Over the weekend we got an email from our friend in Wisconsin asking, "Why does Washington have a caucus and a primary? I don't get it. How does this work?" Uh, it has something to do with a pissing match between the state legislature and the state parties? We really don’t know, so we sent her this article, and changed the subject. No Democratic delegates will be handed out tonight, and the Republican winner will......

Some much-needed clarification on the primary/caucus fiasco: Washington holds both caucuses and a primary in order to decide how to allocate its delegates for the presidential candidates. We hope you were able to make it to your caucus on Saturday to cast your vote for the Democratic/Republican presidential candidate of your choice. You should have picked a party, gone to the designated caucus location for your precinct, and written in your choice next to......

As a brain-dead "undecided," we were naturally curious when we heard the Implicit Association Test people had set up a Presidential Candidates Test. It takes about 10 minutes, and purports to measure your neurological affinity for Clinton, Obama, Huckabee, and McCain (or little pictures of them). As we understand it, these kinds of tests look for delays in "implicit cognition," deep-rooted neurological associations you aren't usually aware of -- it's just the way the world......

Is Washington State thinking of creating a modern day scarlet letter? Republican State Senator Mike Carrell has authored a bill that would require a person convicted of a DUI to have special fluorescent yellow license plates. If passed, the law would require anyone convicted of a DUI to have the plates for one year on both the front and back plates of their vehicles. Within that year, if a driver convicted of a DUI is......

We walked into our caucus location -- a hot, overcrowded elementary school with signs that said "Welcome to the First Grade" -- as an undecided voter, and two and a half hours later walked out as an undecided voter, but with a deeper appreciation of democracy. 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......

John McCain is coming to Seattle. This appearance, while putatively in support of his nomination campaign, will actually be one of the first stops in his presidential campaign--his nomination is a foregone conclusion now that Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race. Democratic candidates have taken Washington in every election since 1988--but before that, Washington had gone Red in four consecutive elections. McCain's campaign will see Washington as a potential pickup as he attempts......

We have gathered some of the top political writers in the country and asked them to discuss the presidential race throughout the year. Today they discuss McCain’s new frontrunner status, religion in American politics, and Edwards’ departure. Seattlest: How do you handicap the Republican race following John McCain’s win in Florida? Mark (The New York Times): The GOP in Florida has given McCain true front runner status. It must suck to be a wacko Republican......

The Seattle Weekly's Rick Anderson pointed us to what may be the greatest unintentional comedy festival in Internet history. Following a series of nearly thirty break-ins, Magnolia residents have turned to the internets to catch the burgular, through a series of extremely misguided tips.—We had a young white male with a green hooded sweatshirt knock on our door and ask if we would like to sign up for evironmental action support. He walks with a......

We just heard about the benefit concert for one of our favorite 15th Ave irregulars, Orion -- whom you may know from such 15th Ave hotspots as the North Hill Bakery and the Hopvine. The benefit part is to help pay for uninsured Orion losing several teeth and fracturing some bones in his face after a bicycle accident. Why do bad things happen to good people? It's a fair question -- Orion is nothing if......

We Washingtonians don't get our chance to caucus until February 9th, and it was always unlikely that the Democratic nomination was going to be in doubt by then. It's getting more and more unlikely by the day. Barack Obama, who trailed Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire by twenty percentage points in November, now leads her by 7-10 points, depending on which poll you believe. Ex-KUOWer John Moe writes on his blog Monkey Disaster: "This whole......

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. Tobeck is the putative author of a letter emailed this morning to supporters of Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. He invokes some hoary football metaphors in an attempt to turn his football "celebrity" into cold hard campaign cash.As a former Seattle Seahawk and Washington State......

And it fucking sucked! Proposition 1, the roads and transit thing, was stabbed in the eye with a hot needle. It was closest in King County where it wasn't close (55%-44%), with Snohomish and Pierce counties pwning it 57%-42%. Money quote: "There is no Plan B." Tim Eyman's anti-tax initiative sucker punched almost every county except King, Jefferson, San Juan and Whitman. Resolution 4204, which would have allowed school district levies to pass with a......

Last Friday after work we were at the Eames IMAX at Pacific Science Center not seeing the Transformers movie. Instead we were listening to a tag-team presentation by Chris Mooney, who wrote The Republican War on Science, and professor-blogger Matthew Nisbet, of Framing Science. (That's an earlier video of one of their talks, all 71 minutes of it -- it's a little pixelized at first, but that clears up in a few seconds.) We......

Eaten: An onion burger and brick of fries. Do you see that whiteboard to the right there? That’s the straw poll that the Republican booth in an exhibition hall at the Puyallup Fair has been conducting during the event. Fred Thompson by a landslide. He has more than twice the votes of Rudy G., his closest challenger, and three times the votes of Romney who just won a Michigan straw poll, yet we barely know......

"Neighbors fear development" has become the Seattle equivalent of "dog bites man." Of course neighbors fear development. That's what they do. The latest brouhaha: Wedgwood is getting a four-story condo/retail complex in the middle of their one-story residential neighborhood. Hands are being wrung, meetings are being called, nimbyism is being denied, blogs are being written. We wouldn't have it any other way, really. It's Seattle. Neighbors fret. Since we left Wedgwood, we don't really have......

The Central Library played host last night to a host of concerned citizens and Thomas E. Ricks, author of the best-selling Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. They put Ricks in the big auditorium for good reason. Fiasco was a #1 New York Times best-seller, finalist for the Pulitzer, winner of the Gelber Prize, etc., etc. Plus it plays to the liberal instincts of Seattle's finest. The room was crammed full of business suits......

The headline: "White House E-Mail Inquiry Will Widen." The story: how the Bush administration has quite possibly made a major infraction, broken big giant rules, or in the P-I's words, "committed 'extensive' [legal] violations." Remember that whole Alberto Gonzalez thing? Where it was speculated that the Attorney General deliberately fired a bevy of federal attorneys for political reasons, to appease a certain political agenda? There was a moment during all that hoo-ah when someone mentioned......

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......

It's always good to be reminded that here in the other Washington, our Republicans are just as nutty, corrupt and paranoid as their cousins in D.C. Today, David Postman over at the Times reports on his blog that state Sen. Joe Zarelli recently hosted right-wing Israeli politicians and others at a two-day conference down in Vancouver, to fan the flames of Islamophobia. Known as the Convergence Northwest conference, Zarelli invited "[m]embers of Israel’s Knesset, former......

What defines a terrorist or terrorism? You know, besides standing between a Republican and the camera he wants to install in your panty drawer? Is it your actions? Is it your nationality? Is it your race? Is it your intent? We better figure it out because there are suddenly a whole lot of laws on the books all over the place that say criminals get this sentence and terrorists get this other one. Down......

--Campuses are rightly freaked out. UW gymnasts report that they're being stalked. --A guy wearing an ammunition belt was arrested at Lewis and Clark in Oregon. We've seen a punk rock version of the ammo belt recently in Seattle. --The Divorce to divorce. --Cutting greenhouse gas emissions is a torturous process only to be undertaken by the those wishing to cleanse their souls of sin. --The condos on top of Hotel 1000 are going......

The scoreboard at Everett Memorial Stadium will be incredibly accurate this season. Why? Because Dino Rossi is buying a minority share in the Aquasox, and he tends to get bitchy when people lose count. Rossi will be making the announcement with fellow new minority owner Jay Buhner, where it’s a safe bet that Rossi will make sure that the two are seated. This will complete Rossi's reverse-Bush résumé-- elected official, lost disputed election for higher......

"I voted for Dino Rossi" is not what you say when you are dating a hard-left politics dork. Seattlest once learned this the hard way. The revelation sparked an argument. We lost. For months, we spent lonely nights reading Lewis Lapham, trying to cure our moderate streak. But, with the Democrats in gridlock over the Viaduct issue, we feel vindicated. The internecine squabbling that's led us to a point where we're having a meaningless advisory......

Recently Governor Gregoire's been taking a lot of heat for her ambivalent handling of the Viaduct sitchyation we got here. Today, the Seattle Times rides to her rescue. The blame-reallocating story by David Postman and Andrew Garber begins: Gov. Christine Gregoire got so frustrated trying to broker a compromise between Mayor Greg Nickels and House Speaker Frank Chopp on the Alaskan Way Viaduct that she turned to a Republican wise man for advice. "She......

The 2007 Washington Legislative session begins today, and Governor Gregoire wants to spend big. Her argument, we have a $1.9 billion surplus, and we should spend that money on education, health care, and other gross poor people things. Of the four billion dollars in increased spending she is looking to add to the state’s two year operating budget, she wants half to be spent on education. None, however, will be spent to track down Sasquatch.......

--The Zero Boss investigates the holy triumvirate of Seattle neon (above). Actually, we thought it was "deli," "teriyaki," and "coffee," but his works too. --As if the pain of Fremont News closing weren't enough, we gotta hear about it second hand from the NYT. Third hand if you're just learning it now. --Starbucks is no longer imposing Seattle design on the world. They're now going regional in the appearance of their stores. --The Tacoma......

Dave Reichert not only admits that he tattled on a school-bus driver who flipped off President Bush, he brags about it. And David Postman of the Seattle Times has it on tape. An excerpt from Reichert's speech at the King County Republican picnic in August: And as the motorcade went by, the President and I drove by on I-5, the President was having a great time. He was waving at everybody, he waved at the......

You'd think the President of the United States could handle a one-fingered criticism, and you'd think a Congressman would have better things to do than get a bus driver fired, but apparently not, according to the King County Journal: [Congressman Dave] Reichert rode with Bush in his motorcade when the president came to the Eastside in June to raise money for Reichert and the state Republican Party. Stopped on an entrance to the freeway from......

--You may be surprised to hear that Shaun Alexander's foot isn't completely healed and he won't play next week, but we aren't because we know that foot injuries don't fully heal until your favorite player starts kicking ass in the playoffs for someone else's team. --The Seattle Times proved it doesn't get the story of itself today when it buried this tidbit in an article about its sinking circulation: "But the NAA also said......

We caught one of those Sound of Young America stand up shows the other night at the Rendezvous, featuring three openers - ranging in quality from okay to just slightly less than great - followed by the hilarious, bordering-on-genius headliner Brent Weinbach. Someone named "Brian Palmer" accurately summed up Weinbach's surreal schtick better than we ever could in this intro to his interview with him from last year: Onstage Brent Weinbach holds the microphone......