Month: May 2005 (Page 1 of 2)

Maybe Greg Stephens should call Dino Rossi, cause Dino has this crazy idea that anyone can join any political party they want! And, apparently, when he said that, he meant that when they join they can do things that other people sometimes do while members of just any old party. You know, like run for some office.

The Sitting Duck in Olympia doesn’t have a website, so I’m going to have to type this. But, trust me, Dino said it:

(Good ol’Dino) disputes the notion that the Republican Party has been hijacked by the far right. “Anyone can join any party they want,” he shrugged, adding one could just as easily argue that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by radicals on the left.

This entire people joining any party they want thing is some pretty heavy stuff. Someone should call Chris Vance to reel in Dino’s way out there rhetoric.

The Seattle Times has an interesting story about Greg Stephens, who is trying to challenge Jeff Sax at the Snohomish County GOP convention for a council seat. The problem is that if the county party doesn’t think he’s a Republican, so no dice.

The Stephens story illustrates the wrong logic that is going around our county and state parties, that is leading us to sue to overturn the Top Two primary. Our parties, the only way regular people can become active in politics, should not become closed groups, paranoid of people that take up their banner. They should be a lot more open than this.

Apparently, they can stop Stephens from speaking at the convention (the only way to get the party nomination is this crazy post Top Two world) if they think he’s not “a real Republican.”

But, just saying you’re a member of this or that party ain’t enough for these guys, which just shows how crazy the opposition to the Top Two and the state of the parties really is. They’re so paranoid that he’s a Democrat interloper, that they want to close the party to him. Look, if you don’t like the guy, and you think most active Republicans won’t, what’s the harm in letting him speak?

Says the SnohoGOP chairman Steve Neighbors, using his extra stong powers of logic:

“[Stephens] knows that we can’t just let anyone say they’re Republican,” Neighbors said. “We can’t have a Democrat speaking at the Republican convention; he wouldn’t win anyway.”

I wonder why most people in Washington don’t want to be registered by party? If someone isn’t pure enough for the leadership, they don’t get in.

In a way, I’m glad to see the Snohomish GOP acting like this, at least its not us. But, I know that given the chance, we might send a not so pure Democrat packing.

As Democrats, we should let everyone who wants to call themselves a Democrat speak. Let them live and die politically by their ideas, not by who they have supported in the past. Party labels are not that important that they should rule our politics.

Both horsesass.org and Andrew over at the Progressive Institute take swipes at efforts in Washington, and now in Oregon, to reform the election systems.

Before I get too far into this, I want to point out that I’m not exactly a huge fan of the Top Two specifically. I was a big fan of our old Jungle Primary and was annoyed when our political parties, especially my Democratic Party, sued to get rid of it. I had a wry smile on my face when the Top Two passed, and I thought, well… they learned their lesson. Apparently not, when they sued to get rid of the Top Two, which was the second most popular initiative last year and won in every single county.

The Top Two, or any other really open primary system, where we don’t ask the people to pay for the parties’ nominating process will be bad for the parties, as they are today. I’ll admit that. But, the parties aren’t doing much today to bring people into the politics. We ask our supporters to write checks and vote, not much else. We should ask more, our parties, especially the Democratic Party, should be an agent of increasing civic participation.

In Oregon, they are talking about moving a number of state-wide offices to non-partisan. This may be where we are going in Washington if the parties don’t back off. Preemptive Karma is having a great discussion on this.

Since the McGovern reforms, political parties have become too t.v. centric when reaching out, and people have been driven out of the process. Yes, parties are raising more money today, but that money is increasingly coming from businesses and other political action committees. Actual personal participation in political parties is dropping through the floor.

When people talk about going back to the days of the smoke filled rooms as an effect of moving back away from closed primaries, I think of last year’s Presidential caucuses. Granted last year was special with Dean, the Iraq War and general anti-war feelings. But, it showed that people could be interested in politics, and in a real way. The multi-purpose room at Margaret McKenny Elementary school was not a smoke filled back room, but rather a great example of participatory democracy.

It starts out with a great headline, and it gets even better.

BlueWashington has a great post on how not smart it is for the Washington Democratic Party to go along with the GOPsters to sue to get rid of the Top Two primary:

…Chris and Paul also want candidates to use their parties’ labels only if they win their county conventions. Typically, convention attendees of both parties are more extreme in their positions than average voters and this will make it harder for moderate candidates to win.

…What we don’t need in the legislature right now is even more extreme positions from both sides of the spectrum. Requiring party nominations to run will do that.

I can break off and get to my point with this part of what BlueWashington has to say, that the Top Two “diminishes their abilities to control who runs and who wins and they view that as a bad thing.” In a way, this is all about control, the ability of the parties to control the political process.

It shouldn’t be about the parties controlling any aspect of the political process, it should be about letting the people have control. The parties should be about helping people get involved in the process, instead of trying to become closed organizations that have a leg up on the scene, angling out anyone else.

It might not actually be as bad as spamming, but using an old email list of 3 million supporters from his 2004 Presidential run (emmetto@post.com included) may not actually be that great of an idea. I sort of made this point a few weeks ago, but other folks make it sound so much better. Take it away, Chip Griffin:

I agree the marginal cost is low (though not zero), but the claim about degradation of the base is pure baloney. Owning a mailing list of past supporters does not guarantee that they will be future supporters. Certainly, it’s an asset to have, but it would only permit a delayed entry if a large portion of those people could be assured to be with him in the next primary.

How many of those names were there before he was the Democrat nominee? The names that he picked up during the primary might be considered a base, but the general election names only preferred him over Bush … not necessarily over any other Democrat.

For example, of those 3 million, how many are also on Howard Dean’s list? Or John Edwards’?

Email lists from previous campaigns are valuable, but they’ll only take you so far, especially in presidential politics where voters tend to be more fickle.

The Olympia Democratic meetup will discuss George Lakoff and how to frame issues from a progressive point of view. Linda and Kent Sternhill Davis, two regular meetup attendees, will lead the discussion on how not to let conservatives control how we think about politics.

For more information on George Lakoff, go here.

Tuesday, June 14 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Olympia Center
222 Columbia St NW
Olympia, WA
Room 101 (first floor)

The Olympia Democratic Party meetup is a meeting for Democrats in Thurston County who want a “low impact” informative meeting to discuss topics of the day and to get more involved in the Democratic Party.

I was thinking today a lot about my recent postings on the Top Two primary, and the efforts of the parties to get rid of it, and the entire thought process crystalized for me when I read this from Andrew Rasiej, who is running for Public Advocate in NYC, and who spoke at the Personal Democracy Forum this morning:

We techno-politicos should instead be focusing on how we can restore health to our civic life — and in particular, how we can get more people connected to each other and their government to raise issues, share ideas and solve problems.

After all, there are lots of good reasons that most Americans hate politics. It’s been taken away from them and turned into a cynical game that is more focused on winning elections than getting things done, where tearing the other side down matters more than lifting ideas up, where people are treated as commodities, and the only ones who get any attention are the people who can pay to play.

Just replace “techno-politicos” with Democrats, and that is my point. Democrats should be all about getting people involved in civic life.

If you accept the theory (I got this from Bowling Alone) that because political involvement for most people has been reduced to check writing and voting, and that parties have been taken over by career proffesionals, then this passage from the NW Progressive Institute, arguing against the Top Two:

Voters should bear in mind that political parties provide important services to the democratic process (and that’s why all democracies have them). Some of these services include organization, fundraising, candidate recruitment and training, and the development of stands on issues (a party platform) and the ability to help voters identify candidates with a particular set of positions.

If the parties wither away, other institutions will step in to fill the void.

It is true that parties play an important part in politics, democracy and civic life in general. But, if parties continue to push people out, that, not a type of primary voting, will kill them. What we need to do is not keep closing our doors, but take this opportunity to engage and move our party back into the public. The NWPI answers the question of what kind of institution will step in to fill the void of the parties:

…elections will degenerate into personality contests. Candidates who already have, or have the money to buy name recognition will enjoy a much greater advantage. Incumbents, celebrity candidates, and wealthy individuals will become more powerful. And the media would be in an even stronger position to promote their favorite candidates.

Forget Arnold, the future of campaigns won’t be celebrity beauty contests. That would be true if the parties died off during the tv age, but the party-less campaign for the next age has already happened, and it work for a few months in 2003. People Powered Howard was a well funded example of how opening a campaign, and I would suggest an entire political party, would actually help that party.

No opposing the Top Two primary, or just opening up the nominating process and accepting the non-partisanship of Washington elections, is a step in that direction.

I first started blogging and had my only ever letter to the editor in the Seattle Times published, because during the dream season of 2001, the Mariners started going after scalpers. Never in my life have I ever heard of the Ms hiring off duty cops to arrest their own fans. Especially for doing something, that if the Mariners weren’t amazingly good that year, wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other.

The hight of the hipocrasy was that the Mariners themselves were scalping their own tickets! They used to run a service called Mariners Ticket Marketplace, were fans could resell their tickets at a high prices and the Ms would get a cut. At the time, fans like me were not happy:

The trend is troubling for many baseball enthusiasts, particularly Mariners fans. Check the “Fan Forum” section of the Mariners official Web site, and the concerns are real. “You want to see real scalping?” wrote one fan. “Last year dozens of $6 [centerfield] bleacher seats were being offered out at $89 each for some games. It’s funny how you have to be a season ticket holder to sell through this forum, yet the Mariners don’t sell bleacher seats as season tickets! I guess having a 16-game pack could have its privileges.”

Another fan wrote, “While the Mariners ask police to stop illegal ticket scalping in Seattle outside Safeco Field, they profit from inflated prices they ‘legally’ sell from their ticket agent’s computer.”

Anyway, it looks like the Seattle City Council is getting around to changing their outdated scalping law. The new law would allow just normal guys like me to stand on the side walk muttering “Got two?” And for the more serial scalpers, the guys that make money off of it, would require them to get a business license. Ah, the best of all worlds.

In the last few years, when the Ms and the Seahawks have been good, the actuall were arresting scalpers, but finally a judge saw how crappy that was:

In January 2004, Seattle Municipal Court Judge Jean Rietschel held that two men accused of scalping Mariners tickets were the victims of selective enforcement because the baseball club was doing the same thing online and no one was bothering them. At the time, the club was paying off-duty cops to patrol streets surrounding Safeco Field and bust people for scalping. The city appealed Rietschel’s ruling.

It is sad that a conservative group, not the DNC, not even DFA is the first to leave meetup.com and create their own tool:

Regrettably, we were recently shocked, as many of you were, to learn about the implementation of Meetup group fees – $19 per month ($228 per year) to be paid by each of the group organizers.

Moreover, I was notified of the change only one day prior to each of you. As a paying and longtime customer, I was not pleased about how this was handled. This is not how Townhall treats its readers and I certainly don’t want Townhall’s good name to be associated with such practices.

…The response we received was unanimous!

Effective this Thursday, Townhall.com will officially end its relationship with Meetup.com. In place of Meetup, Townhall will begin developing a custom solution to better cater to the needs of our Townhall Meetup members and organizers

You can expect the following improvements:

• Easier and more intuitive interface.
• Conservatives only! No Deaniacs, no liberals.
• Greater integration with Townhall.com.
• Tools to facilitate action and coordination.

Come on DNC! While your at it, tell the DNC to get with the game and fill out their meetup.com survey.

It looks like the DNC is gathering info on Democrat meetups.The DNC will only develop a new tool to replace meetup.com if we tellthem. Let your voice be heard!