On Anticipation, Or, I’m In Seattle, So It’s A Dennis Kucinich Story

It was a beautiful day in Seattle last Saturday, and at the unholy hour of 7:30 AM I was steering my car into the parking lot of Qwest Field, preparing to take advantage of the spectacular weather by descending into the showroom of The Comedy Underground – in order to spend the day surrounded by politics and politicians.

The only thing that could have made the irony more prefect…is if all the espresso shops had been closed.

Thank your favorite deity (or, perhaps, the power of serendipity) that they weren’t, or we might not been able to cover the events at NWroots 2011 at all.

We’ll have a lot to talk about over the next few days, and to lead things off I’ll tell you about the series of events that might – or might not – have to do with why I happened to bump into Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich as he came down from the sunlight into the same dark room as the rest of us.

Your emperor may be a great prince: I do not doubt it, seeing as he has sent his subjects so far across the waters; and I am willing to treat him as my brother. As for the pope of whom you speak, he must be mad to speak of giving away countries that do not belong to him.

--Atahualpa, the last Sapa Inca of Tahuantinsuyu, quoted in the book “The Native Americans: An Illustrated History”

So here are today’s “need to knows”: the Constitution mandates that the Census be used to determine how many Representatives each State sends to Congress; based on the last Census, Ohio’s losing two seats in the House, Washington’s gaining one.

In Ohio, the most significant population declines occurred in urban areas, particularly Dennis Kucinich’s 10th District (Cleveland’s western suburbs; Cleveland’s population today is more than 15% smaller than it was a decade ago.)

Combine that with the fact that the proudly liberal Kucinich has been a thorn in the side of Ohio Republicans, who, cycle after cycle, just can’t seem to knock him off when it comes time to count the votes, and you have a lot of rumors that all come to the same conclusion: if you can’t beat Kucinich in an election…why not just make his District disappear?

In the meantime, Washington is looking to have at least two open seats in the politically “purple” western half of the State: Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee is running for Governor, freeing up the 1st; there’s also going to be this new 10th District, the boundaries of which are as yet uncertain.

The odds are pretty good that the Redistricting Commission (two Republicans, two Democrats, and a fifth member appointed by the other four), will assemble a District from an “area of overpopulation” that would probably include parts of Thurston, Pierce, and King Counties:

--Thurston Country includes liberal, liberal, Olympia, the State Capitol, as well as suburbs for residents who work as far away as Seattle – but it also includes areas that are quite rural. Around the county there’s a wide range of incomes, but there’s also rising unemployment.

--Pierce Country (Tacoma is the big city in the County) has a healthy suburban and rural crime problem that has evolved over time as the methamphetamine business changed from a “local manufacturing” model to one based on imported Mexican drugs (there are fewer meth labs today, but meth possession and the associated auto thefts, burglaries, and family problems are still going strong…), and the street violence in Tacoma itself has been moderated. That said, the underlying economic causes of these problems are still there, which probably sounds familiar to a lot of readers around the country.

Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base are now “Joint Base Lewis McChord” and that large military presence is amplified throughout the region by the presence of dependants, retirees, and civilian workers. Because there’s a war on unemployment in the County is relatively low.

--King County is the place everyone thinks of when they think of Washington: Seattle’s here, and it appears, if the legends are to be believed, like a woodsy Upper West Side with high-tech campuses dotting the landscape and producing billionaires by the bucketful – and all that thanks to the gentle mists of espresso falling from the sky.

The reality’s a bit different: King County is surprisingly purple at election time, and about 2/3 of the population is located outside the city limits of reliably liberal Seattle. The 8th District, out in the eastern suburbs, has elected two Republicans to the House for almost 20 years in a row: the annoyingly effective Jennifer Dunn and the amazingly ineffectual Dave Reichert.

--Much of Inslee’s 1st District is located west of Seattle, and much of it is rural – but also included in his District are Seattle’s northern suburbs, including Everett, home to a giant Boeing assembly facility. The District is also one of the most military in the Nation; within the District or immediately next door are elements of Naval Base Kitsap (which is actually several facilities combined under one name) and Naval Station Everett (which homeports a Carrier Battle Group).

So with all that in mind, here’s the first couple of minutes of Kucinich’s speech, where he describes his connection with Seattle and his rejection of war as a concept:



Bonus Video: check out this little “Hey, how’s it goin’?” moment between Kucinich and the aforementioned Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott, who spoke just after Kucinich:



So the question now becomes: if Kucinich were to run for Congress in Washington…where and how?

To help answer that question, I’m going to fall back on the electoral results of 2009’s Referendum 71, which represents the most recent example of Washington voters making the “liberal” choice in a Statewide election (R-71 was enacted to protect certain rights of qualified domestic partners).

WA-01, Inslee’s current District, includes portions of Snohomish and Kitsap Counties; in 2009 R-71 passed in Snohomish County 53-47% with about 100,000 votes cast. More significantly, most cities with more than 2000 votes cast voted for the measure.

Kitsap County voted heavily in favor of the measure; the entire County voted 65-35% and cast about 24,000 votes.

What about a potential WA-10?

Let’s start up north and go south: for the most part, southern King County voted against R-71, for the most part, it was somewhere around 52-48%; if you were to cut off all of King County south of Seattle and plunk it in WA-10, there would be about 75,000 votes in play.

Pierce County voted exactly 50-50% on R-71, with 110,000 votes cast – but Tacoma accounted for 40,000 of those votes, and they went 58-42% in favor of the more liberal position.

Thurston County went very heavily for R-71 (63-37%; 33,000 votes), but 15,000 of those votes were cast in Olympia (73-27%); if Olympia’s not in the 10th the rest of the County looks more like 53-47% in favor of the liberal choice.

More Bonus Video: here’s Kucinich talking about Social Security:



So if those are the apparent numbers…who might show up to help a Kucinich campaign?

Let’s start with Labor: I had the impression that Jeff Johnson, who is President of the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC), might like to work with a (well-known Friend Of Labor) Kucinich – but I have been warned, more than once, that the WSLC can’t endorse anyone until the Union’s State Convention debates and votes on the matter. (This year’s Convention is in the first week of August; that could be an issue if Kucinich were to announce his intentions this Fall or Winter).

Seattle’s "Portlandia", for want of a better word, will come out to help Kucinich in a big way; that would probably be true whether he ran in the 1st or the 10th.

In Washington elections, “boots on the ground” become doorbellers and phone bankers - but 100% vote-by-mail means no driving voters to the polls, and that means ensuring turnout becomes more of a messaging issue. We can probably assume that the number of volunteers Inslee was able to pull last time is gonna be about what is required if a Kucinich WA-01 run were to occur.

Beyond that, there's a lot of out-of-state help available as well: for example, if Kucinich were to get public about repeal of the Washington State Defense of Marriage Act, it seems likely that LBGT money and help would come in from around the country.

There are groups like IAVA, the Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans' group, that might step up (and they do recognize Kucinich as an ally), which would be helpful (lots of active duty and their families, civilian contractors, vets, and retirees in both WA-01 and a likely WA-10). You could expect to see Progressive PAC money and virtual “phone bank” help from folks like MoveOn as well, just as there will likely be a ton of "Crossroads GPS"-like cash and Conservative volunteering coming to any opponent.

What about timing? The Ohio Redistricting Commission (three Republicans, two Democrats) will have the first say in what happens; that process has just begun with the first meeting of the Ohio Legislative Task Force on Redistricting, Reapportionment, and Demographic Research on June 16th.

(Wanna make some money? Draw The Line Ohio is sponsoring a competition to draw the best Districts, which they intend to present to the Commission, and they’re willing to pay cash prizes for the best work: check it out at the Draw The Line Midwest website.)

I told Kucinich that I’d love to see him come out and run in the 8th, against the ineffectual Dave Reichert; his response: “I’m not here as a candidate”.

I winked, he did not nudge.

Should Kucinich run, I would expect attacks to cover ground such as: “He’s a carpetbagger!” or “He’s too liberal for the (insert name here) District” or what might become my favorite: a variation of “Vote against Nancy Pelosi: Vote against Dennis Kucinich”.

So that’s what I know: Kucinich was in town to stir up the troops, and if things don’t go well in Ohio there are several scenarios that could place him here in Washington – and there are at least two Districts where he could have a shot at winning.

And with all that seen and said, I climbed the stairs from the darkened underground political comedy lair and returned to the world of light, where people do things like knit tree cozies – you know, the normal world.

Do Washington State Democrats Have A Labor Problem? Let’s Ask Jay Inslee

OK: so I’ve been working what is, on one level, a Jay Inslee story (Inslee is the Congressman from Washington’s 1st District, now running for Governor in ’12), and, on another level, a story of why Democrats are having all kinds of problems with what should be “natural” constituencies – and why those problems might not be going away anytime soon.

I thought the two elements of this narrative would come together last Monday, when I attended the “announcement event” that marked the beginning of the Inslee Gubernatorial Campaign, and in fact they did…but it wasn’t in a way I would have expected, and that’s why we have something to talk about today.

I reached out to some helpful outside voices, including Inslee himself; all of that will be brought to the discussion – and as another news organization famously offers to do, I’ll report, and leave you to decide.

Krusty the Klown: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good evening. Tonight my guest is AFL/CIO chairman George Meany, who will be discussing collective bargaining agreements

George Meaney: It's a pleasure to be here, Krusty

Krusty the Klown: Let me be blunt: is there a Labor crisis in America today?

George Meaney: Well that depends what you mean by crisis...

--From “The Simpsons” episode S06E01, “Bart of Darkness”

So here’s what I know: Jay Inslee brings to the contest for Governor a Congressional voting record that could be great news for Washington State’s Progressive community: he’s generally supportive of LBGT and other civil rights issues, he seems to support the sort of elections I like (clean ones), he’s very much interested in a “next generation” energy and environmental policy, and he voted against the TARP Program (that’s the bank bailout that was passed in the last months of the Bush Administration) and the extension of the Patriot Act.

All good stuff.

But I also know this: if you are a State worker in Washington State, you are under attack, and you have been for some time now – and among the attackers are members of the Democratic Party – and the reason I’m so personally familiar with this fact is because The Girlfriend is one of those workers (she’s a nurse working within the Division of Developmental Disabilities, and she has been for more than 15 years), and I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.

And I know that for these workers, each year the question becomes: “This year’s wage cuts: in cash, by jacking the cost of health care, or through furlough days?”

This sort of problem extends to workers all across the State, as business interests target the State’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Industrial Insurance programs for attack, to give just two examples of recent legislative battles.

And the State’s Unions are reacting: I had a back and forth with Kathy Cummings (she’s the Communications Director for WSLC, the Washington State Labor Council), who confirmed what I thought I’d been seeing: that since 2009 there has been an effort by the WSLC to bring the fight to Washington State Democrats, including a successful effort to unseat State Senator Jean Berkey, who was targeted, according to Cummings, because of her votes on UI, public education and health care, pollution laws, and tax policy, which the WSLC viewed as favoring corporate interests.

2009, by the way, was a watershed year for this State’s Labor unions, as that was the year Washington Democratic leaders actually called in the State Patrol to investigate whether internal discussions about whether to withhold future campaign contributions if those Democrats didn’t get more cooperative was some sort of criminal act.

As a result, the WSLC formed the DIME PAC (DIME, of course, is an acronym; Don’t Invest in More Excuses, to be specific); this and other Labor-associated PACs are apparently acting as any PAC can, much to the chagrin of Democrats and business interests alike, including what appears to have been a controversial decision to promote a Republican in Berkey’s primary in order to knock her out of the contest early. (Washington uses a “top-two” primary system to determine who gets to the general election, and Berkey came in number three.)

And sure enough, Democrats do appear to be less than supportive: Unions held two rallies this spring at the State Capitol in Olympia, both of which I attended – and I couldn’t help but notice that Washington State Democrats weren’t up on the dais talking about how much they supported those workers gathered just outside.

In fact, the only elected Democrat I saw on either stage, in March or April, speaking to the crowds was State Senator Spencer Coggs…who is a Wisconsin State Senator. (Kathy Cummings helpfully points out that, despite what I thought, about 20 Democrats were introduced by name and were somewhere around the stage at various times during the April event to show support – and you’ll want to keep that in mind as we go along.)

So here’s what I’m thinking as I’m on my way to attend Jay Inslee’s announcement and presser last Monday: Inslee is presumably aware of this history, and if he were to become Washington State’s top elected Democrat he would presumably want to act in a manner that heals that rift…which would be a pretty good story to report to a Progressive audience.

That is not how it turned out.

ME: "I attended two Labor rallies in Olympia over the past couple of months; the only Democratic elected official who seemed to be able to get out and speak to the crowd was from Wisconsin, Spencer Copps, State Senator [which was an error; I should have said Spencer Coggs]. I wondered what you think about that and what are you going to do to try to change it?"

INSLEE: "Well, I'm not sure what you're referring to..."

ME: "Well, you mentioned honoring unions..."

INSLEE: "I'm sorry..."

ME: "Well, you mentioned honoring unions, these folks were out trying to promote union rights, but Democrats don't seem to want to get out and support union rights in person. Do you see that as a problem; how would you like to change it?"

INSLEE: "I don't see this as a problem, because I believe as I said I fundamentally believe in work, I fundamentally believe in workers, and I fundamentally believe that people have collective bargaining rights as an organized group, and I think what has gone on in Wisconsin is a travesty, and the reason it's a travesty is that, uh, Governor Walker, if he wanted to be angry at someone, he shouldn't have been angry at the first grade teachers, he should have been angry at the Wall Street investment bankers whose greed was responsible for the economic collapse, and yet I saw the Governor turn his sights on the middle class, and I don't believe an assault on the middle class, which is what happened in Wisconsin, is productive for economic growth, of anyone in our State, or our country. Now I've been pretty forthright in that regard, and, uh, I'll maintain that position."

Here’s the video:



Now let me be the first to say that I did not ask the best possible question. What I should have done was be more specific about how much of a rift there is between Labor and Washington State’s Democrats, and then specifically asked what steps Inslee would take, to, as I said earlier, heal the rift.

So normally what you do in a case like that is you go back to the campaign staff and send a follow-up question, and some helpful person who is doing the Candidate’s communications work will get you an official response.

But that’s where it gets weird.

If you try to go to the campaign website to locate the contract information, it is literally nothing, except for three links: give me money, get on the mailing list, or click through to facebook.

I posted a note “on the wall” at facebook, asking who the contact person was for the campaign for media inquiries, and not only did that get no response, the request was removed from the wall within minutes.

I sent follow-up questions to the originating address of the email that invited me to the Inslee event in the first place and to his Congressional office; those also went unacknowledged.

And that, right there, is pretty much the entire story as I know it: there is a significant and growing rift between Labor and Washington State’s Democrats, I tried to bring Inslee out on the issue (albeit clumsily), which he did not seem to want to address – and, oddly enough, there appears to be no desire on the part of the campaign to take the opportunity to follow up and affirm that an Inslee Administration would be a friend of Labor when it comes to things like protecting UI, and not balancing the budget while exempting corporate interests from taxation, and protecting workers from environmental hazards on the job.

Except there is one more thing.

I asked the WSLC’s Cummings this question…

Since the 2010 election cycle, have Democrats become more reliable partners, in the estimation of the WSLC?

…and she gave me a bit of a “tease”: the WSLC will release their 2011 Legislative Report, which will address that very question, just in time for their Annual Convention, which begins on August 4th – and we are told to stay tuned.

Inslee Running For Washington Governor, Supports Full Marriage Equality

Congressman Jay Inslee (WA-01) announced his candidacy for Governor of the State of Washington in Seattle Monday, and Your Erstwhile Reporter was present.

The candidacy was announced with a speech that focused on “process improvements” and the invocation of new technology jobs as an economic engine for job growth (and in fact the event took place at the headquarters of a company that has developed seed-derived biofuels that have been used to power military and commercial aircraft).

But that’s not the part that’s going to be the most interesting for the civil-rights supportive reader.

The most interesting part is that Inslee was quick to offer his support for full marriage equality in the State of Washington, should he find himself elected.

So before we get to the good stuff, let’s do a bit of historical review.

The Congressman has compiled a mixed record on issues that matter to the LBGT community during his time in Congress, and most of it can be considered supportive. He did vote to pass the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) repeal, and he co-sponsored the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009, which made it out of the House Oversight and Government Committee, only to die in the House Judiciary Committee. (The bill would have provided same-sex partners access to the spousal benefits of their Federal employee family members.)

An additional bill, HR 1024, would have given same-sex couples an expectation of equal treatment during immigration proceedings; this was also cosponsored by Inslee. (It also died in committee.)

However…when it came time in 2009 to try to repeal the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, the House got a bill together (HR 3567) that Inslee was not willing to cosponsor; it died, again, in House Judiciary.

Now here’s where I get a bit suspicious: a similar bill was introduced in the 112th Congress, on March 16, 2011, and of the 115 co-sponsors, virtually all signed on before April 6th. There are 5 who signed on later…including Congressman Inslee, who was one of two co-sponsors who all signed up on June 15th, which was just 12 days before his announcement.

The historical review complete, let’s talk about Monday.

I walked into the after-announcement “press availability” just in time to record this exchange:

REPORTER: "Congressman, would you address two social issues that are in the headlines these days. One, where do you stand on gay marriage, two, where do you stand on the legalization of marijuana?"

INSLEE: "Thanks for your easy question, sir, uh. Um, so I believe in marriage equality, and the reason I believe in that is that uh, I've been married for 38 years, and I fundamentally believe that no government, and no politician should deny any of my fellow Washingtonians the right to have what I have, which is a stable, committed, you know, meaningful relationship. So I'm gonna support, uh, the legalization of that equality in the State of Washington. And when we do that, uh, we will do it to make sure in a way that no religious organization doesn't have the right to have their own definition for their own purposes, under their belief of spirituality. This is a situation where we can have both equality, which is a quintessential Washington value. And I said I love the State, one of the reasons I love the State of Washington is we have been leaders in equality in so many different ways; this is another place where I think Washington should lead.

Uh, marijuana, there are two things I know we should do for sure. Number one, we have got to get the intention of the voters of the State of Washington to be honored, which does allow the use of medical marijuana in the State of Washington...and right now, that intent of the voters is being frustrated by the Federal government, which is threatening the Federal--uh, State government any time you try to enforce the will of the people. So we need some changes to frankly, get the Federal government off our backs when it comes to the ability of Washingtonians to have access to medical marijuana.

Second, I believe that we should stop wasting so much of our resources in our criminal justice system associweated--associated with mari--marijuana, particularly personal use of marijuana. This is something that is really does not bring value or--or reduce significant levels of crime, and we need to reprioritize our law enforcement away from chasing folks who are involved in--in marijuana; we got enough problems in our criminal justice system, I'm aware of that, I guess in part because my daughter-in-law is a forensic scientist at the crime lab I've got a sense of the challenges. Law enforcement's strapped; they got a lot of problems to deal with.

As far as total decriminalization, I'm not there yet at this moment. I'm a parent, I'm just not comfortable right now, uh, and that's my position."

OK, so that’s a pretty interesting story, and we could leave it right there – but there is one extra bonus to the thing that is so good, so deeply ironic…that you may remember the ending of this story long after you forget the lead:

I got a parking ticket, I did, attending the event, issued by a Parking Enforcement Officer with an amazingly appropriate name…and that ticket was issued to me for a violation that occurred one block over from Harrison Street in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood …which means I showed up to watch the leading Democratic contender for Governor in 2012 announce his candidacy…and when it was all over, Officer J. Hell had issued me a ticket on Republican Street.

And all that proves the truth of what I’m always saying:

Some days you don’t even have to write jokes.
You just have to harvest ‘em.

On Reopening For Business, Or, What? No Flying Cars?

So I took a bit of a break this past month, and I figured by the time I came back y’all would have things sorted out: people would be surely by flying around with jet packs by now, God would have sent fires and floods to smite the unrighteous, and, if I really got lucky, Barack Obama would have “grown a pair”.

And now that I’m back, debt negotiations are about to commence between that same Barack Obama and the Republican Congressional Leadership, things like Social Security and Medicare cuts are apparently on the table in order to protect tax cuts for the rich, and certain quarters of the Republican Party aren’t even trying anymore to hide their racism.

All of which suggests that I shouldn’t be looking for a jet pack anytime soon.

But there is some good news: God is apparently working hard, and states like Oklahoma and Arizona and Florida and Georgia and Texas have been alternately aflame or aflood, apparently as a result of their unrepentant behavior…and on the economic front, New York City’s Stonewall Inn is going to make a ton of money this summer hosting weddings.

That gives us a lot to talk about…so let’s get right to it.

Pessimism is cowardice. The man who cannot frankly acknowledge the “Jim-Crow” car as a fact and yet live and hope, is simply afraid either of himself or of the world. There is not in the world a more disgraceful denial of brotherhood than the “Jim-Crow” car of the southern United States; but, too, just as true, there is nothing more beautiful in the universe than sunset and moonlight on Montego Bay in far Jamaica. And both things are true and both belong to this, our world, and neither can be denied.

--From “On Being Black”, by W.E.B. DuBois

We gotta start with the most “WTF?!?” news first: Personhood USA is a group that figures the only reason we want to make sure that abortion rights are protected for women who are raped, either by members of their own family or others…is because we really don’t understand how wonderful it can be for women to enter motherhood in this way, or for those children to enter the world; all of which presumably means that for these folks, the dark cloud of rape and incest has a silver lining that the rest of us never really think about.

To help make the point, and to help advance legislation that basically says that as soon as two sets of haploid chromosomes become a diploid a child is born (this to try to criminalize abortion in the State), Personhood Mississippi sent their representative, Rebecca Kiessling, on a week-long “Conceived in Rape Lecture Series”.

“I am not the rapist’s child!”, Kiessling declares in a written statement, which I personally think is going to be tough to sell to some poor kid who’s been forced by law to sit down at Thanksgiving dinner next to his father and grandfather – and there’s only one guy sitting there. Especially in a State that isn’t exactly big on providing mental health services to these victims.

But let’s move on to happier subjects:

I live in Washington State, and for the past several years Democrats in what you might think is an aggressively liberal State are fighting a losing battle to keep it that way; much of this, frankly, rests on the shoulders of Governor Christine Gregoire, who, not unlike many other Democratic leaders nationally, has simply not chosen to take the fight to the Republicans.

But this may change, as Congressman Jay Inslee is apparently going to announce his candidacy for the State’s top office on Monday.

I have to confess that I personally am looking forward to this, as Inslee has been pushing a lot of issues that I care about over the years, including real health care reform and an energy policy that tries to remove Saudi Arabia from their position as America’s “best frenemy forever”.

I don’t have the exact quote handy, but I once saw Inslee, on the floor of the House, describe a Bush budget as having the same effect on someone as it would be if you hit them over the head with their own artificial leg, and I’ve been a fan ever since; if he takes that attitude to the campaign and governing we’ll be the better off for the effort.

The number of states looking to screw over their workers is growing fast, and so far Barack Obama hasn’t been able to locate those “comfortable shoes” he said he’d be putting on so he could march right alongside those same workers.

I want to be helpful here, Mr. President, not mean…so maybe you might want to check out the Nike Factory Store over there at the outlet mall in Potomac Mills, which is out in Virginia just a bit past Arlington National Cemetery. (It’s right next to the Burlington Coat Factory and that Japanese place in the food court). I have shopped at one of those Nike stores a time or two, and they have lots of comfortable shoes – and boots, too, which are really great for marches.

Now I like these right here – but I wouldn’t pay $120 for ‘em; instead, I’d wait for them to drop to below $50…but workers in Wisconsin and Ohio and Michigan and New Jersey don’t have that kind of time, so if I were you I’d pay the extra money and treat it as a campaign expense or something…and then I’d actually fulfill my promise and get out and wear those shoes, before the Republicans start running that pesky YouTube video as a campaign ad…which, sooner or later, they probably will.

When Osama Bin Laden was killed just a mile or so from Pakistan’s military academy we all wondered how it was possible for the world’s most wanted man to be there and, somehow, no one in authority knew about it.

And now (alleged serial killer, notorious Mob boss, FBI informant, and “Next Most Wanted Man”) Whitey Bulger was just captured a few blocks from the Santa Monica pier, in an apartment he rented for 15 years, which just happens to be 4.5 miles from the FBI’s Los Angeles field office up on Wilshire Boulevard.

Just sayin’.

Not a word from me about Anthony Weiner. Instead, go read what K.Flay had to say about all this, as she has it exactly right. (If you visit she will also, out of the kindness of her heart, hook you up with lots of her music, free of charge, which is très sweet.)

Olbermann is back, if you did not yet know, on Al Gore’s Current channel, which means you probably have to go to the website to see him (unless you have either DirecTV, or Dish, or a cooperative cable company), but it’s worth the effort.

Since Current lacks content, he can be seen “on air” at nearly any hour of the day (the “official” time: 8 PM weeknights on the East Coast, 5 on the West), which reminds me of “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain” in a couple of ways (much respect, “Vanguard”); we’ll be watching to see how that shapes up over time with great interest.

Next up, perhaps the best story of “taking your enlightenment where you find it” in history:

So the Dalai Lama walks into a bar and tells the bartender:

“Make me one with everything”

Does everyone remember that guy in Florida a few weeks back who said God wanted him to burn the Qur’an, so he went out and burned him some?

Has anyone noticed that, just a few weeks later, Florida is now so overwhelmed with fires that they are running out of people to send to fight them…and that most of them, evidently, were started by lightning?

So…does that make you more or less likely to be an atheist – or a comic – or do you find that compassion in the face of the bad karma of others is the right way?

In our final comment today, we offer congratulations to New York’s LBGT community, who, thanks to the passage of marriage equality legislation, are now just as free to be just as miserable as any other married couple in the State. In your honor, we’ll close out today’s story with a joke, courtesy of the great Henny Youngman:

So the wife and I are laying in bed, and she looks over at me and says: “What’s the matter, honey? Can’t you think of anyone else either?”

WA-Sen: Can Murray's Math Teach Democrats A Lesson?

We now know the outcome, more or less, of the Washington State US Senate race—and it looks like it’s going to be Patty Murray, D-(Actual No-Kidding Progressive), over Dino Rossi, R-(Guy Who Will Be Running Again For Something As Soon As He Can).

Murray managed to win in a State that is far more “purple” than you might think, in a vote-by-mail election that guarantees at least few days of uncertainty.

You have to do some unusual math to figure out how these elections will go, and we’re going to walk through how this race got called by NBC just a couple hours ago.

So here’s what we do know: if you want to win an election in Washington, you basically have to carry some combination of King (Seattle, and Washington’s most populous, and liberal, county), Pierce (Tacoma, and Seattle’s southern suburbs, with a significant military population), Snohomish (Everett, and Seattle’s northern suburbs, also with a Navy population), Clark (Vancouver, and the northern suburbs of Portland, Oregon), Kitsap (home to a Naval Shipyard, an aircraft carrier homeport, and nuclear missile submarines), Whatcom (Bellingham, a college town and almost a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia), and Spokane (the largest in very super conservative Eastern Washington) Counties.

You also need to know that Washington is a virtually 100% vote-by-mail state, and that votes in the mail with an Election Day postmark, no matter when they arrive, are valid votes.

There was an amazing amount of anti-Murray advertising, most of it in the form of secret money coming from either the US Chamber of Commerce or Karl Rove’s various groups; the basic themes of the ads suggested Murray caused all the unemployment and debt ever experienced in American history and couldn’t wait to make things worse.

Pro-Murray ads centered on her...well, her Progressive record—and her ability to bring jobs to the State...and that message was being transmitted in a State with high unemployment.

And as we’ll see, all of this created exceptionally high voter turnouts, particularly for midterm elections.

Now let’s do some electoral math:

We can look at the Secretary of State’s handy website and see just what’s arrived so far; it typically updates each day from here on out at 4:30 PM Pacific time, but there may be additional updates each day.

As of 7:30PM, November 4th, which is the most current update I have available, Murray is up by 45,000 and change with roughly 1.85 million votes counted so far.

But what we really need to know is: how many votes are there still to be counted?

The site has a county-by-county page that reports about 617,000 ballots are “on hand to be processed”...but that won’t include those that are still in the mail. We’ll talk more about them later.

Right now the largest concentrations of “on hand” ballots are, predictably in King (270,000), Pierce (30,000), Kitsap (29,000), Snohomish (88,000), and Spokane (65,000) Counties.

Snohomish, Kitsap, and Pierce Counties are running about 50-50 so far, and that means nothing is likely to happen in those counties that will change the outcome in any significant way, so we will put them aside for this analysis.

King County is running almost 65-35% Murray, and Spokane County is running 56-44% Rossi, so that’s where we turn for the rest of our analysis.

Now what we need to know is how many votes have yet to arrive in the mail, and the way we do that is to look at potential levels of voter turnout.

Huh?

It works like this: King County has almost 1.1 million registered voters, 500,000 have already been counted, and 270,000 are waiting to be counted—and that’s 70% turnout, if no other votes arrive.

It’s pretty rare to see 70% + turnouts in midterms, but we’re already there, so let’s assume turnouts of 75% and 80%. At 75% that means 55,000 more votes are coming, at 80% 110,000. Add all the uncounted votes up, assume the current 65-35 distribution of votes holds up, and that suggests her margin, at those turnout levels, would grow by some number between 211,250-247,000 votes. If no more votes arrive, her margin should grow by 189,000 votes.

Spokane County has 260,000 registered voters, with about 120,000 ballots counted and 65,000 more sitting in trays not yet counted. That’s a 70.5% turnout, again, a remarkable result for a midterm, and, as we mentioned, they are voting for Rossi, 56-44%. Let’s again model for 75% and 80%; we would expect 15,000 or 23,000 more in the mail from those outcomes.

I also looked at every county with more than 5000 votes left to be counted. Those that are on the east side of the State are consistently 65-35% Rossi, Western Washington counties are running more or less 50-50, but they are mostly going to Murray.

And guess what? If I’m any good at arithmetic, Spokane County doesn’t have enough votes to get Rossi over the top, even if you get 80% turnout and 100% of all currently uncounted votes go for Rossi...and I think that means we can call this one for Murray by about 210,000 at 75% turnout in those two counties, minus any other result in the State, which are not going to be enough to swing the tide.

As I’m finishing this up, NBC is also calling for Murray.

So there you go...a good Progressive wins, with extraordinary turnouts in a year when other candidates had lots of their base stay home, and despite a massive “secret money” campaign for Rossi, courtesy of Karl Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce.

And just to make it even sweeter: she ran her campaign fully embracing her record, and standing up for her tough votes. She didn’t pander conservative, and her progressive voter base stood up and got her over the top.

That’s a message the Evan Bayhs of the world did not learn—and it’s a message Members of Congress...and a certain President...ought to learn, and fast, if they want to win in 2012.

On Snow And Cameras, Or, Health Care Gets A Day Off

Whether you are deliriously happy, incredibly sad, or still uncertain about how you feel about what has emerged from the House this weekend, it’s probably safe to say that one thing everyone is...is sick of the whole thing.

Of course, we’re far from done—but just to give us all a break, I’m going to abruptly change the subject.

I have a Flip Video camera—which I am still getting used to—and last night we ran up the hill to Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, ostensibly to test the camera’s low-light capabilities...but really so we could drive around in all the fresh new snow.

There’s plenty of time to get back to the political wars in a bit; but for right now let’s head up the mountain, see some cool stuff, talk about what the camera can—and can’t—do, and, just for fun, we’ll answer the age-old Seattle question: “how long does it take to find three places that sell espresso at the top of a mountain pass in the middle of nowhere?”

Snoqualmie Pass is Seattle’s closest ski area (just take I-90 about 40 miles east, and when the road quits going up, you’re there). The Pass and the surrounding mountains are high enough that you can get a lot of snow on the ground—in fact, in an average winter 33 feet of snow will accumulate; in 1955-56 you could have stuck a stick 68 feet long in the snow...and the ground would have still been a foot out of reach.

When you have that kind of snow to deal with, you have to make certain adaptations, which is how we get to our first video. What you’ll see is a fire hydrant shed, which is basically a little A-frame cabin for a fire hydrant:



(This was lit by car headlamps.)

There is a “Travelers’ Rest” building that’s been there since 1938—but you won’t see it in the next video, because it’s behind me. What I want you to pay attention to, instead, is how the camera reacts as it pans, and also the how the camera responds to the varying light levels in the clip:



The Travelers’ Rest building now houses restrooms and (naturally) an espresso shop. Here’s the view through one of their windows:



You can see that if the image is well-lit, and the camera is nice and still, the results are surprisingly good...for a camera that fits in a pocket.

The Alpental Lodge is located a hundred feet or so above the Pass; this sodium-lit video shows snow falling in the Lodge’s parking lot:



There is a mountain gorge with a genuine babbling brook in front, and a covered wooden bridge gets you over to the Lodge from the parking lot. This next video shows how the camera reacts to low light combined with movement. It’s also a great example of how well the camera records sound, which it does pretty well. (As the video progresses, the light changes from ambient light to fluorescent to sodium lamps as the bridge ends.)



We are still a little ways from Alpental’s opening, but this is an “almost picture postcard perfect” image of the back of the Lodge—and again, you’ll note that if enough light is present, the results can be great:



People live up here, as you might imagine, but again, when you have this much snow, you have to adapt. In order to get in and out of the house in a place where the snow will probably pile up well past the second story windows before it’s all done, you need a plan. The two videos that follow show the “snow sheds” that people build just to get from the front door to the car.

In about four to six weeks, when serious snow is on the ground, these sheds will be completely buried, creating exit tunnels that are somewhat reminiscent of what you might see attached to an igloo.






We’re almost to the end, and it’s time to answer the question we posed at the beginning of the story: exactly how long does it take to find three places that sell espresso at the top of a mountain pass in the middle of nowhere?



Who picked the one minute, fifteen seconds square on the grid? If it was you...you’re the winner.

The final video of the story shows just what kind of a snow shovel works best when clearing the kind of snow that accumulates at the Pass. This video was taken at the front doors of the third espresso location you saw from the previous video.



See the yellow “caution” tape around the windows? Snow will be piled up at least that deep in a few weeks; they will have to cut holes in the snow banks to allow people to walk around the side of the building to get to that side of the parking lot.

Normally this would be the part of the story where I would wrap everything up, and to do that today I’m going to offer a few thoughts about the little Flip Video camera.

I bought this camera because it is so small that it can easily be carried in a shirt pocket, because with this camera it’s so quick to start shooting, and because it was capable of recording in 720p, which is a high-def format.

I knew, going in, that it would have a number of limitations, and we have seen those on display in the videos here. I did not buy this camera as a substitute for a Red Camera—but I did buy it as a camera that I could use for field interviews that could be put on the Web, and, as some of the video on display here testifies, the camera is fully capable of doing that and more.

So there you go: we saw some très cool snow video, you, perhaps, learned a few things about adaptation, and we managed to get in a camera review besides.

And the best part: for at least a few minutes—no health care!

On Projecting R-71's Outcome, Or, We Visit A Political Party

Over the past few days we have been talking about Washington State’s Referendum 71, which was voted on this week. If passed, the Referendum will codify in law certain protections for same-sex couples.

In the first story of our three-part series we discussed Washington’s unusual vote-by-mail system; in the second we examined the pre-election polling.

Today we talk about what happened Election Night at the R-71 event and where the vote count stands today...and where it might end up when we’re all done.

We have lots of geeky electoral analysis ahead—and as a special bonus, we have video of the event, including an exclusive interview with Charlene Strong, the woman who became one of the icons of the pro-71 campaign.

It’s a lot to cover, so we better get right to it.

The Big “Catch-Up”

If you are new to this story, we’ll give you a real quick “catch-up”:

On Tuesday’s ballot Washington voters were asked to consider Referendum 71, which is going to decide whether E2SSB 5688 (passed by the Legislature and “[e]xpanding the rights and responsibilities of state registered domestic partners”) shall be allowed to go into effect. (E2SSB, by the way, stands for "Engrossed Second Senate Substitute Bill".)

Voting to approve means the bill will go into law, voting to reject will prevent the bill from having any force or effect under law.

Washington State votes almost entirely by mail, and all ballots postmarked by midnight, November 3rd will be counted. Since lots of voters put their ballots in the mail on November 3rd (myself included), that means, when things are close, that the outcome of any particular question might not be known on Election Day.

About 2/3 of Washington’s population of 6.8 million is concentrated in the Western portion of the State; 3.5 million of those residents live in just three counties: King, Pierce, and Snohomish (Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett being the largest cities in those counties). 25% of the State’s population (1.9 million) resides in King County.

Clark County, which is immediately adjacent to Portland, Oregon (largest city: Vancouver), is slightly smaller in population than Eastern Washington’s largest county, Spokane, which has a population of roughly 450,000.

As it happens, the voting on R-71 is rather close, which is consistent with the pre-election polling...which means at this point you’re pretty well caught up and we’re ready to move on to new business.

The morning sun rose above the Cascades and reflected its dusky orange glow off the bottom of the thin clouds Wednesday morning, enveloping those who were awake with a blanket of soothing daylight.

The night before, however, supporters of same-sex marriage had gathered, in their goat leggings and leather, to engage in a horrifying bacchanal involving the setting of bonfires, the invocation of incantations, and the sacrifices of---

Well, actually, none of that ever happened...but it sounded like a lot of fun, didn’t it?

What Actually Happened

Instead, a crowd of roughly 250 gathered at Seattle’s Pravda Studios to wait for the results. The event was quite upbeat before results were announced, and that mood was reinforced when it was announced that seven Western Washington counties, including King County, were voting to approve the Referendum.



I was lucky enough to get some insight as to how that happened when I interviewed Charlene Strong, who tragically lost her partner three years ago. Her face and her story have figured prominently in this campaign—but as she pointed out to me, the seeds of whatever happens in this election were planted years ago:

...”...the citizens of Washington State...put a Governor in place that is all about equality and a Legislative team that is all about equality and I feel very proud tonight to be a citizen of Washington State, and I’m sure I’ll be feeling that way for quite some days to come...”

(I am not, and have never been, a camera operator for the MTV Networks. Instead, I’m still getting used to my little Flip Video camera...which is why much of the interview appears to have been conducted with the most gracious Ms. Strong’s shoulder. Mea culpa.)

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

And with the stage having been set, let’s get geeky:

Washington’s Secretary of State keeps track of statewide ballot measures (including verifying the petition signatures), and it is on their site where we will find statewide results. At the moment (the moment being 6:24 PM, November 4th) 593,956 voters have voted to approve and 556,090 voted to reject, which means R-71 is leading 51.65-48.35%.

Ballots representing almost 33% of the State’s voters have been counted so far, and it is estimated that 394,482 ballots are on hand, around the State, waiting to be counted.

Here’s how the five largest counties are shaping up:

King County Elections reports that R-71 is passing by a 66-33% margin (202,125 to 101,403), with a total of 438,557 votes having been received so far from the County’s 1,079,842 registered voters. These numbers tell us that 135,029 votes are currently on hand, waiting to be counted. (63,446 votes came in today.)

It is likely that 90,000 of those uncounted votes are going to be “approved” votes, based on current trends. If a similar number of votes came in tomorrow, roughly 40,000 more votes would be “approve votes”, suggesting as many as 130,000 more “approved” votes could be waiting to be tallied up.

(Based on these numbers, we already know that King County will exceed the 51% statewide turnout rate that the Secretary of State projected before the election.)

Snohomish County Elections reports that 101,737 votes have been received so far, with 45,000 votes currently uncounted. Voters are approving the measure, but with a much closer margin: 51.72-48.28% (51,222-47,809). The remaining 45,000 votes should add about 1,000 votes to R-71’s lead.

We do not know how many votes were received today by the County, but if we assume that 50% of the total number of votes were in the mail in Election Day, then another 50,000 or so votes should be still on the way, which should also increase R-71’s lead by about 1,000 votes, if current trends hold.

(If we assume that the County will achieve a 50% turnout rate, roughly 40,000 Ballots should be in the mail, which only adds 800 additional votes, not the 1,000 estimated in the precious paragraph.)

The Pierce County Auditor reports that 90,367 votes are in, and the “rejected” votes are leading, 47,307 (53.08%) to 41,809 (46.92%). The estimate is that 50,000 ballots remain to be counted. 60,000 additional votes would be needed for the County to reach a 50% turnout rate, and if you projected that 110,000 votes onto the current trend the “approve 71” final vote should decline by about 6,500 votes.

Clark County Elections indicates that R-71 is losing there as well, with 36,206 (46.01%) voting to approve and 42,481 (53.99%) voting to reject. 13,000 ballots are reported to be uncounted. Clark County has 215,626 registered voters, and based on these numbers it would take an additional 14,450 votes to get to a 50% turnout. That suggests the “approve R-71” vote should decline by about another 2,000 votes.

Finally, Spokane County. There are 257,092 registered voters in the County, and they came out against R-71 in a big way, with 38,079 (39.98%) voting to approve and 57,169 (60.02%) voting to reject. The estimate is that 35,000 votes remain to be counted, and it’s likely those votes will decrease the “approve R-71” lead by about 6,000 votes.

The County has exceeded 50% turnout, and we do not know how many votes arrived today. If we assume 60% turnout, another 25,000 votes would be in the mail, reducing the “approve R-71” lead by another 5,000 votes.

The Big “Wrap-Up”

So what does all this mean?

How about this: I have forever told people that if the candidate or measure you support can win, with a reasonable margin, in Washington’s five largest counties, you’re gonna win the election.

With that in mind, let’s tally up the numbers and see where we are:

The King County tally, by my guess, will add another 130,000 “approved” votes to the statewide total. Snohomish County voters could add 2,000 more votes. Pierce, Clark, and Spokane Counties should reduce the “approve” votes by about 14,500 votes.

Add it all up, and I’m estimating that R-71 could gain 117,500 votes...but that number will certainly go down because of the votes of the rest of the State...so if I had to guess (and I guess I am) I would project that R-71 is going to pass with a margin of victory somewhere in the range of 80-100,000 votes, as opposed to the current margin of roughly 37,000 votes.

There are lots of caveats here: the estimates of incoming ballots could be off, the 50% turnout estimate could be inaccurate, and currently uncounted votes might not follow the trends of the votes counted so far.

Additionally, I will freely admit that I’m biased: I support R-71 (and to take it further, if same-sex couples want to marry...as long as I don’t have to buy all of them presents, I don’t see the problem), and this bias could be affecting my judgment.

So that’s today’s story: based on the return data that is known, and my own guess on what’s likely, I’m going way out on the proverbial limb and projecting that R-71 wins by somewhere between 80-100,000 votes, primarily on the strength of the uncounted King County vote and an estimate of votes that will arrive over the next 48 hours.

As with any modeling project, there are a lot of potential problems that might affect the model’s output—including my own biases—but I feel good about this estimate, and over the next week or so, we’ll see if I’m right.

Additionally, we got to have an inside look at the “process” of R-71...and we got to have an exclusive conversation with Charlene Strong’s shoulder—which, I promise, will become a “teachable moment” for yours truly as we grow, going forward, from a “words only” storytelling service into a video storytelling service.

It’s a great place to end Part Three—and it leaves us perfectly positioned to move on to a discussion of what we can learn from Tuesday’s skirmishes—but for now I have to go and strap on the goat leggings and get back to work.

After all, the doomed won’t sacrifice themselves, will they?

On Closing The Deal, Or, Referendum 71 Polling Analyzed

It is now Election Day around the US, and one ballot question that is attracting national attention is Washington State’s Referendum 71.

Voting “yes” on the Referendum would codify in law various protections for same-sex domestic partners, and it is similar to a measure that the citizens of Maine are also voting on today.

We have polling data that is fairly fresh, so let’s take this last chance to look at where we might be, and what you should be looking for over the next few days as you attempt to judge how this one is going.

As always, a few words of setup are in order.

Washington State is one of two vote-by-mail states (Oregon is the other). Ballots went out to voters 20 days before Election Day, and any ballot postmarked before midnight, November 3rd will be counted. (In the November 2008 election, 50% of ballots were still in the mail at the close of business on Election Day)

As a result, there will not be a “final” count tonight…and if the race is exceptionally close, it could be weeks before the recount process is complete.

You should also be aware that the lead can change after Election Day, based on how many votes are coming in, and where they’re coming from. You can track the statewide results at the Washington Secretary of State’s website.

(And if you want to learn more about Washington’s unusual ballot system, visit your local library…or my last story.)

This vote is on a Referendum. What that means is that the Legislature initially passed the bill we are considering today, and now a group of citizens, who didn’t like what the Legislature did, have gathered sufficient signatures to force a final vote by the People before the bill can become law.

Voting “yes” means the bill granting additional rights to “committed couples” will become law (the law would apply to same-sex couples of any age, or male-female couples if one partner is over the age of 62); voting “no” will prevent the bill from taking effect.

If you support the Legislature’s actions, you would have opposed the proponents of the Referendum while they were gathering signatures—but now you would be voting “yes” on Referendum 71. This is more than a bit confusing, and a poll conducted this summer suggested as many as 10% of voters shared that confusion. (Since then, of course, people have been running ads.)

Now, a few words about the poll we’ll be discussing. There is no daily tracking poll for us to work with, which means we won’t be able to analyze trends over time. Instead, we have a “snapshot in time” with which to work.

This study (“The Washington Poll”) is conducted two to five times per election cycle by members of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Washington, and it appears to have been a “neutral” poll over the years.

The poll was conducted over a period of two weeks, from October 14-26th. 724 people were interviewed, and there is a 3.6% margin of error. Because results were collected over a two-week period, we do not know if opinions have been shifting or if respondents have been holding firmly to their positions during the collection period.

All that said, here’s what we do know:

First, the Secretary of State projects 51% of Washington’s 3.5 million voters will be heard in this election, which is lower than the 85% last year, which is no surprise.

And how that 51% views The Big Question, Yes or No: among all voters, it’s 56% yes, 39% no, among likely voters, 57% yes, 38% no, and among those who report they have already voted, it’s 55% yes, 45% no. These numbers are all outside the margin of error, suggesting we can have high confidence that “yes” is ahead.

Roughly 5% of both likely voters and all voters report that they might change their minds, and that holds true for those who support and oppose the Referendum, suggesting the two groups might well cancel each other out.

Democrats are more likely to support the Referendum than Republicans are likely to oppose it, and centrist voters are leaning slightly in favor (48%-46%, with 7% unsure.)

Roughly 4.8 million of Washington’s nearly 6.7 million residents live in Western Washington, and more or less 4 ¼ million of those are residents of the Puget Sound region.

Puget Sound voters are running 60-35% in favor, all voters in Western Washington are leaning 55%-40% for, and voters in Eastern Washington are leaning slightly against, 46%-49%.

Independents and Republicans are the most likely to be undecided, at 7% and 6%, respectively.

Females are more likely than males to support R-71 (62% yes, 33% no, versus 49% yes, 47% no). Moderates are leaning for it by 57%-36%, and Liberals like it better (87%-11%) than Conservatives dislike it (27%-68%).

All age groups are leaning for R-71, with the ever-reliable voters over 65 supporting the measure by a 52%-42% margin.

A Survey USA poll released October 6th showed the yes/no results were within the margin of error, with 13% undecided. The more recent Washington Poll shows undecideds under 3%, suggesting that the more people think about this, the better they like it.

So that’s the story as of this morning: Referendum 71 looks like it might pass, but a lot of the votes will be in the mail, which means the results might be unclear at the end of this evening.

There are very few left to make up their minds, one way or the other, although it is possible that some will be confused as to whether “yes” means “no”, and vice versa.

The fact that most of the results are well outside the margin of error suggests that the “yes” supporters should be feeling pretty good about their situation…and in about 12 hours, we’ll see if that’s going to be true—or not.

On A New System (Sort Of), Or, Referendum 71 And Mail-In Voting

We are now about two weeks away from the November election in Washington State, and one item on the ballot that has national attention is Referendum 71, the so-called "everything but marriage" proposal that would give same-sex couples more rights and protections than they have today.

There has been a lot of conversation about whether it will or won't pass--and a lot of conversation about whether it should pass.

I hope it does, and if you live here I encourage you to vote "yes" November 3rd.

But that said, you may not be aware that Washington has an electoral system in transition, and that as a result of the transition Washington has some idiosyncrasies that will make forecasting the results a bit tougher, and determining the results a bit slower.

We'll talk about that today, and by the time we're done you should have an appreciation of the odd way in which things can work out--and that, absent a landslide, we aren't likely to know the results on Election Day.

These Are Not Normal Times

We have the strangest weather here: it is not quite 50 degrees F. as I write this, in midafternoon; but by tonight it’s expected to get warmer as the rain moves in.

In normal times, this is the kind of thing experts would be considering as they tried to estimate what turnout might be in the upcoming election—but these are not normal times. After the November ’08 election, Washington, following Oregon’s lead, became the second “vote-by-mail” state, and now the question has become not whether weather will impact the turnout…but if it will matter at all.

“Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.”

--Dean William Ralph Inge, “Possible Recovery?”

The first unusual thing about Election Day in Washington is that there no longer is an Election Day. Voting now begins when the ballots begin to arrive in voters’ homes (20 days before Election Day), and as of Sunday, October 25th, King County Elections (Washington’s largest county; the county that includes Seattle and almost 1/3 of the State’s population) reports that 8.59% of the ballots are already in. All ballots with a postmark before November 4th will be counted, which means there will be new ballots arriving for several days after the “polls close”.

(As you may have guessed, each county operates their own elections office. All elections in the State are regulated by the Washington Secretary of State, which is also the office that handles paperwork for State-level candidates, initiatives, and referenda.)

This is driving the professional political community nuts, because it means every day there is a smaller pool of voters to influence, even though the cost of advertising time isn’t going down. Additionally, it is at the moment unclear exactly who has voted and how; over time, I think we’ll begin to see patterns emerge.

For example, in King County in this election cycle, the locations most likely to have already voted are, for the most part, the wealthiest regions of the county. A group of six communities clustered around Bill Gates’ house all have “in” rates above 10.5%, including three above 13%. The Town of Beaux Arts Village is at the top of that pack, running almost double the countywide rate at 16.74%.

The other communities most likely to have already voted are among the most rural in the County. Skykomish has 16.31% in, Enumclaw 12%. Unincorporated rural King County, however, is only running 8.49%, suggesting that the trend to vote early among the wealthy is more predictable than that same trend among the rural voters.

Among the many communities with average “in rates”, however, are clusters of low- and upper-income housing—and that’s where it is impossible to determine precisely who’s voted already and who is left to influence. With polling reports on Election Day you can track by precinct (and that type of tracking will be available after November 3rd), but for now an effective method of tracking has not emerged.

We assume that over time we’ll see the development of some form of “exit polling” of those who have already voted…but this is the first significant election since all-mail voting began, and prediction tools are as of yet untested.

“Message, We Have A Problem”

All of this is affecting advertising—after all, if you don’t know what portion of the electorate has already voted, how do you target your message to the remaining voters? When we get a week out, if we have 20% or more of the ballots in, this question will begin to loom very large as campaigns have to decide whether they have spent enough campaign dollars to buy airtime…or not…and whether the target audience they seek to influence is actually responding to the message…or not.

This all becomes even tougher to figure out because it’s a series of state and local races that are being contested in this election; as a result there is no daily tracking poll data available from which we might draw some near real-time conclusions.

Speaking of polling data: here’s some. A Survey USA poll conducted October 3rd and released October 6th of 548 likely voters suggests R-71 was winning 45%-42%. Women were both more likely to vote for the measure and more unsure as to how they would vote, relative to men (48% yes, 36% no, 16% unsure for females; 42% yes, 46% no, 12% unsure for males).

Voters 35-49 were simultaneously the least supportive of the measure and the most unsure as to how they’ll vote (35% approve, 49% reject, with 20% unsure). Voters over 65, the group most likely to vote, were supporting the measure (44%-40%, 16% unsure) as of October 6th.

The poll has a 4% margin of error, and some of these results are within that range, so as of October 6th this was still a race that’s very much up for grabs.

There are no Federal or State offices being contested in this election, and the only other statewide ballot issue, Initiative 1033, seeks to limit the growth of State income. The presence of the two ballot measures is likely to increase voting by 3% to 8%. It is suggested that a lower turnout will help the anti-71 crowd, a higher turnout, the pro-71 crowd.

All of this has had a major impact on “get out the vote” efforts as well—for example, no one volunteers to drive voters to polling places anymore…because there aren’t any polling places left. (There are a few exceptions for the disabled.) Instead, the effort here is to make sure those ballots get in mailboxes before Election Day.

It is possible to construct ads that attempt to “close the deal”: suggesting, in the last 20 days, that voters vote right now for or against the candidate or issue, but I haven’t seen ads of that type yet.

Finally, a few words about the “after Election Day” action. If this election is close, the number of votes that are in the mail in the days following the close of voting (and where they’re from) will be critical—and in the ‘08 cycle 50% of the total votes cast were in that “in the mail” category.

(Washington has been moving to voting by mail for some time, and in the 2008 cycle more than 90% of the votes cast were mail-in ballots. At that time 37 of the State’s 39 counties were voting entirely by mail.)

The bad news: it could take anywhere from several days to several weeks before we absolutely know the results. This process may include “reevaluation” of votes after Election Day and efforts by either party to disallow votes based on what they think they can get away with, and the result could be litigation.

The good news: there are no electronic voting machines in this system, and every ballot is a paper ballot. This means we can determine, eventually, exactly how the votes were cast—and if it takes a few recounts before we know the results, well, that’s what it will take.

So as of right now, that’s where we’re at: it’s the first major election since mail-in voting was adopted statewide, we are not sure of exactly how the impact of early voting is being felt, even though we know that almost 10% of the votes are in, professionals are still not exactly sure of what’s going on, and there should be a higher turnout due to the fact that we have two questions on the ballot for the entire voting public to consider.

Don’t expect a final result on Election Night, and if we do have to go to a recount, there won’t be any electronic voting machines to screw things up. Instead, every vote will be on a paper ballot. Most importantly of all: this ain’t Florida, we’ve been through recent close elections and recounts before—and we were able to work things out just fine.

On How The State Gave Me MRSA (Part II), Or, What, Me Worry?

We began a story this week that describes how poor clinical practice in a State-operated healthcare facility holds the potential to cause great injury and death to those vulnerable adults living in the facility, the workers charged with their care—and to members of the public who have never even set foot in the facility.

You might say it’s a bit of a “canary in a coal mine” situation, with pandemic flu hovering on the horizon and all. You also might say that since MRSA kills as many people in the US every year as six 9/11s the pandemic is already here.

So in today’s second installment, we’ll look a bit further: into facility management that now contends they are not required to follow guidelines that the Centers for Disease Control says “apply to all patients, regardless of suspected or confirmed infection status, in any setting in which healthcare is delivered”…into the concept that where your care is delivered should determine what protective equipment workers might require…and into a “magic ambulance” that apparently has the power to make you hazardous to some people--but not to others.

And just to add a twist--we have a Governor seeking re-election whom we hope to convince to put on her “superhero cape” by publicly coming to the rescue and making infectious disease control in all State facilities an important priority of her next Administration.

Because after all, do we really need six more avoidable 9/11s this year? And next year? And the year after that?

For those just coming to the story, let’s recap where we’ve been so far:

The Girlfriend (of over 26 years!), a nurse working for the State of Washington in one of the five “Residential Habilitation Centers” serving developmentally delayed individuals, recently brought home MRSA, which we now share—in our eyes.

MRSA, as you’ll recall, is one group among the variety of drug resistant organisms with which today’s medicine contends—drug resistant meaning that some, or virtually all, of today’s antibiotics will not “cure” the infection. There are several strains of MRSA, each with different drug-resistance characteristics. All this is discussed in more detail in the first installment of our adventure.

One reason this occurred is because the facility is lacking the most basic equipment required to prevent the spread of infection…and I’m not talking high-tech equipment here, either. For example, the facility does not see the need for sufficient eye protection for its medical care providers; this despite the fact that numerous procedures performed by each nurse daily (as well as other medical staff) “are likely to generate splashes or sprays of blood, body fluids, secretions and excretions” to quote again from the CDC.

IV. Standard Precautions
Assume that every person is potentially infected or colonized with an organism that could be transmitted in the healthcare setting and apply the following infection control practices during the delivery of health care.

--excerpted from the CDCs “Guidelines for Isolation Precautions in Hospitals”

There is also a failure of perception among management, who maintain that the community of clients residing at the facility are somehow epidemiologically “safe”…meaning the current facility policy is that the Standard Precautions which apply to everyone else practicing healthcare, everywhere else in the world (including Tamil, India) do not apply when working with this client population.

The likely outcome is that MRSA will spread among the vulnerable adults—and the staff--that this facility (and the other four like it) serves, and considering that 1 in 5 who get MRSA die as a result of the infection…well, 1 in 5 are probably going to die from an avoidable cause.

As we said before, it’s estimated that about 18,000 who were exposed to MRSA in 2005 died from the infection…which is about 20% of the annual total of 100,000 “avoidable” hospital deaths in the US.

Presumably there will be other members of the community beyond the facility affected as well…just like me, and just like the friends and relatives of some of you who have commented on the first story.

The Girlfriend and I are in the middle of an irritating series of adaptations designed to make it less likely that the MRSA bacteria will either re-infect us, or remain present in a dormant, or “colonized” state, ready to reappear without warning at some future time.

The most annoying adaptation?
I’ve just finished putting antibacterial ointment up my nose, as I do twice a day. To recreate the sensation, stick a Vaseline-covered Q-tip up each nostril. (Warning: stunt nose used for demonstration purposes only. Do not try this at home. Trust me, it sucks.)

Of course, the surgical soap we use constantly is a bit of a pain as well…

But enough about me.

The more important question is…how did the facility react when presented with the news that they have an infection control problem?

Well, that’s where it gets weird.

There seems to be a feeling that it is the type of facility that determines what sort of precautions are applied, rather than making a decision about the correct choice of protective equipment based on the procedure being performed.

A phone call to the Washington State Department of Health confirms this line of thinking goes farther than just this facility—the individual to whom I spoke (I did not identify myself as gathering news, so I’ll leave their name out of the discussion) answered my question about whether Standard Precautions should be applied at all healthcare facilities by telling me that it might depend on whether a nursing home is a healthcare facility…as opposed to a hospital.

Further discussion brought us to a point where we decided a better answer might be found by consulting with others at the Department of Health—and I’m awaiting that person’s return call as of this writing. (Please note that it is the weekend as I write, so the fact that no return call has yet occurred should not be construed as somehow sinister.)

If this line of thought is carried to its logical conclusion, here’s what we get:

Client X is an individual who is fed through a “G tube” (a tube that is surgically implanted and delivers liquid food directly into the individual’s stomach) in a nursing home which we’ll call “Site R”.

In that environment, according to current policy at our imaginary “Site R”, the only required protective gear while working with the tubes is gloves and a mask. What kind of work? A nurse might plug in a feeding or medicine tube, inject medicine into a port using a syringe, or “flush” a plugged food tube to allow it to again deliver food. Any of these interactions can easily cause the splashes or sprays of body fluids that spread disease.

Now suppose Client X were to encounter a medical difficulty requiring a move to the hospital. According to the CDC guidelines (and the “facility-based “logic we’ve seen so far) that same G tube work would require gloves, a non-permeable gown (no liquid getting through), a face mask, and eye and mucous membrane protection for the worker (the clear plastic “face shields” you see in use, or something similar).

Meaning that either something happened in the “magic ambulance” on the way to the hospital that made Client X more hazardous than he was before…or “facility based” logic makes no sense.

My guess: the ambulance ain’t that magic.

In this conversation we’re talking about MRSA…but imagine if Client X has undiagnosed Hepatitis C…or AIDS?

Is the nursing home worker less entitled to protection than the hospital worker?
Is it sound public policy that some healthcare workers are allowed to spread MRSA, hepatitis, HIV, and who knows what else…but not hospital workers?

As we previously mentioned, what comes home from work is going to get into the community—but did you know drug resistant bacteria are also now appearing in other species besides humans?

Try to imagine avian flu and MRSA in one superbug and you might understand why infection control is so, so, so critical.

If you need a further demonstration, the next time you’re walking down the street, try this exercise: count the people you see, from one to dead.

One to dead, you say?
How’s that work?

It works like this: MRSA kills 1 in 5…so when you see people during the day, all you have to do is count “1, 2, 3, 4…dead”. Repeat the process a few times, and you begin to get an idea of the reality of a pandemic.

We’ve covered a lot of ground today, so let’s wrap it up:

It is beginning to appear that many in the infection control community believe the location where healthcare is delivered is how you decide what protection the worker needs.

Others would tell you that disease is disease is disease…and if you plan on doing open heart surgery, it shouldn’t matter if you do it in a hospital, or a makeshift clinic in the real “Site R”…or in a bullring, for that matter…you still need to take the same precautions, every single time, if you want to prevent 18,000 or so deaths next year.

In my State of Washington the Governor is running for re-election…and she only won by 8 votes last time…so I’m trying to encourage folks to send her a note expressing your feelings about all of this here. I hope to encourage her to turn this to her advantage and make it an “issue that matters”—and Governor Gregoire, as I’ve said before, it’s always good to save the lives of registered voters in an election year.

It’s your lives and mine that are at stake here; so let’s put some pressure on and see if we can’t cut six 9/11s down to five next year.

If nothing else, you’ll have earned the appreciation of your grateful antibodies.

Author’s Note: We aren’t done yet. In part 3 we’ll discuss the response from the Health Department, we’ll be calling new experts…and we’ll be discussing the history of intimidation that the employer involved here is trying to overcome.

Stay tuned.

On Controlling The Spread Of Disease, Or, The State Gives Me MRSA

It has been the practice of your friendly fake consultant to keep my personal life separate from the stories you see in this space; and where exceptions have been made it has been because I felt it necessary to tell a larger story.

The story we will begin to tell today must be offered with my own life deeply intertwined in the narrative.

Sadly, it will not just be me that will be affected by the events we will here discuss. Instead, the list of victims will include some of Washington State’s most vulnerable citizens—those developmentally disabled individuals who reside in the State’s “Residential Habilitation Centers”--and the workers who care for them…one of whom is my very own spouse.

We have within the tale all the usual suspects: a lack of safety equipment, managers who fail to do their jobs, a system that’s failing to protect either its own or those who can’t care for themselves…and now, just to give things a twist, pharmaceutical soap, little orange pills, and color-safe bleach.

Before we begin in earnest, a few words about privacy. There will be some considerable restriction as to what exactly I can say in this report due to the need to protect the privacy of both the clients and the workers involved.

In the case of the clients (residents of these facilities are not referred to as patients because they might not necessarily be suffering from disease or illness—although, as with all of us, that changes from time to time) the privacy requirements are a part of the Federal HIPPA law…and in the case of the involved workers, there are concerns regarding potential retaliation.

The best place to begin the story, I suspect, is to explain exactly what MRSA is.

MRSA is a type of staph virus (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) which, as the name implies, is resistant to some or all of today’s antibiotics.

There are several strains of the virus (USA100 and USA300 being the most common) and the universe of strains is broken down into two groups: hospital-acquired and community-acquired; they are each differently resistant to different combinations of antibiotics. The particular variety of MRSA which has infected me is from the hospital-acquired group and it is resistant to Ciprofloxacin, Clindamyacin, Erythromyacin, and Oxacillin.

About 85% of the estimated 95.000 exposures in 2005 can be traced back to the healthcare system, one way or another, and about 12% are community-acquired. “Community-acquired” MRSA exposures most commonly occur in gyms, prisons, and the military, and are primarily skin infections. Depending on where you live in the US the rate of infection in the general population might vary from roughly 20 per 100,000 to 120 per 100,000.

As you might expect, age and a compromised immune system make infection more likely.

Lucky for me, there are antibiotics that our virus (The Girlfriend and I have shared so much these many years…and now we’re sharing this) is sensitive to…which is why we’re taking Doxycycline twice a day.

The virus can enter the body through cracks in the skin, inhalation, or by the sorts of blood and fluid contacts that you might expect would spread this sort of thing from one person to another.

The virus can “colonize” itself without infecting the host or it can be in an infectious state. As a result it is possible to carry the virus for some time and become infected later, or not at all. This is common to many other forms of staph as well.

Infections can occur not only in the skin, but also in the body’s other soft tissues, or in the lungs, where it can cause pneumonia.

I’m told the “warm hairy areas” of the body are the most susceptible to colonization—face and head hair, armpits, and the crotch area in particular.

Without effective treatment, MRSA can most assuredly be fatal.

When drug therapy is successful the rate of relapse can be as low as 5%.

There are variants of the virus that are resistant to virtually all known antibiotics—and even when certain antibiotics will work there may be situations where the patient’s allergic to those antibiotics.

In those cases where drug therapy cannot be employed excision (the surgical removal of the affected tissue) and maggot therapy (yes, they sometimes use maggots for removal of affected tissue) are available options.

We’ll be returning to this topic as we go deeper into the story…but at this point we should probably take some time to discuss how the spread of disease is controlled in health-care facilities.

Readers will undoubtedly be familiar with the image of a surgeon in the operating room: the surgical mask, gown, gloves and face shields that are worn in that environment are just as important in protecting the patient from acquired infections as they are in protecting everyone else from that patient.

In settings other than the OR it is just as crucial that infection control be as close to 100% effective as possible; this is why those same protective garments are now a mandatory part of every healthcare worker’s arsenal. Those of you who are regular viewers of the “Discovery Health Channel” will probably recall seeing medical personnel “gowning up” to perform a procedure.

“Best practice” guidelines are provided by the Centers for Disease Control. Those best practices are known as “Standard Precautions”…and they’re fairly simple to explain. I’ll paraphrase:

--If you’ll be in contact with someone else’s body fluids, you should assume that person—no matter who they are—is infectious.

--For your own protection (and the protecthttp://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/gl_isolation_standard.htmlStandard Precautionsion of others) you’ll need gloves, gown, mask…and beyond that, a face shield for activities “that are likely to generate splashes or sprays of blood, body fluids, secretions, or excretions”.

--Although this will sound obvious, you don’t want to use the gloves, gown, mask, or face shield while moving from one person to another…instead, you need to change into new clean stuff before moving on to the next procedure.

By following these fairly obvious instructions you prevent “cross-contamination”—potentially saving the lives of yourself and all those with whom you will later make contact.

Which includes the family members back home, when the shift is over.

That’s where I come in.

The Girlfriend (of more than 26 years…hooray for us, eh?) informed me that we’ll be needing to take eyedrops for what we thought was her (relatively minor) case of conjunctivitis. We did, to no effect.

We were then prescribed Bacitracin Opthalmic ointment to resolve what had by now been diagnosed as MRSA (it requires a lab culture to confirm the diagnosis)…which meant putting this awful goo in our eyes four times daily…which did no good.

One week later we found ourselves in the office of an Infectious Disease Specialist

And now we have some…unusual…household routines.

In addition to the Doxycycline, we now use “Hibiclens” surgical soap for our washing and showering needs, as well putting Muriprocin ointment up our noses twice daily. The “ewww” factor is high, indeed on that one.

All clothing is now washed with color-fast bleach; and we mostly use paper towels.

All of this (except the antibiotics) for the next three months.

Hopefully it works, and the disease either is eradicated or returns to a “colonized” state.

All of this for an infection we did not have the pleasure of acquiring in Las Vegas.

So, you might be asking, if the infection control process exists, how does the infection manage to spread?

I’ve had a few conversations—and done a fair bit of reading--with the intent of finding the answer to that myself, and here’s what I’ve learned:

--Workers sometimes hang used gowns at the end of a client’s bed, go about their business, and then return later, reusing the same gown for later procedures.

--Other workers will wear the same gown for their entire shift, moving from client to client to client.

--There can be issues related to the way linens are handled and laundered that can cause the spread of infection.

--Although there are some face shields available at her facility, The Girlfriend tells me that their presence is, shall we say, sporadic—that is to say, they are not available in all of the locations where they are needed.

--There are procedures that, by their very nature, are inherently dangerous—particularly problematic are the feeding tubes which are surgically inserted directly into the client’s gastric system. These have almost universally replaced the older “nasal gastric” tubes (through the nose and into the stomach) that were often the unintentional cause of aspiration (the lungs fill with the liquid food, rather like drowning), should the tube become dislodged.

The opening in the body made to accommodate the surgically inserted tube can leak, there can be “deposits” of internal fluids on the outside of the body through the hole…and most commonly of all, the tubes can become plugged by the liquid food they are designed to transport into the body. The process of unplugging the tubes is, obviously, going to expose all and sundry to something, whether it be food or body fluids. The CDC confirms this is a huge problem.

--There is a lack of effort on the part of Infection Control management to educate and to correct these problems…and in some cases it appears that there’s a lack of awareness that these even are problems.

We will talk about this in more detail in the next part of the story, but for the moment we’ll say that since at least 2006 there have been warning signs of problems to come.

I try to keep my emotions in check when writing, as I find a dispassionate approach makes for more a clear understanding of research…not to mention an increased empathy for those about whom I write.

In this case, however, I have taken it a bit personally. You see, this is not the first potentially hazardous exposure The Girlfriend has suffered due to appallingly poor clinical practice at this facility…another subject we’ll address in considerable detail in the next installment of the story.

Since it was obvious to me that there was not going to be a change in culture imposed from the inside, I’ve decided I’m going to do it for them.

Which is why, in recent days, the emails began flowing--to the Governor, the Secretary of the State Department of Health, the Secretary of the State’s Department of Social and Health Services (the largest of Washington’s State Agencies), the Director of WISHA (the State’s OSHA equivalent), the State Attorney General (because someone’s getting a bill for my care eventually…), and the State Auditor, who is charged with investigating governmental misconduct.

(To be honest, I was a bit inaccurate in the note…I told the various parties that MRSA was the “flesh eating bacteria” disease, which was an error on my part. I blame myself, for being a bit overwrought as I wrote; and I do owe all involved an apology for the error…so Governor Gregoire, if you might see this: sorry about that—but the rest of the note is dead-on accurate.)

And that’s how we get to the part where I ask you for some help.

In the note I sent I reminded the Governor (who won in 2004 by a mere 8 votes) that not only was this affecting those vulnerable citizens who reside in the State’s facilities and the employees who are there for them--but that the problem, thanks to my infection, had now spilled into the community of…registered voters.

Not a good thing, in an election year.
But good for us, as it means we have a way to keep the Governor’s attention…focused.

So do me a favor, if you would…and drop the Governor a quick note, here at her official website, perhaps reminding her that all the State’s citizens matter when it comes to healthcare equality, or that infectious disease control is everyone’s business—even the State’s…or perhaps you might pose this question: if we can’t control MRSA, even in State facilities, how in the world are we going to control pandemic influenza in the general population when it eventually rears its ugly head?

We meet with management Monday to discuss the incident…which means part two of the story will also be a good one: we’ll talk more about past problems, we’ll asses management’s attitude today…and we’ll see if we can’t help the State find a better way going forward.

Put on your seatbelts, kids…it’s gonna be a rocky ride.

AUTHOR"S NOTE: As was mentioned by several of my new friends, MRSA is a bacterial infection, and not a viral one. My aplogy to the reader for the error.