Patty Murray
This was supposed to be a really shitty year for Senate Democrats. Of the 33 contested races this cycle, 21 were held by Dems. But Dems miraculously held their majority. That means Washington Stateâs own Senator Patty Murray (who was reelected to a fourth termâmaybe it was a fifth term, but weâre drunk!âin 2010) is positioned as a future contender for Senate majority leader.
Actual Socialists
No, Socialist Alternative challenger Kshama Sawant didnât manage to beat House Speaker Frank Chopp, but she made the most of her opportunity and she got 27 percent of the motherfucking vote, according to the first day of ballot returns. It seems her socialist ideology isnât all that toxic after all.
Billionaires
Charter schools, marijuana legalization, and same-sex marriage would never be possible without billionaires bankrolling these ballot measures. Finally, Americaâs most oppressed minority has found a political voice of its own.
The Westin Hotel
In a weirdly beautiful migration pattern, each year on election night, Democrats swarm to drink, sob, celebrate, SPEND A ZILLION DOLLARS RENTING BALLROOMS, and pity-fuck each other in the Westinâs dueling dildo-shaped towers.
Ed Murray
For 17 goddamn years, Ed Murray pushed for marriage equality in the state legislature. God bless him. With Referendum 74 seemingly approved, heâs positioned to declare victory, get the hell out of the petty shithole that is Olympia, and run for mayor of Seattle.
Local Control of Initiatives
For years, people thought that if you wanted to legalize marijuana and gay marriage, East Coast PACs had to run the show. But those groupsâsuch as the Human Rights Campaign and the Marijuana Policy Projectâwere pushed to the background in Washington State this year. Locals are the ones who ran clever campaigns to legalize both, it appears on election night, and eked out narrow victories at the polls for the first time in history.
Maria Cantwell
Washingtonâs junior United States senator knew she was golden when she polled higher here than Barack Obama. But now that sheâs crushed her opponent, Republican anti-abortion freak Michael Baumgartner, by a 60 to 40 margin, sheâs practically invincible.
Local Television Stations
In 2010, local television stations raked in $47 million from political ads. Whatever this yearâs total ends up being, it was more than enough to send Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen flailing to get a small percentage of that ad spend for his own newspaper by⊠spending $150,000 of his own money on political ads in his paper as part of a crazy demonstration project. Congratulations, TV stations! Youâre rich and you made Frank Blethen lose his mind!
The Seattle Times
As if the daily-newspaper publishing model wasnât screwed enough, Seattleâs last daily paper decided to run free ads for Republican Rob McKenna and the same-sex-marriage measure (they were trying to prove that political advertising worked in their newspaper). But the marriage law is passingâas of press timeâbecause the campaign raised more than $10 million on its own, and regardless of who takes the governorâs mansion, the next four years of Seattle Times gubernatorial coverage looks colored through the lens of a paper bought and paid for by the publisherâs right-wing agenda.
Matt Shea
Poor Matt Shea. Heâs the idiot state legislator from the Spokane Valley who this year argued that legalizing gay marriage would somehow oppress florists who donât want to arrange bouquets for gay weddings. Think of the anti-gay florists! Now he finds himself on the wrong side of history. Stupid loser. Maybe send flowers?
King County Bar Association
The local bar association was considered the gold standard for rating the qualifications of candidates running for judgeâthis year it lost all credibility after giving ânot qualifiedâ ratings to obviously qualified women and minority candidates, and releasing a survey that showed some solid King County judges with unjustifiably low ratings. King County prosecuting attorney Dan Satterberg wrote a scathing letter to the bar association last month, saying the group must âacknowledge the mistakes madeâ and âfix them.â
The Stranger
Washington residents can now, apparently, gay-marry their partners, buy liquor in grocery stores, and legally smoke marijuana all over the damn place. Well, fuck, weâve officially run out of shit to bitch about. Throw another pit bull on the fire and rouse us the next time the Seattle Police Department does something stupid.