And yeah, this election is important. OK, EVERY election is important, but this one has a lot more riding on it. At the national level we've been seeing a plundering of the public treasury, with a promise of more to come should the Republicans maintain their majority. And yeah, there is all sorts of gerrymandering, suppression, and downright lies being cast about from the conservative and corporatist sides. We have to stop this crap.
And I say that realizing that, from a personal standpoint of what I can affect, I'm not in a bad position at all. I said "NO REPUBLICANS" in the primary, and I pretty much have gotten my wish. The GOP did not put opponents for our State Reps in my district, The County Prosecutor scratched Republican off his descriptive tags,the US Representative battle is between two liberal Democrats, and the US Senator race is between a veteran incumbent and a conspiracy-theory media hack.There are not a lot of Republicans to vote AGAINST for me in this election.
But before I tell you about my ballot, let me point you in the direction of some other people with opinions:
The Stranger has grown up. Yeah, they will pepper their endorsements with f-bombs just to show they can hang with the cool kids down at the skate park, but they are probably the best set of recommendations you can find for locating functional adults who want to be in government. That's right, you're reading an endorsement of an endorsement. They've even been spreading their wings beyond the Puget Sound area to talk about other races elsewhere. You go kids - just clean up your act.
The Seattle Times is ... well ... don't bother. I'm not even going to link them this time. I'm used to them carefully pawing around the issues, then choosing the more traditional, pro-business candidate, but this time their editorial board has really crapped their pants. After whinging about transparency for almost every Democratic candidate in the primary, they have endorsed for US Rep a millionaire real estate investor who won't share his tax returns and is involved with people stiffing their contractors (in other words, a typical modern Republican). And they decided to double-down and re-endorse a State Rep after said rep was accused of rape. So they're spending their time cooing in your ear "Don't worry,.THESE Republicans will be different from all the other Republicans we've recommended over the years". The Times talks a good game about good government, but when push comes to shove, they will sell all y'all out for the price of a two-page spread.
Who else is there? Well, here are the Progressives, and we line up pretty well, but they may have better arguments than I do. Voting for Judges does its normal excellent job, but face the same challenge I do with a lack of competition in most of the races. The Municipal League's site has not been updated since last year, but they are launching ReadySetVote.Org, which acts as a clearing house for other people's endorsements (including a few I will not mention here). The Washington State Conservation Voters are here. The Chamber of Commerce has formed a new pro-business alliance, and are asking for money, but don't seem to have endorsed anyone. The Seattle Transit Blog checks in here.
All of them suffer from the same malady as Grubb Street - We have a couple very, very important races, but a lot of incumbents running against empty chairs. Me? I'm thinking of branching out.
More later,