Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle (user search)
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  Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle (search mode)
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Author Topic: Washington 2020: The Calm Before the Drizzle  (Read 844576 times)
Meeker
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« on: June 03, 2008, 02:13:58 AM »
« edited: March 16, 2020, 09:10:24 PM by Virginiá »

Well it's filing week in Washington. The reason I bring this up as a slight matter of interest is because of the effects the bizarre new top-two primary is having on the ballot. Party selections are now done by having a candidate fill in a sixteen character space with the name of their party, and you can put whatever you want so long as it isn't vulgar. The current choices of labels by various candidates:

Prefers Democratic Party
Prefers Republican Party
Prefers Democrat Party
Prefers G.O.P. Party
Prefers R Party
Prefers D Party
Prefers Green Party
Prefers Libertarian Paty
Prefers Party of Commons Party
Prefers Independent Party
States No Party Preference

The whole "Prefers G.O.P. Party" strikes me as the silliest, but several incumbent legislators are using it.


*** mod note (7/27/2018): changed '17 in title to '18
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Meeker
meekermariner
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« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2008, 02:37:39 AM »

So by the end of the week should we know who all the candidates are?

Yea - none of that "parties have a week to fill vacancies" anymore. It's a free-for-all, every man for themselves filing bloodfest.

And this system sucks.
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Meeker
meekermariner
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« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2008, 03:06:39 AM »

Did the Republicans ever find a candidate for State Auditor? Or Insurance Commissioner? Hopefully not.

I suspect someone will file eventually, even if it just a Brad Klippert/Hong Tran type. There is a Constitution Party candidate for State Auditor (hasn't filed yet though), so Sonntag won't be running unopposed.

I would love to see the Republican fail to make it to the general in the 7th district.

There's a chance that may happen in the 6th District even. There's a Democrat running to Norm Dicks' left who is generating a fair amount of interest amongst liberals in the party. Him doing well plus low Republican turnout could yield interesting results.

The Treasurer race may also give us a double D general if we're lucky.
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Meeker
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« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2008, 03:25:43 AM »

McIntire is a weirdy. He gives me the creeps.

There's also a Legislature race up in the San Juans that is D vs. G right now.
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Meeker
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« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2008, 03:38:23 AM »
« Edited: June 03, 2008, 03:40:16 AM by PPT Meeker »

Yay, San Juans Purple heart

Isn't there likely going to be a D vs. D race in the 43rd district?

I remember in 2004 or 2006 when they had a primary for the seat that Jamie Pedersen eventually won... All six Democrats got more votes than the Republican. Beautiful!

I'm not sure if Pedersen is getting a challenger or not. The 36th District House seat should be D vs. D, and probably the 33rd District House seat as well (both retirements). The 40th District Senate race maybe D vs. D as well.

There's also probably going to be some R vs. R races in the Eastern Washington for the House. The 4th, 7th, 8th and 14th are all strong possibilities due to retirements.

EDIT: And 46th District House could be D v. D as well... so many fun possibilities.
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Meeker
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« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2008, 09:45:32 AM »

Someone has filed under the label "Prefers America's Third Party"

Our primary is a joke
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Meeker
meekermariner
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« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2008, 04:59:42 PM »

A lot of the Democrats who filed as "Prefers Democrat Party" yesterday have now switched to "Prefers Democratic Party". I wonder if the State Party yelled at them
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Meeker
meekermariner
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« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2008, 05:21:43 PM »

sharon K. Nelson, candidate for State House, seems to have forgotten to capitalize her name
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Meeker
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« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2008, 12:39:35 AM »

A few random updates:

- Prefers G.O.P. Party is very common - I'd say at least 1/4 of the Republicans have chosen that, including The Dino himself.

- The Constitution Party is running several candidates for statewide office, and one for Congress. Considering that the Constitution Party has been basically non-existent in the state for many years now, it's an impressive turnaround on their part. The Libertarians have a candidate for only one office (WA-05) as far as I can tell - an unfathomable decline compared to just 6 years ago.

- Speaking of third parties, there looks to be three opportunities for third parties to get to the November ballot. Only the incumbent Democrat and a Constitution Party candidate have filed for State Auditor, and the Democratic v. Green race for a State House seat up in the San Juans is still without a Republican. An Independent is also the only person running against the Senate Majority Leader in her Spokane district.

- And on a personal note, the candidate for State House whose campaign I'm supposed to be managing doesn't have an opponent as of right now, and we don't know of any in the wings. Kind of pathetic on the local Republican Party's part - just 5 years ago they controlled all three seats in this district and Bush actually won it with 51%.
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Meeker
meekermariner
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« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2008, 01:07:49 AM »

- And on a personal note, the candidate for State House whose campaign I'm supposed to be managing doesn't have an opponent as of right now, and we don't know of any in the wings. Kind of pathetic on the local Republican Party's part - just 5 years ago they controlled all three seats in this district, and Bush actually won it with 51%.

I have no idea what you're going to have me do after the PAC stuff now.  Sad

Kerry got the 51% actually, but I think it used to be really solidly GOP on the state level, didn't it? If the GOP can't recruit for seats like these, they might as well just rename to the Eastern Washington and Lewis County Party and stop bothering.

I could've sworn Kerry got 51% as well, but I checked my super-secret internal Democratic Party stuff before I posted it and they said Bush got 51% so I went with that. Regardless, it's pathetic they can't field a candidate. In 2002 they were running unopposed or winning 75% of the vote. In 2000 our Democratic Party consisted of five people who met in a livingroom. Now we have around 50 very active members, both of the State House seats, and the best they can do is one sub-par candidate for arguably their second or third best shot at a House seat in the entire state.

As for what we ourselves going to end up doing... I don't really know. There will still be a campaign even without an opponent though.
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Meeker
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« Reply #10 on: June 06, 2008, 10:34:24 AM »
« Edited: June 06, 2008, 10:37:33 AM by PPT Meeker »

A Republican filed to run for State Auditor, dashing the Constitution Party's general election hopes. Sad day
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Meeker
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« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2008, 11:58:13 AM »

And here's something interesting - an incumbent State Representative from Olympia has filed as "Prefers Progressive Dem. Party". Now we get into the fuzzy area of whether or not that qualifies as a third party getting elected to the Legislature. Irrelevant for practicality purposes, but absolutely critical for the pedants amongst us.
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Meeker
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« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2008, 12:07:04 PM »


Blogger from Seattle. He's obsessed with election security stuff (anti-VBM, anti-optical scan, etc.) He claims the Democrats will support him, but I highly doubt it. The guys over at (un)Sound Politics have already endorsed him.

So basically a Democrat running to the right of a Republican in a very good Democratic year for an office that has overall little to do with partisanship. Only in Washington!
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Meeker
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« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2008, 12:16:38 PM »

We should've run Dean Logan Sad

There would've had to have been a pretty amazing Democrat for me to not support Reed though, so I'm fine with a non-factor running.
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Meeker
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« Reply #14 on: June 06, 2008, 12:21:09 PM »

Mohammad Hasan Said files!
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Meeker
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« Reply #15 on: June 06, 2008, 12:38:37 PM »

In other good news for democracy, only one of the 22 Judicial races in Pierce County is contested.

Why do we even bother electing these guys? It just wastes time and paper.
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Meeker
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« Reply #16 on: June 07, 2008, 01:07:26 AM »

I've got some more comments and analysis to add later, but for now I'm quite pissed off at the 28th District Republican Party. You are a joke.
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Meeker
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« Reply #17 on: June 07, 2008, 07:29:32 AM »

I guess the CP just got really organized this year, and probably more importantly, got some sort of big fundraising score. I know their Auditor candidate is very serious - not sure if the other ones are just there to fluff the ballot. Regardless, glad to see them still surviving.

My only theory with the LP is that they're really cash strapped. In 2006 they tried to pool all their resources to get the 5% necessary in the Senate race to achieve major party status, but they obviously couldn't try anything like that this year so I'm not really sure what their strategy is going to be. Maybe they want to save their money and spend it campaigning for Barr/Root rather than spending it on filing fees for offices that won't even make it off the August ballot? Or they just have no money at all.

And the Greens made it to the general in the San Juans! Cheesy
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Meeker
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« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2008, 10:12:38 PM »

Didn't notice this before - Ruth Bennett, the LP's 2004 nominee for Governor, is in a one-on-one race with an incumbent Democratic House member. She'll be lucky to break 10%

So we have a D v. G, a D v. L  and two D v. I races for State House, and a D v. I race for State Senate. We won't know about quite a few D v. D and R v. R races until the August primary, but several appear likely in addition to the 5 that are assured (5 Republicans for the House in District 7, 2 Republicans for the House in District 8, 3 Democrats for the Senate in District 11, 2 Democrats for the Senate in District 22, and 2 Democrats for the House in District 32).

8 Senators are unopposed for re-election, as are 19 Representatives, which I'm actually pretty sure is down from last year.
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Meeker
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« Reply #19 on: June 08, 2008, 03:25:17 PM »

Does Washington have any two-winner elections?  And how will those work.  In Nebraska's nonpartisan races which have "top two" primaries, if x candidates are to be elected in the general election, the top 2x candidates in the primary advance to the general election ballot.

I know the two state Representatives elected from each State Legislative District in Washington are elected in separate contests, but there may be some two-winner contests for other offices.  There are in Maine for county charter commissions (those elections are nonpartisan, with no primary or party designations listed) when they are on the ballot, with two charter commissioners elected from each county commissioner district conditional on the concurrent referendum approving the formation of the commission passing (it usually doesn't).  Only one county, Aroostook, has adopted a charter I believe, although Knox County does have an elected Budget Committee unlike all other counties (Aroostook County has an elected Finance Committee) so perhaps they have a charter as well.

I'm not aware of any. There are some counties that have adopted their own charter so their elections will differ from most counties and might not even use top-two (see Pierce County), but even in those counties I can't think of any office with two winners.

Speaking of Pierce County, the Assessor-Treasurer race has six candidates with fairly good name recognition countywide and voters are only allowed to rank three. I have a great suspicion that thousands of voters are going to exhaust their three choices before we have a winner... at which point all hell breaks loose. Can you feel the impending disaster?
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Meeker
meekermariner
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« Reply #20 on: June 08, 2008, 04:24:17 PM »

More statistics about why this system sucks:

- In 92 out of the 124 races (74%) on the ballot, there is only one or two candidates on the ballot. So the primary is meaningless, but we're still going to spend money and time on it.

- There are 207 candidates for the Legislature this year, as opposed to 233 in 2006. So we get fewer choices.
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Meeker
meekermariner
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« Reply #21 on: June 08, 2008, 09:06:30 PM »

More statistics about why this system sucks:

- In 92 out of the 124 races (74%) on the ballot, there is only one or two candidates on the ballot. So the primary is meaningless, but we're still going to spend money and time on it.

- There are 207 candidates for the Legislature this year, as opposed to 233 in 2006. So we get fewer choices.

How many races were there in 2006? There are going to be flaws in the first year of this system. People will get used to it and then elections will become interesting.

The same number of races.

There are always going to be flaws in this system. It sucks.
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Meeker
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« Reply #22 on: June 08, 2008, 09:46:26 PM »

My Chem teacher is good friends with one of the candidates, says he's a good guy. I highly doubt it'll turn D v. D, but Washington voters are weird and at this point I wouldn't put it past them. Who knows, it may become very common for single-party generals in relatively competitive districts depending on the candidates. We just won't know until we've gone through it at least once.
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Meeker
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« Reply #23 on: June 10, 2008, 12:00:04 AM »

Yea, I can't compete with that.

System still sucks though.
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Meeker
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« Reply #24 on: June 10, 2008, 06:27:54 AM »

Considering that the Constitution Party has been basically non-existent in the state for many years now, it's an impressive turnaround on their part.

As much as I would like to forget the Craswells, it is a stretch to say the Constitution Party has been basically non-existent in Washington of all states.

I wish Osgood were worth endorsing.

Craswells haven't said anything in years - they keep to themselves and won't do any media interviews.
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