Didn't the Democratic Party support Tom previously? Can you please explicitly call out who was responsible for this failure in the party leadership so that they can be made to pay some sort of price for that?

@1 - he switched parties from R to D. Usually party-switchers are welcomed with open arms, no matter the baggage they bring

Y'know, we wouldn't have this problem if we stopped publicly financing primary elections that are under-participated and therefore easily swayed by corporate money. If we made the parties pay for their own nominating conventions, Tom would have to call himself GOP. Open primaries lead to false advertising.

Goldy,
In contemporary America, the “differences” between Republicans and Democrats are obliterated by both parties’ identical enslavement to war-mongering corporate masters whose power is derived from the blood of exploited workers.

Good work, Goldy. I would love some follow up: Any news on his Democratic opponents? Any frontrunner there? How will the open primary affect Tom's chances of getting re-elected?

Thanks.

I thought Tom was Murray's doing.

This is more a condemnation on the idiot party line voters who see the big D in front of the name and burn a vote without any research.

Tom can't be voted into office on sheer will, it takes the elderly and uninformed to do it.

Good post, Goldy; my thoughts exactly. Tom's dissembling on party identity is made more egregious by the fact that candidates don't declare their party affiliation on the ballot, only their party "preference."

By every measure, by every action on his part, Tom clearly prefers the Republican Party, so for him to tell voters he prefers the Democratic Party is, as you say, an outright lie.

How is ballot naming order done in this state? I'm assuming by lot (or some random ordering). My Google-fu is not strong today.

This should be on giant billboards all over his district...

That's like buying a hamburger and being handed a chicken taquito........ Why don't 'Bait & Switch' laws apply in this case, I wonder?

@5: From the posting Goldy linked to and used as a jumping off point for his opinion piece:

Tom is facing a Democratic challenger in former Kirkland Mayor Joan McBride. Senate Democratic staff leaked the McBride candidacy — ineptly — earlier this month.

@6 is correct but Tom is still a liar

@1 - in 2006, Debi Golden was running as a D against Luke Esser for the senate seat in the 48th now held by Tom. Golden had narrowly lost when she ran for state House in the 48th against Tom in 2004. Golden was a legitimate D, unlike Tom. Tom saw the writing on the wall, knew he'd lose as a R, and switched.

Frank Chopp and Lisa Brown immediately fell all over themselves to support Tom. Golden dropped out shortly after. Reading between the lines, it's pretty obvious that Golden was told in no uncertain terms that Tom was the candidate of the party establishment and she needed to get out of the way. Luke Esser almost certainly would've lost to her. 2006 was the beginning of a D wave and Esser was out of touch with his district.

So if you're looking for someone to blame, direct your ire at Lisa Brown and Frank Chopp. Brown parachuted out of the Senate into a job at WSU, probably recognizing that she had created a clusterfuck and leaving Ed Murray to try and clean up the mess. The bottom line is Brown and Chopp and the rest of the Democratic party bigwigs prioritized a backstabbing turncoat over a legitimate D. Unsurprisingly, it has come back to bite them in the ass.

@10,

Because false advertising is expected in politics.

@3,

If we had a closed primary, we would never be able to get rid of the asshole. At least this way there's some chance a real Democrat might unseat him.

And now you know how libertarians feel when homophobic, Islamophobic, war-mongering Tea Partiers try to say they're "libertarian."

@14 Closed primaries are only marginally better than open primaries, but at least they don't permit the outright fraud that our "Top Two" system encourages. Low-turnout elections like primaries are too easily influenced by money. If your goal is consistency between party principles (identifiable branding) and a candidate's positions, you should nominate your candidates at party conventions where greater influence is given to those who donate time rather than money.

@4 I think this is true at the federal level, but not so true (yet) at the state and local level.

http://www.rodneytom.com/endorsements/

@15 is that before or after the mothers of the libertarians went down into their basement with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, and told them to go outside and get some fresh air already and quit wasting so much time on the computer?

@19
It was actually after the mothers of the liberals asked them why they've decided to boycott bathing until the government makes it illegal to eat me or tell off color jokes and told the liberal kiddies that maybe they should take their trustfunds and $200 GAP Che Guevara t-shirts and try living in the real world as opposed to drinking PBR and downloading a "smash capitalism" app onto their Iphone.

Goldy, as reporters, we do have to be careful how we state things. I think your version passes legal muster because you have phrased it as an opinion. It is legal to have an opinion.

But do keep in mind, people get their backs up easily and decide you have "wronged" them and will take you to court. Keep it either an opinion or "alleged" or use "embellished the truth", etc.

Good point, Melissa @21, but truth is always a defense in a libel case.

@1 and props to 7. By law those running for office on Washington State ballots are simply stated as "Identifying with X Party." They self-identify their party interest or allegience. It's not a matter of "who is responsible for this failure in the party leadership."

Also, I'm frustrated with this type of blog post. The reason I read the Stranger is because I appreciate its frankness, its willingness to occassionally endorse candidates that are not always Democrats, but maybe more middle-road or nuanced, or willing to foster compromise. I agree with its criticisms of local papers like the Seattle Times being out of touch with the public. But what makes the Stranger better when Goldy calls Rodney Tom a liar for identifying with one party and forming a coalition with the other?

I met Rodney Tom several years ago to discuss student press legislation. He didn't strike me as a very progressive/liberal guy then and he certainly doesn't now. But one thing I do think he takes seriously is that Washington State comprises a very broad constituency with varied interests. I don't necessarily agree with him or the policies that he pursues, but I think it's silly to bash him because he identifies as Democrat, yet hires Republicans to run his campaign. Any voter that takes two seconds to read up on Tom would easily find that he was initially elected as a Republican. Voters should also be held accountable for keeping him in office for the last 12 years.

And back to the issue of claiming to be a member of the Democratic party on the ballot while "betraying" and "blocking" it in the Capitol. What's the alternative? Requiring ballot party identification to be contingent upon offical party approval? Then what happens to candidates that are more moderate or independent? They never get a shot at all, and our state candidates become subject to the same deeply polarized, entrenched partisanship that has gridlocked D.C.

Sorry Slog, but your line of thinking here is partisan, not progressive.