Every State. Every race. Right here.
This is number 41 in a planned series of 50 entries between now and November, looking at each of the 50 states in terms of every race on that state's ticket--Presidential, Gubernatorial, Senate, House, State legislatures--the whole Space Needle! Special attention paid to identifying and promoting the most important contests per state.
We turn back to my native Pacific Northwest today, with a look at the last Pacific state in this series—Washington State!
http://www.nationalatlas.com/...
Washington is a lot like Oregon politically, in that it has a large, booming, urban, liberal presence to the west, and a thinly populated, politically backwards constituency to the east. Fortunately, Oregon has 4/5 of the population (though a minority of the geography) on the blue side, and Washington has 7/9 of the population on the blue side. We’re doing fine, here, as evidenced by the bluing of the entire Pacific Coast map (and 73 total votes to the Democratic nominee for President) within a minute after the polls close every election night.
BLOGS: Washington’s entry in the 50-state blog project is the very progressive Washblog.
http://www.washblog.com/
PRESIDENT: : Beyond Safe Obama. McCain isn’t even bothering here.
SENATE: Two great Democrats, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, neither of whom are facing the voters this time around.
GOVERNORS AND OTHER STATEWIDE: Republicans came dangerously close to winning in 2004, and whined like crybabies about it afterwards. This year they say they have a chance to take it again. However, this is a safe seat for incumbent Democrat Christine Gregoire. The difference between now and then is that Gregoire is now an incumbent with four years of being great for Washington under her belt. Republicans don’t understand the concept of good government, and believe the only purpose of political power is to line one’s own pockets and to destroy infrastructure to prove that Government can’t do anything. Some day they’ll figure out that that isn’t what the people want.
Here’s Gregoire’s site, and that of her Lt. Governor, Brad Owen:
http://www.chrisgregoire.com/
http://www.ltgov.wa.gov/
Also, here are the sites for other Statewide Democrats. Go team!
Jason Osgood, Secretary of State:
http://www.jasonosgood.com/
Jim McIntyre, State Treasurer:
http://www.jimmcintire.com/
Brian Sonntag (Inc), State auditor:
http://www.sonntag2008.com/
John Ladenburg, Attorney General
http://www.ladenburg.org/
Peter Goldmark, Commissioner of Public Lands:
http://petergoldmark.com/
Mike Kriedler (Inc), Insurance Commissioner.
http://www.mikekreidler.com/
STATE LEGISLATURE: Washington has 49 general districts, each of which elects one State Senator and two State Representatives.
Lower House: 63D, 35R. Majority 28. A safe lawmaking body for Team Blue.
Senate: 32D, 17R. Majority 15. As of 2004 the body was just about tied, and look how far we’ve come! Good job, Washington!
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS:
District 1—North of Seattle, and solid, solid blue.. Jay Inslee (D) is safe.
District 2—Up at the Canada Border, including Everett and Bellingham. A swing district on paper, that the Republicans tried their best to compete in in 2006, without making a dent. This year, a safe seat for Democrat Rick Larsen.
District 3—SW Washington, along the OR border near Portland. A safe blue district for Democrat Brian Baird.
District 4—Central WA, including Yakima. On the map, due to the ethical problems of GOP incumbent Doc Hastings, but a longshot. Our candidate is attorney George Fearing.
http://www.georgefearing.com/
District 5—East Washington, including Spokane. A better district for Democrats than the 4th, and the district of former House Speaker Tom Foley. Mark Mays is a late entrant who lags badly in the fundraising. This is one of the districts we need to keep relentlessly hammering on if we want to achieve a long-term majority.
http://www.votemarkmays.com/
District 6—Tacoma. Safe Dem for Incumbent Norm Dicks.
District 7—Seattle. I’ll include Incumbent Dem Jim McDermott’s link, not because he’s in any trouble, but because he kicks ass. One of the best progressives in Congress. Back in the pre-Newt days, when the Democrats were waffling and dithering about the Clinton health plan v. the Clement health plan, McDermott was the voice in the wilderness calling for Canadian style single payer health care. If the other Democrats had listened to him, the Newtists might not have taken over. McDermott is also second only to Kucinich in hammering on the case for Bush impeachment.
http://www.mcdermottforcongress.com/
District 8—East of Seattle, including Bellvue. THE BIG ONE for Washington 2008.
If you don’t know about Democratic rock star Darcy Burner, then welcome to Daily Kos—it’s obvious you haven’t been here before. I’m only one in a long, long line of Kosters who are totally, utterly smitten with our Darcy. She’s one of us—a super progressive, a former Microsoft professional, and a genius who has done a better job responding to the Republican noise machine from the outside than many Democratic Representatives have done from the inside. She’s blogged here on Kos. She’s done ads with John Tester. She made the promise to uphold the 4th Amendment while everyone from Obama to Pelosi was caving in on FISA.
WE NEED DARCY BURNER.
If I was told that Democrats could only flip one district this year, I’d have to pick WA-08. Even over Anne Barth and Dennis Shulman. She’s that good.
She’s also about 5 points behind in most recent polls. That’s bad, but still close enough to win, if we give her the loving she needs. Please donate here:
http://www.darcyburner.com/
Trust me on this. Burner will do us proud like no other politician in contention today, if only we get her in the door.
District 9—South of Seattle. A safe seat for Incumbent Democrat Adam Smith (no, not the Invisible Hand of the Market guy; a living person. Even Seattle has not yet gotten around to electing zombies).
REDISTRICTING WASHINGTON: It’s all moot here, since Washington is redistricted by a nonpartisan commission. Washington may or may not gain a district come 2011. If it stays at 9, I would split the existing 7th into quadrants, giving one part each to the 1st, 7th, 8th and 9th, creating four solid blue districts, one of which will be safe for Darcy Burner.
I’d also compact the 5th as much as possible, giving it Pasco and Walla Walla to the South, and taking the thinly populated Northern Counties out. It may even be possible to make a Spokane-Yakima district with an odd shape and put ALL of the Red rural land into the 4th.
But like I said, it’s all moot. We don’t get to run the table regardless.
Previous diaries in this series, including THE BIG ONE for each state:
Delaware(lower house of the State Legislature): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Arkansas(Obama, for want of any other contest): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Illinois(Dan Seals, IL-10): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Texas, Part One(Michael Skelly, TX-07): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Texas, Part Two(Rick Noriega, TX-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Utah(building infrastructure): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Massachusetts(Using our majority to govern well): http://www.dailykos.com/...
North Carolina(Kay Hagan, NC-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Hawaii(Using our majority to govern well; also, preparation for Governor, possible open Senate race in 2010): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Mississippi(Ronnie Musgrove, MS-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Oregon(Jeff Merkley, OR-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Ohio(Tie: Obama, and State Legislature, both houses): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Maryland(Frank Kratovil, MD-01): http://www.dailykos.com/...
North Dakota(State Legislature, upper house): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Alabama(Bobby Bright, AL-02): http://www.dailykos.com/...
California, Part one(Charles Brown, CA-04): http://www.dailykos.com/...
California, Part two(Russ Warner, CA-26): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Vermont(Gaye Symington, VT-Gov): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Iowa(Rob Hubler, IA-05): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Virginia(Obama): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Wyoming(Gary Trauner, WY-AL): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Pennsylvania (State Legislature, both houses): http://www.dailykos.com/...
New Mexico(Harry Teague, NM-02): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Kentucky(Bruce Lunsford, KY-SEN): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Nebraska(Scott Kleeb, NB-SEN): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Friggin’ IDAHO (Larry LaRocco, ID-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Maine (CHEERS to Tom Allen, ME-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Wisconsin (State Legislature, both houses): http://www.dailykos.com/...
New Jersey(Linda Stender, NJ-07): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Oklahoma (Andrew Rice, OK-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
South Dakota(State Legislature, upper house): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Colorado(Obama): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Georgia(Jim Martin, GA-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Rhode Island(governing well): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Michigan(State legislature, upper house): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Alaska(Mark Begich, AK-Sen): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Missouri (Jay Nixon, MO-Gov): http://www.dailykos.com/...
West Virginia (GORGEOUS Anne Barth, WV-02): http://www.dailykos.com/...
South Carolina (Linda Ketner, SC-01, Rob Miller, SC-02): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Nevada (Jill Derby, NV-02): http://www.dailykos.com/...
New York, Part One (State Senate): http://www.dailykos.com/...
New York, Part Two(State Senate): http://www.dailykos.com/...
Tennessee (State Senate): http://www.dailykos.com/...