entire City Council thing, which will have a deep effect on my life, is outside my portfolio, and will be pretty much ignored. Which is a pity, since a helluva scandal just broke loose where a developer tried to shake down a candidate.
- I am by no means a final word on these things. I will provide you folks to links to make up your own mind. Hey, I tend to be lefty in my outlook, but that doesn't make me right. I will point you (when they get their recommendations up) to the generally reliably conservative Seattle Times, which has slowly been making its way through the list, as well as The Stranger, which still weighs in, though it seems to think the world ends at the southern border of Georgetown, the Municipal League, and other blogs.
So let us take a leisurely stroll through matters this year, because next year we cry havoc and let slip the dogs of woah!
More later,