Our very own Senator Maria Cantwell has been declared the hottest senator on the Hill. more ›

WORDY SHIPMATES: Sarah Vowell's finally here to read from her book about the thought-life of Puritans such as John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, and Roger Williams. She's "not interested in the whole person," says Vowell in a recent interview with Seattlest Editor MvB. Take Roger Williams: "I'm mostly interested in what he thought about religion, government, community, Indians and how much Roger Williams was getting on his nerves. I don't really give a hoot what he had for breakfast or how he felt about his mom." This is one reading we feel more than comfortable recommending! more ›

Darcy Burner, Dave Reichert's Democratic challenger in the 8th Congressional District's race, lost her home this morning to a fire. Early reports say the house was destroyed but the candidate and her family escaped without injury. We'll post more details, including photos, as soon as they are released. more ›

The second-longest-serving member of the Washington Legislature has confirmed she will not run for re-election. “This is my last session. I’m not going to run again.” Asked why, she laughed and said: “Because I’m 75 years old and I’ll be 76 in a couple weeks. That’s why.”

Not that it made much difference in real-world terms. Our precinct (189 people turned out) went heavily Obama, which we understand is how the wind blew in Seattle today. more ›

The latest session of the state legislature is now in full swing and most people are watching the big-ticket items under discussion. The supplemental budget and what to do with our $1.5 billion surplus are at the top of the list. Also high on the agenda are transportation issues like a new vote on light rail and a toll on 520. But there are always niche issues under consideration. They probably won't get the limelight coverage the budget and Sound Transit will, but when we find something interesting, we'll let you know. more ›

Barack Obama's celebrity endorsement by Oprah Winfrey didn't go unnoticed by local Republicans. Never shy about borrowing strategy, they've recruited their own big name person--former Seahawk and Coug Robbie Tobeck. more ›

The 8th congressional district lost five-term Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn and candidate Rodney Tom in the last twenty-four hours. more ›

Position 3 is the most anticipated city council race. It's an open seat, and that seems to be the only way to get new blood on the council. more ›

We’re only going to be in our twenties for the next three weeks, so lately we’ve been trying to feel younger--and there is no better place to accomplish this than at a local district Democrat meeting. Once again we were one of the youngest people in the room. We love you sweet, sweet democracy. more ›

Duncan M. McDonald the amazin' voting dog is finally off the King County voter roll. more ›

This Adbusters piece about liberalism and its current state of crisis isn't exactly new--looks like it's from their May/June issue--but it should be required reading in Seattle. The author talks about how liberals are rich white guys who don't really have anything to complain about, but don't seem to do much besides complain. They need to man up and start acting like the born and bred civic rulers they are and blah blah blah. You should read it. more ›

Quick, while Paris is in jail and the politicians annointed as "official" candidates by CNN and Fox are poking each others' eyes out, let's take a moment to talk about the Farm Bill. (Yeah, right.) Seriously, because you are what you eat, you know. (Yeah, right.) more ›

--Yeah dude, that's a pretty weird dream. more ›

Sonics owner Clay Bennett, displaying an uncanny sense of timing, delivered an estimate on keeping the Sonics to Governor Gregoire today, 24 hours after she'd decided there wasn't enough money for an Alaskan Way Tunnel. From the letter [pdf]:

To make this project work, it is clear that we will need at least $300 million in revenue sources authorized by the state. These would be taxes collected only in King County...

Since there's a pretty heavy overlap between the set of people who read this site and the set of people who listen to KUOW, we're going to guess that most of you already heard of Conservatize Me by KUOW's John Moe, despite our inexcusable failure to review this entertaining, thought-provoking book. For those who haven't, profuse apologies. more ›

Last night we happened to see King5's new drama The Senate Campaign Debates and, wow, they really got a great cast for this show. All our favorite characters are in there: There's the incumbent Democrat who did a good job talking about energy and Hanford, but stumbled a bit over her one joke. There's the Republican challenger who's convinced that his business acumen will directly translate to governing goodness and that a border fence is the answer to our state's meth problem. Oh, and Safeco, Safeco, Safeco, Safeco. Did he mention Safeco? And then in a supporting role is one of our all time favorite characters: the rich guy Libertarian candidate. The pilot is already up on YouTube (Kiing5tube, actually) and if you can spare a quick hour, it's definitely worth your time. One character who didn't make it into the show, though, deserves mention - He's in the bible as part of the back story and we're sure he'll appear in a later episode. He's the Green Party candidate, played here by Aaron Dixon, a man so dedicated to this role that he woke up yesterday morning, pulled himself out of his bed and showered, threw on some shoes and a jacket, and drove himself to the studio with the very specific goal of trying to force his way into a political debate between candidates for the United States Senate. And getting arrested. And he succeeded. Aaron Dixon, for absolutely nailing the part of the fringe candidate and for having the courage to stick to the script, we salute you. more ›

Kids looking for a summer job might want to consider running against Maria Cantwell. more ›

Democrats supporting the proposal fired back with partisan shots of their own. "I think that's a bunch of right-wing blog nonsense...I think what's important is the answers he gives when he appears before the council," said the council's ranking thinker Dow Constantine. more ›

In 2000, hard core lefties who were fed up with the Democratic Party voiced their displeasure by voting for Ralph Nader-- and we all know how that turned out. In 2004, realizing what they were up against, they got behind the party and voted for their fears over their dreams. more ›

If you're a liberal, a Democrat, left-leaning, a new media person, an old media person, a fundraiser, a grassroots organizer, or a blogger or any combination of those you probably already know that some of the cool kids are in town this weekend and have plans to catch them in concert at least once. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD are going to be kicking around Seattle and the area starting today at the Seattle Labor Temple 2800 1st Ave, Hall 1. Like us, you probably have no idea what a labor temple is, but it sounds kind of Karl Marx/Mad Max cool. more ›

Ed Murray, the state representative you hate if you love firing your gay employees for getting stuck in traffic, is running for State Senate. He will take on incumbent Pat Thibaudeau this September in Seattle's 43rd District. more ›

Some guy on the east side just jumped ship from red to blue. Rodney Tom served two terms under the R-Bellevue flag in the state House of Reps, but announced today that he's going to run against the incumbant Republican state senator from Bellevue, Luke Esser as a Dem. more ›

Well, it happened. In a 7-2 vote that was never extended to the public, the King County Council agreed to spending at least $500,000 to change our logo from a crown to the likeness of Martin Luther King Jr. And to add to the surreal ludicrousness of this move, Ron Sims is designing the new logo. The jesters are now running the castle, Seattle. more ›

Last week Democrat Dwight Pelz and Republican Diane Tebelius were elected to head their state political parties. more ›

-An 88-year-old woman who misjudged a curve on I-5 and drove off the road was found today after spending five days trapped by Blackberries. Look, you may think that mobile email is the greatest thing since the Sir Mix-a-lot ring tone, but there's a real danger of these devices ganging together and waylaying elderly drivers. Seattlest thinks there should be a law. more ›

The Senate was asked to support the troops this morning via a defence spending bill that included money for soldiers in Iraq, Katrina aid and, of course, drilling for oil in the Alaskan wildlife refuge. Attaching ANWR drilling to a defence spending bill that must get passed was the brainchild of Senator Stevens of Alaska who has been trying to dig up the refuge for twenty years, a move that Senator John McCain called, "disgraceful" and "disgusting." This is probably his most fail-safe attempt to date and it failed. Screw you, Stevens. more ›

Last month, you remember, there was all this hoopla over the notion of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, thanks to its inclusion in a budget bill. Thanks in large part to public response, and to 20 Republicans who were able to suss out what "wildlife refuge" means, that provision failed. more ›

At Seattlest, we read the candidate endorsements so you don't have to flip that far into your paper. In our thorough research, certain themes emerged. At the P-I, they wrote endorsements as if they were late for a meeting. For Seattle City Council--return all the incumbents, they say. Statewide Initiatives? Say no to everything! Port Commission? It's time for change! more ›

"Where is everybody?" you may be asking yourself. Well silly, they are all at the polls-- as we wrote yesterday, it is the Primary Election. more ›