The three dems say that Pam Roach’s current Democratic opponent Matt Richardson is a sex offender who cannot be trusted with representing 31st District voters, nor can be trusted to be in proximity to teen-aged senate pages.  So, there you have it, local Democrats say that Republican Pam Roach is better than an alleged sex offender. 

At an earlier point in his life, Richardson entered an “Alford plea” to a reduced misdemeanor charge of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes. That allowed him to avoid admitting the facts alleged by the prosecutor while pleading guilty in order take advantage of the prosecutor’s sentence recommendation, according to the Seattle Times.

All in all though, when Democratic politicians endorse Pam Roach for re-election against one of their own, you could say that “Hell Has Frozen Over!”

The Washington Post (which of course is an expert on the “other” Washington), proclaims the Evergreen State’s senate race as a toss up.  This assumes that both Patty Murray and Dino Rossi survive the new “Top Two” primary and advance to battle in November.  Assuming they do both advance, polls seem to show them as very close among likely voter preference.  While the likeliest scenario is that the two most recognizable names in the race do advance, in this Tea Party year, anything is possible on the Republican side.  While it is easy to discount Paul Akers and Clint Didier, the strong anti-incumbent, and anti-establishment passion among conservative voters could really hurt Rossi. Dino Rossi, among the Republicans, is the establishment figure, despite never having won a state-wide race (or at least making his one win stick…).  Add to that the fact that Rossi is an economic conservative, with a more liberal take on the abortion issue, and Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Clint Didier, and we have an interesting mixture that could bite Rossi. 

If Rossi does manage to join Murray in the rarified air of the “Top Two,” he faces the challenge of energizing the conservative voters who currently back Didier, and/or worship Sarah Palin.  If Rossi cannot corral the Republican Party’s usually reliable Eastern Washington base, he will be in serious trouble.  His best shot is to run against President Obama, not against Murray.  Tuesday night will be interesting…

Candidates for Washington State Senate 2010:

Senator Patty Murray is the incumbent, and the only Democrat running at this time.

The incumbent, Senator Patty Murray (D) Campaign website

Several Republicans are running for Murray’s Senate Seat. They include:

Former State Senator Don Benton (R)-Campaign website, BentonForSenate@Twitter, Don Benton on Facebook, Don Benton on YouTube

Paul Akers (R)-Campaign website, Akersforsenate@Twitter, Paul Akers on Facebook, Paul Akers on YouTube

For Governor Gregoire, the timing is perfect, with a highly unpopular budget just passed by the Legislature, most Democratic constituencies in the state unhappy with her (social workers, teacher unions, unions in general, government workers, health care activists, etc.), now is a great time to bail out of a foundering ship of state, and leave the mess to the Lt. Governor, fellow Democrat Brad Owen.  Unless things turn around quickly, and with little pain ( not a likely possibility), Gregoire, should she choose to run for a third term, would likely face a bruising campaign.  With the current Senators from Washington, (Murray and Cantwell), not making noises about retiring, there literally is no where else for this ambitious woman to go.  She has extensive legal experience, served three terms as State Attorney General, and would have the added quality of being, if appointed and confirmed, the only Supreme with elected political experience.  A definite plus if serving in any capacity in Washington City.  Plus, President Obama is a very astute politician, and Washington has firmly been in the Democratic fold in Presidential elections since 1988.  This would be good, quality payback for this state’s firm liberal loyalty.

Washington State would gain advantages from a Gregoire nomination to the Supreme Court as well.  The state has not had a native son (or daughter) on the Supreme Court since William O. Douglas retired in 1975.  Also, given the budget issues mentioned above, a new governor could probably effectively govern better without the baggage of the budget wars recently fougtht in Olympia.  A new Governor Owens would start off fresh, without the leftover detritus that Christine Gregoire will have to deal with the remainder of her term.  If I were the head of the state Democratic Party, I would be actively lobbying the Obama Administration to select Gregoire for all of the above reasons.  Just good politics, you know.

Gregoire has issued the ususal denials, saying things such as ‘thank you, it is such an honor, but…’ which is only par for the course in politics.  You can’t look eager to want something like this.  Playing coy is just part of the game, and Obama certainly knows this. 

Plus, wouldn’t it be cool to see a native of little old Auburn, WA make it all the way to the Supreme Court?

So, wait and see…What do you folks think?

Leave a comment or two…

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008351683_weblocal04.html

ABC News reported on the night of August 22 that:

The United States Secret Service has dispatched a protective detail to assume the immediate protection of Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a source tells ABC News, indicating in all likelihood that Biden has been officially notified that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, has selected him to be his running mate.

Joe Biden ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2004, but never advanced to the point where he received Secret Service protection.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The University of Illinois at Chicago said Friday it is releasing records of Barack Obama’s service to a nonprofit organization linked to former 1960s radical William Ayers.

Supporters of John McCain have been trying to exploit the tie between Obama and Ayers, with a McCain fundraiser donating nearly $2.9 million for an independent ad focusing on Ayers. Ayers’ Weatherman group took credit for bombings that included nonfatal blasts at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.

The records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization that Obama chaired and that Ayers co-founded, will be made available to the public Tuesday, UIC said in a statement.

On Monday, National Review magazine posted an online article saying the university had initially declared that the records were open to inspection but that the university subsequently reversed its position.

On Tuesday, the university said that there had been a misunderstanding about the status of the collection.

The unidentified donor of the records notified the university about the absence of a signed ownership agreement last week.

The donor’s only concerns regarding the collection are due to personal information that could include names, confidential salary information and even Social Security numbers, a university spokesman said at the time.

In its latest statement, the institution said that it now has legal authority to allow public access to the material.

In the 1990s, Ayers was instrumental in starting the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was awarded nearly $50 million by a foundation to help reform Chicago schools. Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Obama and Ayers have other ties.

Ayers held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s. Ayers and Obama live in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

Ayers and Obama served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

The new ad sponsored by American Issues Project says that Obama and Ayers served together "on a left-wing board. Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

According to documents filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission, the ad is being financed by Harold Simmons, a billionaire financier from Texas, who is listed as one of 235 fundraisers who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for McCain’s presidential campaign.

Simmons also was one of the top contributors to Swift Boat Veterans and POWS for Truth, the group that aired ads questioning 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. Democrats have blamed those ads for helping George W. Bush defeat Kerry.

Simmons donated $3 million to the Swift Boat group.

One of the board members at American Issues Project, Ed Failor Jr., was a paid consultant for McCain’s campaign in Iowa last year.

In April, Obama said he "deplored" Ayers’ actions in the 1960s and that "by the time I met him, he is a professor of education at the University of Illinois. We served on a board together that had Republicans, bankers, lawyers, focused on education."

Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

Throughout the night, reports came in that other leading possibilities, including Evan Bayh and Hillary Clinton, reported that they were not the vice-presidential picks.

MICHELLE OBAMA: The potential first lady addresses Democrats at the convention after a rocky summer as the target of conservative attacks. She was harshly criticized by Republicans for her comment that for the first time in her adult life she was proud of the United States — a comment the candidate later said was merely an expression of her pride in high voter interest. The criticism of Michelle Obama led the candidate earlier this year to call for opponents to "lay off my wife." In recent weeks, Michelle Obama has worked to soften her image, talking about raising two daughters in an interview in Ebony magazine and making a June appearance at an Ohio nursing home. Barack Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and Michelle Obama’s older brother, Craig Robinson, also will have roles in the convention.

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: The nation’s first female speaker of the House, Pelosi opens the convention. Pelosi has represented the San Francisco area in Congress since 1987. Since taking the gavel last year, Pelosi has steered a divided House through an economic stimulus package and opposition to many of President Bush’s initiatives, including an override of Bush’s veto of the 2008 farm bill. But so far she has failed to achieve a top goal since Democrats regained control of the House: halting U.S. combat missions in Iraq. The failure has led to criticism of Pelosi by liberal activists.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: The Massachusetts senator is the subject of a five-minute recorded tribute. Diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and recently completing radiation and chemotherapy, one of the nation’s best-known Democrats has been keeping a low public profile. The video tribute will be introduced by his niece, Caroline Kennedy.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner from Georgia addresses Democrats on the convention’s opening night. Some in the GOP sees Carter’s early support for Obama as an opening. Republican presidential nominee John McCain has said that if Democrats see a McCain presidency as a third term for Bush, then an Obama victory would be tantamount to a second term for Carter, who lost his 1980 re-election by a wide margin to Ronald Reagan.

SEN. CLAIRE McCASKILL: The Missouri Democrat was the first woman in the Senate to endorse Obama. She spent a week this summer on a bus tour of swing-state Missouri in support of Obama’s candidacy. McCaskill endorsed Obama just after he lost New Hampshire’s Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton, a politically risky move at the time.

REP. JESSE JACKSON JR.: The son of the civil rights activist has represented the Chicago area since a special election in 1995 and is a national co-chairman of Obama’s presidential campaign. In 2004, Jackson was an early supporter of Sen. John Kerry for his party’s presidential nomination. Party leaders say Jackson’s speech will "tell Barack Obama’s life story."

FORMER REP. LEE HAMILTON: Now president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Hamilton is a prominent Obama supporter from Indiana. After more than 30 years in Congress, Hamilton retired in 1999. He was a top Democrat on the Sept. 11 commission and co-chairman of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Hamilton’s April endorsement of Obama helped the candidate’s camp answer the question — "Who do you want to answer the phone at 3 a.m.?" — posed by the Clinton campaign.

NANCY KEENAN: The president of NARAL Pro-Choice America angered some female voters in May by endorsing Obama, even though Clinton was still in the race. Keenan praised Clinton but said the group was endorsing Obama when it became clear he would win the Democratic nomination.

JERRY KELLMAN: The Chicago native hired Obama in the early 1980s as a community organizer for Chicago’s Developing Communities Project and is often cited as a mentor to Obama.

TOM BALANOFF: The president of the Illinois Service Employees International Union also burnishes Obama’s labor credentials. Balanoff has praised Obama’s votes against trade deals such as the Central America Free Trade Agreement.

REG WEAVER: Weaver leads the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association. The teachers’ union did not endorse Obama until June, after Obama secured the Democratic nomination. "As long as (Clinton) was a viable candidate in the Democratic nomination process, many of our members felt a passionate need to return the loyalty she has earned over decades of support," Weaver wrote at the time.

RANDI WEINGARTEN: Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers. The 1.4 million-member union endorsed Clinton last October but now backs Obama. Despite support for Obama from both teachers unions, not all educators are happy with Obama, who has spoken in favor of performance-based merit pay for individual public school teachers.

LISA MADIGAN: Illinois’ attorney general has at times been mentioned as a candidate to replace Obama in the U.S. Senate for the remaining two years of his term if he wins the presidency.

DAN HYNES: Like Madigan, Illinois’ comptroller has been mentioned as a possible Obama successor in the Senate. Hynes unsuccessfully challenged Obama for the 2004 Democratic Senate nomination but has since been a major Illinois supporter of Obama’s.

ALEXI GIANNOULIAS: The Illinois treasurer was backed by Obama, an endorsement that helped the banking heir win his seat. In return, Giannoulias helped Obama win support among Greek voters in the Chicago area and has raised more than $250,000 for Obama.

MIGUEL DEL VALLE: Chicago’s city clerk rounds out Monday’s group of Illinois officials talking up the candidate from their home state.

JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Democrats salute host city Denver with a speaking slot for the city’s Democratic mayor.

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080822/ap_on_el_pr/convention_speakers_monday_2

Washington now has, thanks to voter initiatives, a so-called Top-Two Primary, in which the top two vote-getters in the primary, regardless of party affiliation, move on to the general election in November.  This means that if there are four candidates in a primary election, for example, two Democrats, one Republican, and one Libertarian, and the two Democrats end up with more votes than the other two candidates, the general election ballot will only feature the two Democrats, leaving the Republican and the Libertarian out of the race.

On August 4, the Seattle Times ran an article detailing the plight of the Libertarian Party and one of its candidates, Ruth Bennett in the primary campaign this year.  It seems that Bennett and her party finds it unfair that the voters did an end-around to negate the assault on voter rights that Bennett’s Libertarian Party was a party to.  The Libertarian Party chair and Bennett said in the Times:

Libertarian Party officials, and others from the Green Party and the Progressive Party, say the new top-two primary system essentially has eliminated their chances of getting to the general election and discouraged many potential candidates from running.

"Everyone who was so eager to take that extra step [and run for office] had the opinion that we had been removed from that equation," said Scott Lindsley, chair of the Washington State Libertarian Party.

Because only two candidates from each primary race will go on to the general election, most third-party candidates will be shut out by Republican and Democratic candidates. With the old system, third-party candidates usually faced little competition from members of their own party in the primary before going on to the general election.

Ruth Bennett, running as a Libertarian for state representative in the 37th Legislative District, says she will be on the general-election ballot only because she’s in a two-person race with a Democratic incumbent.

"The challenge for minor parties is always to be relevant, and I-872 has made them irrelevant," Bennett said, referring to Initiative 872, which voters approved in 2004 to create the top-two primary system.

The Republicans and the Democrats are also complaining about Initiative 872.

Well, that is just two bad for these political parties.  They are now reaping what they sowed.  They took away the right of the people to vote in a truly democratic manner, and now they complain and whine about the alternative chosen by those self-same voters.  There is a movement in King County to make all county elected positions non-partisan.  Hopefully, this effort will succeed, and another voter initiative will drive the authoritarian political parties out the door.  The parties started this battle, and now the voters need to finish it.  The voters need to make every state office, from the governor to the legislature, legally and publicly non-partisan.