Month: January 2005

I know that its barely into the new year. It must have something to do with the weather or maybe I slipped in MLB 99 on the playstation over the weekend, but I’m starting to get that baseball feeling. I’m going to bring home the schedule tonight.

By the way, getting Sele is not a bad move, with a minor league contract and little room on the rotation, its not like we’re going to either spend too much money to bring him back or depend on him too much.

How much of a baseball feeling have I gotten today? I found out that the Pacific International Leauge (home of the former Grays Harbor Rain) now have local competition in the Western Collegiate Baseball League. Apparently, the owners Bellingham Bells and Aloha Knights (owned by Phil Knight‘s wife) lead the charge out of the PIL. Anyway, no PIL or WCBL teams near here, so I might try to get to more Geoducks and Saints games.

Good times in PA talking to the state chair candidates.

A couple good quotes:

Paul continued with a response to a criticism of his office of sending money to the wrong candidates (I must assume he was speaking to the choice of Dave Ross over Alex Alben in the 8th CD; Ross eventually lost to Republican Dave Reichert). He defused the criticism by pointing out that WA is one of the few state organizations that send money to candidates.

Uhmmm, ok. Sort of sounds like skirting the issue. It wasn’t much of a sending money kind of thing, more like a he got Dave Ross into the race in the first place.

Also:

Bill said the current focus of the state party has allowed Republicans to build “red walls” in the rural areas that surround Democrat’s “blue towers” in the cities.

Good point. Washington has skated along for the past 20 years on the knowledge that Pierce, King and Snohomish will always bring home the bacon, adding in a few smaller counties and you have a landslide. But, Gregoire failed to get Pierce and Snohomish this time around, it seems like we got a little complacent and talked a little bit too much to our base.

From what I can tell from the new King County realignment maps Reagan Dunn has been gerrymandered out of running for Rob McKenna’s seat, unless of course he takes the very simple step of moving. I’ve heard Republicans sometimes do that to run for office in King County.

I think Alex Alben, who received shoddy treatment by his own party over the summer, should run for the 6th district seat, as it still includes his home island. When Paul Berendt recruited Dave Ross (the perfect candidate for quite, hansom hero-sheriff Dave Reichart), he cut the legs from under Alben. I always liked Alben way more than Ross, he was in the race even before the senior Dunn dropped out, his eye was on the prize the entire way, not just when Paul B. came a knocking with some name recognition polling. Of course everyone knows who Dave Ross is, doesn’t mean they want to vote for him.

The State Chairman’s office uses the energy and financial resources of the GOP to literally thwart the objectives of the grassroots conservative. They recruit “moderate” candidates, coalition with “moderate” groups, network with “moderate” office holders and work to get “moderates” to fill every possible significant position both in the Party, and in Government. We have moved, as a result, continually to the left in every arena. They worked, hand-in-glove, with the liberal media to create the fictional image of the “Religious Right” which they have demonized and leveraged to defeat conservative candidates like Bob Williams, Ellen Craswell and Linda Smith. A center of operations for this left-wing political juggernaut is the Office of the Chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. The ideology of the Left is not challenged in Washington. They dominate our politics, media and government.

Not that I really care what the Republicans do, but i just wanted to say that simply because you’re political views are militantly to one side of the spectrum, does not mean that you represent the “Grass Roots.” And, name calling a politicians as a moderate and as someone who is eager to compromise, illustrates just how far you are from wanting to actually serve the public.

This sin is committed equally on the left as it is on the right, but is becoming entertaining on the right.