State Democrats stand alone, a proposal to lightly infuse our air with carbon is floated, local homeless are about to be cruelly hit again, and apparently construction workers name their boring machines. more ›

Washington may have sky-high sales tax, but the absence of any income tax has always been a consolation for citizens calculating just precisely how they could afford to live here. This morning, however, Democrat Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles re-introduced a bill that would change that by imposing a state income tax. (Check out Political Buzz' reporting on the bill, including a response from Kohl-Welles.) The proposed 1 percent tax would only affect those making more than $500,000 a year, so maybe the image of budget-traumatized, poor citizens eking out an existence is not the best to conjure. If you're making over $500,000 a year, there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it: you can afford the 1 percent income tax, and we're terribly sorry if it requires you to liquidate one of your vacation homes or, god forbid, drive a car more than two years old. more ›

King County Executive Ron Sims has been discouraged by Washington state Dems leader Dwight Pelz and others from seeking yet another term in 2009. According to the scoop in the Seattle Times, "Critics have pointed to an ongoing budget crisis and management problems with the county jail and animal shelters as evidence of Sims' shortcomings." Who knows if Sims will take Pelz's advice, however; the decision might even be made for him if he gets the federal appointment from the Obama administration that people have been whispering about. more ›

Seattlest was at Democratic Party Headquarters on the fourth floor of the Westin last night, surrounded by all the festivities you probably saw on the news. We were a little surprised to see people attempting to cut in the booze lines, considering we were all Democrats, so no excuse for elitism. more ›

This morning we woke to chilly air and dark clouds, and although we had signed up to volunteer at the Obama office later in the day we considered mailing it in. But then Sarah Palin came on the tube, telling us how she'd make a great VP, and we said "Hell No!" and a few minutes later, we were in our car headed for the Obama/Burner campaign office in Bellevue. more ›

Tera will be catching the Saturday evening premiere of Spring Awakening at the Paramount. Saturday evening will be followed with a leisurely plane ride to Orlando where she’ll be trying out for the Mickey Mouse Club, or riding rollercoasters--however you want to look at it. more ›

Though the political news of the day is most certainly McCain's ploy to "suspend" his campaign and delay the first presidential debate as well as the VP debate in order to concentrate on the economic crisis, there's other news out today about the plight of Republican candidates this year. According to the New York Times, Washington State Democrats are suing to force Republican candidate for governor Dino Rossi to list his party affiliation on the ballot as "Republican" and not "GOP" which apparently polls higher. more ›

Howard Dean's visit to Renton this weekend was really only the beginning of what is sure to be a lively seven weeks until the election. The first celebrity deathmatch pitting Obama versus McCain on national TV is still 11 days away. But if you want to wet your chops with a little political debate action this week, you're in luck. Our own homestate smackdown will be broadcast on KOMO-4 this Saturday, Sept. 20, at 9 p.m. It's the first of five scheduled debates, so we suggest you get to work on the rules for your Gregoire v. Rossi drinking game. We'll start you off: anyone mentions the viaduct, you drink. more ›

According to an email we got from the Washington State Democrats today, the state's Attorney General, Rob McKenna, laid out a plan for Dino Rossi to beat Christine Gregoire in November for state delegates at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. In short, according to McKenna, McCain-Palin needs to carry Washington by 10-12 points. "If he fails to carry it by ten or twelve points, Dino doesn't win." Maybe it's scary thoughts like that which convinced the state's Republican party to put out only a "vaguely worded press release" when their booth got trashed at Bumbershoot this weekend. more ›

The PI's Big Blog floated the rumor yesterday that Washington's own "mom in tennis shoes," Patty Murray, could become Obama's running mate. We did a double take and wondered if someone had spiked our morning coffee. While Murray has been a successful legislator for Washington State, she was a fierce Hillary supporter until throwing her support behind Obama on Sunday. She doesn't add what Obama needs to the ticket anyway. more ›

STEP UP YOUR BRUNCH GAME: Brunch for Seattlest usually means stumbling to the closest eggs-and-bacon joint, slamming some coffee, and thanking God we didn't have to put on real clothes for the occasion. But we will make an exception and actually dress up (ish) for a fancy weekend brunch, now offered at the Saint, if only for the opportunity to taste Tecate-marinated Carne con Huevos (yum) and sip on a house mimosa. The Saint's from the classy people at Havana, so we're sure brunch here will wake you up and calm you down in style. more ›

Throughout the campaign we have been gathering the top political writers in the country, and asking them to discuss the presidential race. Today they discuss the end of the Democratic primary, Senator Clinton's future, and a brief look at the general. more ›

Over the past year and a half or so of Hillary Clinton's hugely historic run for the presidency, we've been thoroughly impressed with the legacy she's left as the first of her kind. She's undoubtedly owned every single debate—except for that one where Edwards came alive for a minute and sounded like a real person who had more going for him than being the son of a mill worker. She made sure health care mattered to whomever takes over the country. She got the country talking about feminism again, got men and women alike uncomfortable about whether or not it's okay to treat women a certain way. She presented an impressive economic plan, overcame pretty much every controversy surrounding her, and ignored the ones that were ridiculous or irrelevant (i.e. claims that Clinton's a racist, talk about her cleavage). more ›

The 75,000 strong crowd doubled (and-then-some) the previous record for attendance at an Obama event. Before the candidate took the stage, the crowd was serenaded by Portland's own, The Decemberists. The band, like Obama, were doubtlessly playing for their largest crowd to-date. Oregon's primary is this Tuesday, the 20th. As the record-breaking crowd indicates, Obama is expected to win handily.
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...if you're heading to the next round of caucuses this Sunday. We can't think of any local angle on this, but it's important to share this kind of information with our readers when we find it. Because, let's face it, stuff like this can sway voters, folks. (NSFW, unless you have headphones): more ›

Eric Alterman is the sort of liberal we like to refer to as a "Democrat," as in, capitol "D" Democratic Party stalwart. As such, this columnist and Media Matters blogger was an arch-partisan prototype for those crazy kids at DailyKos, back in the days when armchair politicos were relegated to penning rants to the editor of their local newspaper. more ›

Yesterday, this Seattlest headed to the U-District library to meet with other Hillary Clinton delegates (Hillegates?) from the fightin' 43rd, and to learn about what lies between us and the national convention. Because we care, we thought we'd share the info with you. If you're not a Hillegate or Obamegate, you can just skip to reading about other things. more ›

Seattlest grew up in a very small town in Central Florida. In our immediate area, we could count seven colleges. That doesn't include the University of Miami or Florida State, UWF, UNF, USF, the Art Institutes, and other colleges and universities (Obama's demographic). Florida is not, contrary to popular belief, peopled entirely by retirees (Clinton's demographic). Most of the folks around our small hometown are very blue collar, there are a lot of fern farmers and teachers, churches. It is, in our memory, a very conservative area. more ›

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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.”

Now that all votes are in, all caucuses adjourned, CNN declaring it all for Obama, here's how the day fared for our Seattlest contributors: more ›

First of all, let us say that we didn't plan our Super Tuesday get-together as an Obama event. We support Obama; we've even given him $$. more ›

Complete with CES laugh track. Kind of funny, but maybe not worth the laughs it gets... Hey, if Bill were staring you in the face while you were watching this you'd laugh too. more ›

Our favorite local food site has been doing some thinking about politics and the way people in different cities eat and vote. They divided the number of steak restaurants by the number of sushi restaurants in a given city to come up with a "Steak/Sushi Index." Seattle's SSI, for example is 0.75, indicating that we eat more sushi than steak; the SSI of Dallas, TX is 3.01 indicating a preference for steak. Urbanspoon has been able to show that the more a city eats sushi over steak (or the lower their SSI) the more they tended to vote for Kerry over Bush in the last election. more ›

The Stranger has endorsed a No vote on the RTID Proposition 1 (along with the Seattle Times, but thankfully with more logic and, er, research). Their reasoning? "Rather than letting compromised politicians tell us what's possible, the people should tell the leaders what's needed: more light rail without massive roads expansion." more ›

In a well-paced one-hour lecture, Matthew Brzezinski provided a summary of Red Moon Rising, his new book about the Sputnik launch and its explosive political aftermath. more ›

The Republicans, learning from the mistakes of the Democrats in King County's Sixth, may decide to run a candidate against Governor Gregoire next fall. more ›

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

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State Democrats are calling shenanigans on Dino Rossi's "Forward Washington Foundation," arguing that it's just "Rossi in 2008" by a different name. more ›