History, politics, people of Oly WA
Kyle Taylor Lucas, who ran against Sen. Tim Sheldon last year, is blogging now.
Nothing local, but she only has four posts up since August on Yahoo 360 account.
I’m going to say that referring to Hugo Chavez as her hero might point to her not running again.
He thinks that it was his doing the governor is traveling the state, talking to citizens:
Why is she doing it? I’ll tell you why, because I am partly responsible for her determination to start running for re-election more than a year and a half early. But I am demanding that she and her Democratic Party cohorts stop charging her political tour to the taxpayers and start paying for it out of her private political funds.
It’s quite obvious how the whole thing started. More than a year ago, I began looking for a sponsor for my Idea Bank plan. I have written one book of new ideas in all fields and have thousands more new ideas to offer. Instead of putting the rest of the ideas into more books, I decided to seek a sponsor for the Idea Bank.
Oooooh, so since Gov. Gregoire was actually traveling the state before then, doing the exact same thing she’s doing now… then the Idea Bank is actually her idea! Sweet.
The only reason anyone is paying attention to the tour at all this year is because people from the Republican side of things are complaining. Last year, no complaints = no coverage.
Another sleazy Rossi front group is a new web project by the Washington State Democrats. Yes, fine, I get the point that the Forward Washington group was a way for Rossi to get his name out there (campaign) before he actually campaigns.
But, constantly pointing it out makes you look snotty, like your tattling.
A post in which I paste a comment I put on another fine blog.
Jeff and others over at Center Holds It are wondering about Seattle, the Major League Soccer… uh… league, Paul Allen and Qwest Field.
I say this:
Also, I think that the “not a new stadium right now” talk has a lot more to do with our current situation with the Sonics than anyone is really willing to admit. No one wants to make getting an MLS team depend on a funding package for an new stadium while Clay Bennett is in town jerking our chains.
A little bit down the road maybe? The legislature put $30 million towards a new hockey arena just south of Seattle, which is closer in cost to an SSS than a new basketball arena.
So, I think we’ll eventually get a soccer specific stadium here, its just down the road a bit. Especially if it can be packaged with a regional soccer complex like the Home Depot Center, we’ll have a winner.
Lou goes way past government interference in politics:
All political contributions should be banned!
I believe a constitutional amendment is needed to ban donations of any size to persons who run for public office.
Public campaigns? B’ah!
Fairness Doctrine? Too damn weak!
Just force newspapers and everyone else in the media to cover every single candidate.
If I was a conservative in the northwest, I’d be downright embarrassed by this guy. But, I’m not so its just funny.
Getting lost along the way of Rossi’s faux campaign, the Washington Idea Bank forgot that it was supposed to be about everyone else’s ideas, not his.
Now that Rossi is gone from the Idea Bank and the Forward Washington, they finally figured out they were supposed to be post people’s ideas on the site, which they did for the first time since early summer a couple of days ago.
But, that’s just about keeping up appearances, still not about your ideas or actually doing anything with them. Gone is the feature where you can actually rate the ideas. They’re just up there as if anyone actually cares. You can still assume that the best ides will “included in a working document that the Foundation will present to the legislature next January,” but I doubt they’ll be the ones that the users of the site actually like.
Speaking of Rossi’s lame idea website, it, like one its main idea guys, loves big government:
Craig from Longview writes:
The state needs to fully fund the Family Caregiver Support Program so seniors & adults with disabilities can be cared for at home by their loved ones and thus aviod being institutionalized, which would cost taxpayers more in the long run.
susan from port angeles writes:
We really have alot of black ice here in washington. I suggest you hire some one to create a small thing that would resemble the green address markers people put on the side of the road to mark their house numbers. The marker would be colored white in wheather above freezing. At zero and below there would be a chemical reaction in the marker and it would turn to a black and white striped marker. It would be zebra for zero. You would place them on corners that often have accident because of black ice. They could be taller than the markers are now so they could be seen in higher snow. It would give people a reminder in the winter when we have the black ice to just be a bit more cautious. Thanks Susan
John from Vancouver writes:
School levies that are voted on by the electorate should require only a simple majority to pass instead of the 2/3 requirement that is often in place. Too often, a majority of residents of a school district support a levy, but the 2/3 threshold is too high to meet, so the levies fail. A simple majority would allow these levies to pass and new schools to be constructed.
Phill from Tacoma writes:
The state should provide free or reduced university tuition for combat veterans returning from conflicts abroad. This would keep these residents from leaving the state and would spur state-wide help economic growth.
Mark writes:
We need a single state “transportation” tzar. An individual appointed by the governor who serves as the CEO of the state’s transportation needs and oversees all the hundreds of committees that are involved in transportation decisions. Each county also has their ‘tzar’ who report directly to the states CEO. The buck starts and stops with the tzar. Bottom line, we need specific accountability for transportation decisions, intiative and action.
Lou Guzzo, Dino Rossi’s idea man, is surprised that he (gasp) agrees with a liberal. Shouldn’t be a surprise, Lou’s a secret liberal.
Well, not so secret. The guy is really into big-government solutions.
First of all (and just to get this out of the way) he worked for the Lyndon LaRouche of Washington State politics, Democratic governor Dixy Lee Ray. Gov. Ray was so unpopular with Democrats by the end of her first term that it took long time Dem powerhouse Warren Magnuson to usher her out of the race back in 1980 before she could be nominated again.
Anyway, Lou seems to bring that old time liberalism of Ray weirdness into his new job as conservative weirdo.
Take for example:
Corporate U.S. should provide day care for employees’ children — Not exactly big government, but the nanny-corporate state certainly steps in to take care of my son. Sort of like employee based health care system we have that is working so well right now. Sounds like a gateway drug to the government taking care of the little tyke.
Incentive program needed to bring out the lazy non-voters — because unlike most conservatives, you don’t believe that people should just vote because they want to.
Congress needs to crack down on greedy pro-sport owners — Its easy for him to argue for a crack down on team owners, but as a conservative could he make the same argument for a crack down on greed energy company owners? Or, insurance company owners?
Curt Pavola, a former member of the Olympia city council calls out Baird:
My duty as a citizen at this time in history…the most important moment in my life as a free person in a democratic society…is to vote for, advocate for and fund a progressive candidate for Congress who will represent me and work against the political-economic machinery of war.
Like current city council member TJ Johnson before him, Curt toes the line to say that HE’D actually run against Baird, but backs away.
False info from Save Our Sonics:
Q. Let’s buy the teams and have public ownership.
A. False: The situation in Green Bay is unique in sports. Leagues have rules to prevent it from happening again.With NBA teams suffering operating losses it is imposible for a team to exist owned by the people in a city. Here, of course, it’s even worse because the City of Seattle can’t find the money to fix potholes, much less cover the operating losses of an NBA team.
Owners like Howard Shultz recover their losses when they sell the teams and that defeats the purpose of public ownership.
Of course that again assumes that the new owner would consider selling and that isn’t apt to happen.
Actually, the Green Bay Packers aren’t owned by the city of Green Bay, but rather individual stock owners. And, while every major sports league in the United States ban non-profit or government ownership of teams, only the NFL bans corporate ownership to prevent stock sales of teams.
But, the NBA totally allows stock ownership systems. Both the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
So, what’s stopping anyone from filing a corporation with the Secretary of State’s office and selling stock to try to buy the Sonics. Nothing at all.
Because, some people might think that she’s campaigning.
She’s not raising money, she’s not asking for votes. She’s simply getting out of Olympia and talking to people.
This tour is actually a repeat of a similar tour last year, which strangely didn’t get the criticism of this year’s tour.
Stefan above cynically points out that the governor is bringing along a pollster, but he fails to point out what that pollster is doing. In each city Gregoire visits, there are random focus groups that are talking about government performance.
What this really gets down to is the role the governor plays in Washington. Is she supposed to just sit in her office and talk to her staff? Or is she supposed to get out around the state and actually talk to citizens?
Here’s a somewhat boring episode of TVW’s Inside Olympia about last year’s tour.
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