Kerry Coffee Chuck Beek of downtown Seattle's Monorail Espresso wasn't content with just voting this election season. The owner of Seattle's oldest espresso stand not only registered customers to vote, but he also sat down with anyone who claimed to be an "undecided voter" and gave them a free coffee for 15 minutes of their time. Beek's message to every taker: Vote for Kerry, not Bush. --Bradley Steinbacher
Bad Times/Good Times It is tempting to start this paragraph with the line, "Even the provincial center-right wussbags at the Seattle Times have finally realized that George Bush's presidency has been a disaster." But that would be churlish. Our intention is to praise the provincial center-right wussbags at the Seattle Times, not to call them names. Having endorsed George "I Call Frank Blethen My Base" Bush in 2000, they came to their senses this year, giving John Kerry an early, and strong, August 27 endorsement. So here's to you, Frank, Jim, and the other kids in the editorial department. Next time we cross paths at the country club, drinks are on The Stranger. --Sandeep Kaushik
The Very First Time There are tons of organizations putting out tons of messages meant to inspire young people to vote this year, but none of the national organizations (Youth Vote Coalition, Rock the Vote, MTV, etc.) have come up with any messages this year as smart as the message Young Democrats UW have popularized with their original blue-and-white "Lose Your Voting Virginity" T-shirts. The slogan was created by 18-year-old UW student Libby Chennell. "We wanted to come up with something that would get our friends and peers to vote, and we thought we could reach out to them if we put it in these terms." New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott called the shirts "very clever." Washington State Democrats press secretary Robert Perez called them "fucking awesome." --Christopher Frizzelle
Indie Rock the Vote Did you plunk down the cash for indie rock comp The Future Soundtrack of America? Then you were one of approximately 37,500 people who helped give money to a good political cause. All proceeds from the sales of that disc, released by local label Barsuk in conjunction the book Future Dictionary of America from McSweeney's, raised money for MoveOn PAC, Moveon.org, and the voter-registration project, Music for America. The collaborative project as a whole will raise around $600,000 for those organizations, according to Barsuk's Josh Rosenfeld. --Jennifer Maerz
Sewing Seeds of Dissent
Everyone knows it: This year's election boils down to voter registration and GOTV (Get Out the Vote) efforts. Certainly, the foxy blond DNC kids in their bright-red shirts deserve props for pestering people to register, but we'd like to give three cheers to ACORN, the low-income community-based organizing group that typically focuses on fixing potholes and getting stop signs and cops in poor neighborhoods. Well, ACORN realized that its disenfranchised base could play a key role in national politics this year. So over the course of the year it had more than 143 folks working to register voters in minority and low-income districts like White Center, Rainier Valley, and Highline. ACORN registered 34,434 voters in King and Pierce Counties and head ACORN organizer Jenny Lawson says the group will have 230 people out on Election Day, knocking on doors to make sure the new voters remember to vote. To help out on Election Day, call ACORN at 723-5845. --Josh Feit Gay Bar Hates Bush Over the past few months, owner Jeff Blackford turned Timberline Spirits from a gay bar to the informal headquarters for the Democratic Party. The windows are lined with Kerry-Edwards signs, they've hosted debate parties (with guests like Kerry's brother and Teresa Heinz Kerry's son), and they've raised buckets of cash. Oh, and they've had voter registration every Sunday night, netting a few hundred new sign-ups each week. Why'd they get political this year? "Because we hate Bush," Blackford says. Duh. --Amy Jenniges
Death Toll Local artist Randy Sill burst onto our radar last year when he trotted to a Mariners game with a covert anti-Bush sign. The sign, written in kanji, could have been a Japanese-language Ichiro fan placard as far as Safeco Field security was concerned. But it actually said, "President Bush is a monkey's butt" on one side, and "Americans are ashamed of our corrupt president," on the other. Sill hoped Mariners fans watching TV in Japan would get a glimpse. This year, Sill--a potter when he's not a prankster--outdid himself by leading local teens on a project to mold more than 1,000 miniature flag-draped coffins, which commemorated the grim statistic of soldiers killed in Iraq. The coffins dotted public plazas around Seattle, and even went to New York City for the Republican National Convention. --Amy Jenniges Cool Rich People Magnolia resident Ted Willhite, a 61-year-old lawyer with Levinson Friedman in downtown Seattle, says the 2004 election is the most "important election in his lifetime." He obviously puts his money where his mouth is. In the last presidential election, he only kicked in about $500--which may sound like a lot to Stranger readers, but it wasn't much for Willhite. During this year's campaign cycle, Willhite has contributed 40 times as much: $20,000. "Everything is at stake in this election," he says. He's also a trustee for the Kerry campaign. Which means he pledged to raise $250,000 from his friends--which he did. --Josh Feit
Perfect Timing The late-night burglars who crept through the ivy off 112th Avenue East in Bellevue, tossed a rock through the window at Bush/Cheney headquarters, and made off with three laptops (including the campaign's executive director's laptop) deserve to go to jail. But they also deserve props for their psychologically strategic timing. They hit just hours after the Republicans watched in horror as Bush tanked in the first debate, kicking the Rs while they were down. --Josh Feit
Big Notes No Vote Left Behind has organized two-dozen music-related fundraisers, including a four-day music festival. Those efforts have raised more than $100,000, which is helping fund "groups and progressive candidates that will make a difference in this election," including People for the American Way, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Washington State Democrats, local campaigns (Dave Ross and Patty Murray), and close national campaigns. --Jennifer Maerz
Poster Boy A series of simple, chilling flyers appeared on telephone poles up and down Broadway Avenue at regular intervals this summer and fall. At the top of the poster were the words "Join the Military," and at the bottom, "Replacements Needed," along with estimated casualty figures for the United States and Iraq printed below their respective flags. As each new round of posters went up, the casualty numbers went up too. To the man with the hat and leather trench who's rumored to be responsible for these posters: Thanks for making us think. --Annie Wagner
