Off Year
All Politics Is Local

Salon's War Room has a good wrap-up of yesterday's off-year election, which has turned into a mini-referendum on BushCo. I certainly wouldn't give it a full measure for last night's results, as voters have a lot more on their minds when they tick off the boxes on their ballots than just the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, et. al--but it's certainly some part of the equation and offers a view into current political leanings.

By landing Air Force One in Richmond, Va., for an election eve rally with Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore, George W. Bush guaranteed that the results of the Virginia governor's race would be viewed as a referendum on his presidency. Here it is: In what was supposed to be a close race, Kilgore lost to Democrat Tim Kaine by a margin of 52 to 46 percent. "Several GOP supporters conceded that the party's inability to recapture the executive mansion reflected dissatisfaction with President Bush," says the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Kilgore's defeat may have been the most direct reflection on Bush, but the news from Tuesday's off-off-year elections was pretty much bad all over for the president's party. In the New Jersey governor's race, Sen. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, cruised to a 10-point victory over Republican Doug Forrester. And in California, voters appeared to be delivering truckloads of humiliation to a governor who was once so popular that there was talk of amending the Constitution so that he could run for president. Arnold Schwarzenegger threw every inch of himself into four initiatives he said were needed to reform the state. Voters rejected every last one of them plus four more that found their way into the $50 million special election the governor called.
[...]
The California vote was about Schwarzenegger, not Bush, but the same can't be said of the mayor's race in St. Paul, Minn. Former City Council member Chris Coleman ousted Mayor Randy Kelly by an embarrassing 38-point margin, and even Kelly said that the reason for his loss was his support for the president.

Any bright spots for the GOP? Well, Bloomberg won another term as mayor of New York City.

And while Maine voters rejected an effort to rescind that state's new gay-rights law, voters in Texas overwhelmingly approved an initiative outlawing same-sex marriage there.

The WaPo has an analysis article about the Kaine win in Virginia that could point to some positive movement on the spirtual tip for Democrats and provide the beginnings of a blueprint for bringing religion into the discussion for 2006 and 2008:

Kaine becomes the first candidate since the reinstatement of the death penalty to win the governorship of a Southern state despite his personal opposition, although he has said he will carry out executions.

Kaine defended himself against Kilgore's attack on the subject by saying that it is his beliefs as a deeply religious Catholic that lead him to oppose the death penalty and abortion. But he also said he would follow the law on capital punishment and advocate laws that protect the right to abortion.
[...]
"I think this is an interesting test case for Democrats to see if you can run a faith-based campaign focused on values and do so as a progressive candidate in a Southern state," Rozell said.

It worked, Rozell said, because of Kaine's frequent reference to his service as a missionary in Honduras while in law school and his familiarity with the language of religion. "It did not come off as calculated," he said.

In his victory speech last night, Kaine told the crowd, "We proved that faith in God is a value we all can share regardless of party."

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we didn't have Bush so much on our minds as we voted on local city and county officials, but some of the initiatives point to our innate progressivism. The big initiative was 912, which was created in part by a local conservative radio host to repeal a 9.5-cent gas tax increase that was passed this last spring to help fund important highway improvements including the Viaduct (an elevated portion of the 99 highway that runs across the front of downtown Seattle with great views of Puget Sound) and the 520 floating bridge (which provides one of two links across Lake Washington between Seattle and the Eastside suburbs, and in particular provides an artery for Microsoft's Seattle-based employees to get out to Redmond). To put it into perspective, here's some background from the Washington Policy Center:

The new tax is the largest single gas tax increase in state history. Washington began taxing gasoline in 1924 at the rate of two cents a gallon. Today that rate is 31 cents per gallon (including the July 2005 phase-in of the recently-passed increase), giving Washington the tenth highest state gas tax in the nation. The federal government taxes gas at 18.4 cents a gallon, making the combined gas tax in Washington 49.4 cents a gallon. Under the Legislature’s plan, by 2008 Washingtonians will be paying a combined state and federal gas tax of 56 cents a gallon.

There was a large outpouring of signatories (400,000, driven largely by coverage by the aforementioned conservative radio host) for getting the initiative on the ballot, and it looked like gloom and doom for our transportation future. But a lot of businesses (including Microsoft) got behind pushing back this tax revolt and it seems to have worked, largely due to voters in the urban centers (which are far more Left leaning) who understand that taxes, in and of themselves, aren't all evil. From the Seattle Times:

But early this morning, the initiative was trailing by an increasing margin, and a dramatic shift in the count would be needed to change the outcome.

If I-912 fails, "it's a new day. It's no longer anti-tax, anti-tax," said Rep. Ed Murray, chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

The vote shows that if lawmakers "do the courageous thing, voters will support you," Murray, D-Seattle, said.

And it seems the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina helped to sway some voters; via the Seattle P-I:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Gregoire compared Washington's highway system to the levies that failed in New Orleans. She said failure to maintain Washington's transportation infrastructure could also prove catastrophic in a strong earthquake.

King County's strong opposition to the initiative indicates that message had traction.

But we're not out of the woods yet. Local conservative initiative raconteur Tim Eyman (our own version of Grover Norquist who once had a counter initiative that unfortunately didn't make it onto the ballot which would have made the government recognize him as a "horse's ass"; the creator of that initiative has gone on to create a very good blog focusing on Washington state politics, HorsesAss.org):

The defeat of I-912 would free the state to move forward with hundreds of highway projects, but there are still problems ahead. Anti-tax activist Tim Eyman has an initiative in the works to eliminate weight fees approved by the Legislature.

Unfortunately, the other transportation-related measure--a fifth vote on the creation of a monorail line--went down to defeat after the organization developing it was proven to be rather incompetant (they came in way over-budget and severely misjudged the tax revenue source for funding it, resulting in a new plan this autumn that cut back the length of the line). Very sad.

Another interesting outcome was the statewide smoking ban initiative, which looks to be passing by a very wide margin. Now, I'm all for stopping any and all from smoking (I used to be a casual smoker, bumming cigs from friends at bars and buying the occasional pack of Nat Shermans; but those days are long gone when I finally gave up the puff for the 7th time, as my friend Scratch would say), but this initiative gave me some serious pause due to its somewhat draconian rule of no smoking not just in restaurants and public spaces, but also in an area up to 25 feet away from doors. From the Seattle P-I:

Unlike most other state bans, Washington's proposal would prohibit smoking in indoor public facilities and workplaces with no exceptions -- not even cigar lounges or private clubs.

Further, no state ban stretches as far outdoors as Initiative 901's provision to prohibit smoking within 25 feet of doors, windows and vents of public places, according to the independent Health Policy Tracking Service.

Although business owners would be allowed to ask health officials for exemptions from the 25-foot rule if they can show smoke won't infiltrate public areas, some say the anti-tobacco types have gone too far. It's one thing to protect kids from secondhand smoke at family restaurants; it's another to ban smoking in businesses that cater to smokers, they say.

Despite my misgivings, I voted yes, and it's looking like a lot of other people share my frustration with second-hand smoke.