Really, we have to hit Peak Gingrich soon, don’t we? Or is he going to somehow manage to keep this going until after voting actually starts?
(Poll Chart from Real Clear Politics.)
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Really, we have to hit Peak Gingrich soon, don’t we? Or is he going to somehow manage to keep this going until after voting actually starts? (Poll Chart from Real Clear Politics.) Along the same lines as my last post, my dad sent me a note recently letting me know that my stepmom Cathy has been contributing lately to a site called Suite101.com. You can see all of her articles here. Here is a bit from the most recent: AIDS Funding Scandal in Washington, DC: City to Investigate Waste and Abuse by AIDS Groups (Cathy Sunshine, Suite101.com, 5 Nov 2009)
I’ve of course added the RSS feed of her articles to my Google Reader subscriptions. Looks like she is writing on a variety of topics, from restaurants to the zoo to AIDS to the Peace Corps. Should be interesting to read. :-) I try to point out when I see items by relatives or friends. Here is one from a cousin of mine on Huffington Post: Note to Assignment Editor: Not Your Dad’s National Security Establishment (Heather Hurlburt, Huffington Post, 5 Nov 2009)
I saw this on Facebook from Heather, then I saw it in Google Reader from my Huffington Post RSS feed and marked it as something I wanted to post later, then after that I got a note from my mother also pointing me at it. So I figured I should go ahead and get it posted. :-) One question though… Heather, where are you twittering? I couldn’t find you with a simple search on Twitter. :-) Well, I’m home. Time to crank out the rest of these. City of Bellevue Council Position No. 7 Three candidates. Once again, son’t we have primaries to make it only two? Bleh. Lets see… Mike Creighton: Is he related to the guy on the Ports ballot? Retired Insurance Salesman. Served on the School Board and City Council, and was Mayor for awhile. He is the incumbent, having been appointed to fill a vacant position. Robertson: Has been on various planning commissions, including relating to light rail. Low tax advocate. Finley: Small business owner. For neighborhoods and stuff. Blank website. (At least in Safari.) Looking through stuff, I think I’m leaning toward Robertson. So I will vote for JENNIFER ROBERTSON. Bellevue School District No. 405 Director District No. 3 One candidate. Chris Marks. Sorry Chris, out of my objection to candidates with no opposition I will be writing myself in. So I vote for SAMUEL MINTER. Bellevue School District No. 405 Director District No. 5 Two candidates. Mann: For parent, teacher and community involvement in school decisions. Local standards and a lot of happy fluffy stuff. All about accountability and accessibility. Mills: Has been on school board for eight years. Says the schools are really good, but there is still work to be done. His website was done by students, but isn’t as good as the one done by that other candidate’s kid. Anyway, Mills didn’t have much to say about what he would actually do, what his principals were or whatnot. Mann was pretty vague, but I liked the things she did say. I will vote for PATTI MANN. Public Hospital District No. 1 Commissioner District No. 2 I don’t even know what this office is. But there is only one candidate, Carolyn V. Parnell. She may be great. But she shouldn’t be unopposed. I will write myself in. My vote goes to SAMUEL MINTER. Public Hospital District No. 1 Commissioner District No. 4 First of all, this appears to be about the administration of a hospital and other facilities in Renton. Don’t know why these are elected positions, even if it is the regional public hospital. It just seems strange. OK, two candidates. Miller: Incumbent. He’s a VP at a bank. Degree in business. Bunch of endorsements. Heide: He is a Doctor. Founded a Stroke Center. Running on a change platform to clean up problems he sees. I think on balance I like what I see ftom Heide. I will vote for AARON HEIDE. OK. That is it. Time to fold it all up, shove it in the envelope, and since it is too late to mail it, head to the collection center at a local mall and drop it off in the big mailbox looking thing. OK. Lunch break time. I am allowing myself 45 minutes, and am doing this instead of eating lunch today. Bleh. Of course, they put out excess Halloween candy in the hallway, so I am not hurting for junk calories with no actual nutrition value. Woo! Anyway… Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 1 One candidate. John Creighton. Leaving aside the Farscape reference (yes, I know it is spelled differently) the unopposed thing gets me again, and I write myself in. I vote for SAMUEL MINTER. Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 3 Two candidates. Holland: Truck Fleet Salesperson. Supported by unions. Doud: Investment properties broker. Says he represents the whole county rather than just Seattle. Criticizes union support of opponent. I think I’ll go with the more business oriented Doud. I generally dislike the idea of unions, and therefore am wary of Holland. I will vote for DAVID DOUD. Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 4 Two candidates. Albro: Touts his independence. Bunch of endorsements. Small business owner. An engineer. Vekich: Former longshore worker and Democratic Legislator. Says we don’t need an insider, but then lists a bunch of insiders who endorse him. Why are these elected positions again? The Stranger says: “The port needs a business-minded person who isn’t evil. That’s Tom Albro.” Ha! OK. Good enough. I’ll vote for TOM ALBRO. City of Bellevue Council Position No. 2 Two candidates. Orrico: Involved in a lot of local commissions and such. Points out opponent is running for 4th term. Her website was done by a middle school aged relative (child?). Lee: Incumbent. Basically says he has done a good job so bring him back. Looking around I don’t see much about issues that are very contentious. I think multiple terms in local government is generally not a great idea though, and I liked the middle school designed website. So I’ll vote for VICKI ORRICO. City of Bellevue Council Position No. 4 Two candidates. Wallace: Looks like he is the keep taxes low, fiscal responsibility, that sort of thing type. Also pushing light rail. Bonincontri: Some stuff about parks and quality of life and the like. There really isn’t much to go on here. Most of the stuff on both of them is of the “I’ll work to make things better” type. On balance though, I think I’m leaning Wallace. I will vote for KEVIN R. WALLACE. City of Bellevue Council Position No. 6 Two candidates again. Marchand: Talks about jobs and pushing Bellevue to the next level. Davidson: 22 years on the city council. He says to reelect him because he has done a good job. OK. Marchand looks OK, and Davidson has just been there too long. I will vote for MICHAEL MARCHAND. OK. My timer went off and my 45 minutes are up. I have five more races to make decisions on. They will have to wait for a few more hours until I am done with work. I did six in this last 45 minutes, so I should be able to finish up in another 45 minute batch. There should be plenty of time. I’ve got just under four hours left before the time I usually leave work, and just under six hours before the ballots are due. I can do that. It is once again time for a set of local elections here in Bellevue, WA. As usual I will try to write through my thoughts here, but also once again, I’m doing this at the last minute, so I’m not going to be all that in depth, either in my though process, or in what I write here. Anyway, here we go: State of Washington Initiative Measure No. 1033 This is an anti-tax initiative that would basically limit future tax increases to inflation plus population growth. Honestly, I’m very tempted by this. I don’t like taxes. I am often not in favor of the things new taxes are used for, as I generally prefer more limited government. I am not moved by the arguments that this will severely limit what government can do in the future and what services it can provide. That is after all kind of the point. However, I also dislike lots of complicated restrictions on the legislative process. After the basic structures are put in place, and fundamental things restricting government from violating basic rights are taken care of, the rest should take place through the systems that are in place, not things like this. I’m going to vote NO. I admit to not feeling very solid on this though. I could have gone the other way. State of Washington Referendum Measure No. 71 This is about extending domestic partnership benefits so they are equivalent to marriage benefits. In general, I don’t believe the government should be in the marriage or domestic partner business AT ALL. Government should only recognize individuals. And perhaps parent-child responsibilities should be codified in some way. But anything else should be completely between the individuals involved and government’s only involvement should be the same as with any other type of contract between individuals. But as long as there *is* government recognized marriage / domestic partnership then having multiple types makes no sense. I generally don’t like referendums as a method to do anything, and this is still flawed because there are still strict limits on what kinds of people in what kinds of situations can become domestic partners (for instance, Brandy and I are not eligible) but the after state on this one will be better than the before state, so I’ll vote APPROVED. King County Charter Amendment No. 1 This simply removes language from the charter that defined the process of transitioning between different forms of government for the county. A transition that finished years ago. I guess I’m OK with this. I’ll vote YES. King County Charter Amendment No. 2 This is also to remove procedures that are mandated by the charter, but which relate to budget processes that ceased to be used many years ago. So continuing to follow those procedures is just a complete waste. I guess I’m OK with eliminating them then. I’ll vote YES. King County Charter Amendment No. 3 This clarifies a point of confusion between two sections of the charter that describe the appointment of commissioners in different ways. This just reconciles the differences and makes the procedure clear. I’m also OK with that. I’ll vote YES. King County Charter Amendment No. 4 This adds changes to the charter to make it more difficult for the county to sell off various lands currently used for parks, etc in the future. By the same reasoning as my vote against State Initiative 1033 I think this is a bad idea. Things like county charters should not be full of detailed restrictions on specific things. They should lay out the basic functioning of government, and then those decision making procedures should apply across the board. IT shouldn’t be structured with a whole menu of types of issues each of which have different procedures for decision making. On this one I will vote NO. (This by the way is in no way saying I favor selling off these public lands or any such… this question is on what the right procedure should be, not on the merits of the underlying issue, which is a completely separate issue.) King County Executive Two candidates. Susan Hutchison and Dow Constantine. Honestly, with the various things I read, I’ve heard pretty much nothing but bad things about Hutchison. Of course, my Seattle area news is almost all from Slog, so that isn’t exactly unbiased. Looking directly at her own website of course presents a more positive view and quotes some endorsements that sound somewhat valid. But frankly Constantine still looks more competent and solid. I’ll vote for DOW CONSTANTINE. King County Sheriff OK, one of my pet peeves. An unopposed candidate. Sue Rahr. I’m not even going to bother looking up anything about her. I fundamentally object to any and all unopposed candidates. As usual in these situations, I write in myself. I vote for SAMUEL MINTER. (Of course, in this case I also don’t believe Sheriff should be an elected position at all.) King County Assessor First of all, why are there more than two candidates? Didn’t we have a primary? I guess this office wasn’t included? Whatever. Also, this shouldn’t be an elected office either. Grrr…. Five candidates. Albertini: Appraiser, Appraiser Trainer, etc. Looks good. Lux: Some government experience a number of years ago. Hara: Endorsed by a lot of people, also a Port Commissioner. Rosenberger: Former Deputy Assessor. Blanchard: CPA, real estate tax manager. I have no real strong feelings here, but from their statements in the voters guide I guess I’ll vote for GRAHAM ALBERTINI. King County Metropolitan King County Council District No. 9 Two candidates. Dunn: Incumbent. Anti-tax. Tonda: Talks about her ancestors. I’ll vote for REAGAN DUNN. Judicial Court of Appeals, Division No. 1, District No. 1, Judge Position No. 3 Judges shouldn’t be elected. There should not be unopposed candidates. The one candidate, Ellington, is unopposed. I once again write myself in. I vote for SAMUEL MINTER. OK, that is page one of the ballot. I have just over 10 hours until the ballot needs to be turned in, and I need to go to work. So page two will need to wait a bit. I’ll probably do a bit during lunch, and the rest in the short time between leaving work and when I have to turn in the ballots. [Minor text edits 21:45 UTC] OK, I generally like the guy and think he is doing a decent job (mostly, with some major exceptions)… but isn’t this more than a little premature? Has he actually done anything yet that really deserves that? I see a lot of potential for the future, but no actual real notable results yet that would be worthy. Perhaps that is just me. (Just got a text message with a CNN News Alert that Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize.) So, it is time for another local election. The ballot came a few weeks ago, but of course I didn’t look at it and didn’t look at it. So here I am on the day the ballots need to return, having not yet looked at anything at all, and not knowing anything about any of the races at all. Yum. So it is lunch time at work, and I’ll be skipping the eating thing in favor of quickly figuring out how I am going to vote. Unlike previous times, I think I won’t do one post per race, but rather will just summarize everything in this one post. I probably also do not have time to give a few thoughts on each candidate as I have done in the past. We shall see, but I need to do this quickly rather than at the length I usually do. This is a primary, so I believe the top two in each race will be back on another ballot in November. Anyway… first race. King County Executive: There are eight candidates. Larry Phillips, Fred Jarrett, Stan Lippmann, Alan Lobdell, Susan Hutchison, Dow Constantine, Ross Hunter and “Goodspaceguy”. That last one is immediately intriguing. Anyway, time to spend a few minutes reading about each of them. I will probably just read each of their statements, I doubt I’ll have time for more…. OK. There are a couple wackadoodles here. And honestly just from their blurbs I don’t really like any of them. I guess if I have to choose… Fred Jarrett. I like that he is a previous party switcher (R->D) and that he is from the Eastside. I think I saw him at some events back in 2008 too and he seemed decent enough. Looks like he has a few prominent endorsements and has a history as a moderate. (Yeah, I ended up clicking through to a few additional websites besides his statement.) Anyway, he will do. Metropolitan King County Council District No. 9: Three candidates… Mark Greene, Beverly Harison Tonda, Reagan Dunn. Ehh… I guess I’ll go for the incumbent, Reagan Dunn. I don’t see anything really bad there, and the two others did not impress me much. Court of Appeals Division No. 1, District No. 1, Judge Position No. 3: First, I continue to not like the idea of elected judges. Anyway, two candidates. Robert D. Kelly and Anne L. Ellington. I’ll go with Ellington. Better experience, and the other guy said he would pray he would make good decisions. Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 3: 3 candidates. Rob Holland, David Doud, Al Yuen. I like Holland for the previous port experience. Doud turned me off by mostly talking about how to use properties rather than directly talking about the port. I just didn’t see anything compelling in Yuen. Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 4: 4 candidates. Juan Paraiso, Max Vekich, Tom Albro, Robert Walker. Robert Walker gets my vote. I clicked through to his website and like his humor and his outside perspective. He won’t win of course, but I think a fresh outsider perspective like that would be good in almost any position. Now wait one more thing… Brandy’s mom told her a week or so ago that a woman from where she works… in the Philadelphia area… heard her family was out here, and asked her to tell us that we should vote for Ross Hunter. It seems that the woman’s girlfriend is Hunter’s sister. Or something like that. I intentionally did my decisions above without looking up the email from Brandy mentioning what her mom said, so I wouldn’t know who that was. As it is I picked someone else. I did just now give Hunter a second look. He doesn’t look too bad. And the Seattle times actually endorsed BOTH the person I picked and Hunter. (Article is here.) If I remember properly when I looked through these guys a few minutes back, Hunter was also on my short list, although as I said I didn’t really *like* any of them that much from what I read. Anyway, I’ll stick to my original vote, although Hunter doesn’t look bad. Doesn’t sound like either of them will win of course. OK, I guess that’s it. Time to fill out the bubbles. I’ll drop the ballot off in the designated place after work. |
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