Even though it’s been more than three decades since Washington State swore in a Republican governor, that hasn’t stopped Democratic insiders from privately shitting bricks over Attorney General Rob McKenna’s impending 2012 gubernatorial run… and not just because he might win. It’s what he might do with the office that has some Dems running scared.
After 30-plus years in the wilderness, GOPers are almost giddy over McKenna’s prospects, if not with the man himself. “If he gets to the general election, he’s an excellent candidate,” one Republican operative confided on condition of anonymity. “Attorney general is the politically easiest job in the world. He’s been doing press conferences with McGruff the Crime Dog for the past seven years.”
McKenna’s likely Democratic opponent, Jay Inslee, is “about as beatable a candidate as the Ds could nominate,” this Republican says. “He has a long congressional voting record with plenty for all Washingtonians to dislike, and I don’t really understand what case he’ll make as an effective manager or accomplisher of great things.”
Not exactly a measured critique—it under-
estimates Inslee’s passion, charisma, and force of character—but you can’t argue with the fundamentals.
It is in this context that one can reasonably imagine a scenario unfolding that should be shockingly familiar. Swept into office on the crest of a recession-induced Big Red Wave, a newly elected Republican governor, backed by freshly minted legislative majorities, sets out to achieve with a stroke of a pen what just a few months before seemed an impossible right-wing fantasy: the total dismantling of the state’s powerful public employees’ unions through stripping them of their right to bargain collectively.
On the campaign trail, McKenna will rail against state workers—their cost-of-living increases, skyrocketing health care costs, and “fat” pensions—but of course, that’s how all Republican candidates talk these days, so neither pundits nor plebs will take much notice. Sure, voters expect a Republican to be less union-friendly than his Democratic opponent, but after several straight Democrat-
authored, all-cuts budgets filled with layoffs and furloughs and sundry wage and benefit concessions, even loyal union members will probably wonder, Could this guy really be much worse?
As the current debacle in Wisconsin—a conservative governor running roughshod over an otherwise Democratic, pro-union state—clearly demonstrates, the answer is a loud and resounding “YES!” Things could get much worse.
But wait, you say. Rob McKenna’s not that kind of Republican. He’s not a teabagger, you insist. He’s a different kind of Republican… a moderate Republican… the kind of Republican who kinda shares our values, only maybe not quite enough to spend actual taxpayer money on them. He’s the good kind of Republican, the reasonable, centrist, nonscary kind, the kind who brings an assortment of fresh doughnuts to the morning meeting, even though he doesn’t even eat doughnuts, because the rest of us like them, and he’s tolerant that way. You know, just like he personally opposes abortion but would never, ever do anything to restrict a woman’s right to choose. Ever.
McKenna, we’ve been told, is a “Dan Evans Republican,” what back East we used to call a “Rockefeller Republican.” You know, like Slade Gorton before the other Washington sucked the life-spirit from his embittered, withered husk. McKenna’s the good-government/policy-wonk/reformist type of Republican, like old-timers say former Seattle City Council member Bruce Chapman once was, way back before he founded the “intelligent design”–spewing Discovery Institute and metamorphosed into a mutant, right-wing, Christianist nutcase intent on undermining what’s left of our nation’s science education.
In other words, Rob McKenna is allegedly one of those mythical mainstream Republicans. And we know this because trusted media sources like the Seattle Times repeatedly tell us it’s true. Newspapers around the state will give their endorsements to McKenna because they believe it.
Unfortunately, as comforting as this myth might be, experience tells us that mainstream Republicans are as extinct today as those dinosaurs Chapman’s designer-
God whimsically placed into the fossil record as part of His inscrutable plan to confuse paleontologists. And even if mainstream Republicans as a species aren’t extinct, McKenna’s fossil record clearly tells us that he’s never been any such thing.
“The grassroots movement reflected in the Tea Party is exactly what this country is about,” McKenna declared to the Snohomish County Republican Women’s Club this past October, in a speech most notable for its Tea Party toadyism. Even when trotting out clichéd conservative economic talking points, McKenna can’t help but play to the teabaggers, saying the need to place “fewer regulations, fewer burdens upon our employers,” for example, is “what the Tea Party’s about. It’s an economic movement, a fiscal movement. We get that. The lefties don’t get that.”
And who, pray tell, did McKenna’s speech define as “the lefties”? Karl Marx? No. Seattle’s Saddam-loving, hippie, peacenik congressman Jim McDermott? Uh-uh. Dirty liberal bloggers like me? Believe it or not, my name didn’t even come up once.
No, according to McKenna, the leftiest of lefties, the man who epitomizes the far extreme left wing of the Democratic Party, is none other than… President Barack Obama.
We have a man who, as president, is far to the left of center, farther to the left of center, I should say, than any American president we have ever seen. Farther to the left than FDR.
Really? If President Obama is that far left of center, where the hell does McKenna place our nation’s ideological axis… Alabama, circa 1960? Perhaps it’s all a matter of perspective. After all, this is the same speech in which McKenna described conservative columnist David Brooks as a “liberal.” Uh-huh.
But McKenna moderately continued…
FDR, by the way, among other little known facts, was strongly opposed to the unionization of public employees. He understood why you don’t need the unionization of public employees. And why it would be dangerous for it to happen.
It’s the public employees’ unions, McKenna explains, ironically using liberal icon FDR for cover, that are driving our state “bankrupt.” That’s no surprise, given McKenna’s long pedigree of labor-busting politics, dating back to his anti-union antics on the King County Council.
As a councilman, on five separate occasions, McKenna refused to approve collective bargaining agreements between the county and public workers, opposing contracts with animal control officers, social workers, and others. He led efforts to prevent the county from doing business with union shops, bizarrely disparaging as “racist and sexist” an ordinance requiring the county to hire union apprentices. In 1998, McKenna even voted against a motion that urged an employer to (gasp) “bargain with its employees in good faith” and innocuously supported the “fair treatment of workers.” And while McKenna likes to talk the talk on government spending, as chair of the council’s budget committee in 2001, he proposed swiping money from a fund set aside to pay scheduled raises to unionized workers while actually increasing spending.
As attorney general, McKenna has continued his efforts to undermine unions, and in a very prominent manner. Backed by state and national anti-union groups like the ironically named Evergreen Freedom Foundation and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, McKenna’s first appearance before the US Supreme Court was an appeal of a state supreme court ruling that had granted teachers’ unions the right to use members’ dues for political purposes. After the Bush-packed conservative court overturned the state ruling, McKenna hailed the decision as an “extremely important” precursor that “clears the way” for new legislation to enact further restrictions of union political spending.
And if his anti-union sympathies weren’t obvious enough, in 2010, acting as the keynote speaker at an Association of Washington Business luncheon, McKenna presented its better workplace award to Cairncross & Hempelmann, a law firm that advises managers on how to see the “warning signs of union organizing efforts” and “put policies in place to limit unionization efforts on your properties.” Because nothing makes a workplace “better” like busting unions.
This is a politician who is no friend of labor, who has used his office to work against the interests of workers and their right to organize, who has accused state workers of bankrupting the state, and who has even labeled the very institution of the public employees’ union as “dangerous.” But nothing is more indicative of McKenna’s far-right, anti-union, pro-teabagger philosophy than his aggressive leadership in attempting to kill organized labor’s decades-old, number-one policy agenda: Obama’s health care reform act and the benefits it would bring to millions of Washington citizens and businesses.
Indeed, far from being just one tagalong attorney general out of many, McKenna proudly touts himself as one of the primary instigators behind a multistate lawsuit against the health care reform legislation—a lawsuit that has so far resulted in one Florida judge tossing out as unconstitutional the entire reform package.
In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, McKenna claimed that “two of us got together, and others joined us,” clearly placing himself at the lawsuit’s genesis. And in December of 2009, three months before the final bill was even passed, McKenna told the Olympian that he “look[ed] forward” to working with other attorneys general in challenging the constitutionality of the act’s provisions. This was a lawsuit that had been planned for months, long before the bill’s provisions were finalized or the legal issues they might raise were fully known. When McKenna and other attorneys general circulated a letter questioning the constitutionality of the unfinished bill, even the Seattle Times editorial board had to recognize that “the signatories are all Republicans and speak with political motive.”
More than the naked, teabagger-pandering
politics of it all, what should be most disturbing to voters about McKenna’s involvement in the health care lawsuit is the way he’s consistently misrepresented its intended goal, by repeatedly implying that most of the health care reforms could survive, even if his lawsuit succeeds. From the official Q&A on his office’s website:
Attorney General McKenna believes challenging the two unconstitutional provisions will ultimately not prevent Congress from implementing other features of the health care reform legislation if they see fit… Attorney General McKenna continues to believe that individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion provisions may be deemed unconstitutional without overturning the entire health care reform act.
Recognizing that much of the health care reform package is popular with voters, and would greatly benefit Washington State, Mc-Kenna repeats this line again and again. At a June 4, 2010, conference with the conservative Washington Policy Center, McKenna insisted that “we can only challenge those provisions that we think are constitutionally defective,” but “it is inconceivable that one lawsuit could bring down the entire measure.” And in a March 24, 2010, interview on TVW, McKenna claimed that he actually likes many of the provisions, bluntly telling NPR’s Austin Jenkins:
You can’t overturn a 2,400-page law with a trillion dollars in spending and 80 new federal agencies with one lawsuit, nor do we attempt to… The governor and the legislative leaders are making it sound like this lawsuit challenges the provision in the bill regarding preexisting conditions for health insurance; it does not. That it challenges the provisions that 26-year-olds can stay on their parents’ health insurance; it does not. It does not address these many, many provisions that they keep citing… The provisions we’ve been talking about regarding 26-year-olds and preexisting conditions, they are all going to take effect this year. They are not the subject of the lawsuit; they’re not affected by it at all.
Huh. That seems pretty clear. So… um… how does McKenna explain the request for summary judgment filed in his very own
lawsuit?
Plaintiffs have established that the Act’s Individual Mandate and Medicaid provisions are unconstitutional. Because each of these portions is essential to the [Affordable Care Act (ACA)] as a whole, neither can be severed. It follows, as a matter of law, that the unconstitutionality of either renders the entire Act unconstitutional. Accordingly, Plaintiffs ask, as requested in Counts One and Four of the Amended Complaint, that the Court declare the entire ACA unconstitutional and enjoin its enforcement.
In the court of public opinion, McKenna has repeatedly argued that he’s only challenging two unconstitutional provisions of the health care act, that the more popular components of the health care act are “not affected” at all by his lawsuit. Yet in a court of law—you know, the court that really matters—McKenna argues that these two provisions cannot be severed from the act as a whole and thus asks the judge to toss out the entire package. Yes, even the provisions regarding 26-year-olds and preexisting conditions.
How lawyerly of him. No, how totally fucking dishonest.
This is a politician who will clearly say anything to win election, but voters of all stripes should have no illusions about what McKenna will try to do once elected. He will work against the interests of working Washingtonians and for the interests of his big-business corporate patrons. And just like his Wisconsin counterpart, if elected governor and given the opportunity, he would crush organized labor in a New York minute… while patiently explaining to reporters in his trademark dry, dispassionate, pseudogeeky manner that he was doing anything but.
What really makes Democrats so nervous is that while no Republican can get his ass kicked in populous, heavily Democratic King County and still manage to win statewide, thanks to his unearned reputation as “a different kind of Republican,” McKenna has a history of far outperforming the rest of the GOP ticket around these parts.
In 2008, John McCain drew less than 30 percent of the King County vote and Dino Rossi pulled in barely 35 percent, but McKenna actually won the county with an impressive 54 percent of the vote, far more than any other Republican on the ballot. Even in 2004, when he lost the county to local favorite Deborah Senn in their race for the open attorney general seat, McKenna still managed to garner nearly 46 percent in King County, more than enough to help lead him to a comfortable victory statewide.
So why would McKenna risk the moderate, “different kind of Republican” image he’s so carefully crafted, arguably the foundation of his electoral strength, to pander to his party’s teabagger fringe? Because as much as his boring, centrist facade might help him in the general, he still has to get through the primary, and the Tea Party has a track record of knocking off establishment GOPers.
“While there were and still are die-hard Dino Rossi people, and die-hard Slade Gorton people, and die-hard enthusiasts for the GOP congresspeople, there are no die-hard Rob McKenna people, for various good reasons,” my Republican insider friend says. “Nobody is going to fall on a sword for Rob. I still think it’s possible he could lose the primary under the right conditions.” Those right conditions: a Tea Party attack from the right squeezing McKenna between them and a truly centrist Republican on his left (or even a conservative Democrat like state auditor Brian Sonntag).
The trick for McKenna is how to maintain that delicate balance between convincing Republicans that he is who he says he is, while reassuring soft Dems and Independents that he’s still who he’s long said he was, a high-wire act made all the more difficult in the face of a stiff wind blowing in from the right.
Fortunately for McKenna, our local media has his back. McKenna the moderate is a media creation, a figment of the collective imagination of a punditocracy in love with his sweet, sexy, reporter-shield-law-promoting, public-records-access-defending ass while being emotionally invested in the notion that the Democrats’ three-decades-plus domination of the governor’s mansion is somehow bad for democracy.
That’s why—despite the fact that McKenna opposes abortion, opposes marriage equality, opposes the right of public employees to organize, opposes health care reform, and has consistently allied himself with traditional right-wing “think tanks,” organizations, corporations, and assholes (how’s your latest initiative going, Tim?) on issues ranging from regulation to education to tax limitation to light rail (a project he unsuccessfully dedicated his council career to blocking)—our media continues to spin McKenna into one of those moderate-centrist-enviro-different-kind-of-Republicans Joel Connelly swears he once had drinks with while hiking in the back of Bill Clinton’s limo. Or something.
Which is why two years from now, the idea of a Governor McKenna transforming Olympia into Madison on the Sound isn’t all that far-fetched. And when the revenue forecast once again comes in “lower than expected,” presenting lawmakers with yet another multibillion-dollar budget gap, and the draconian cuts McKenna proposes in response this time include the fundamental right of public employees to bargain collectively—when 80,000 angry union members and their supporters then descend upon the Capitol, and the schools shut down due to mass sick-ins, as union leaders ponder the consequences of planning Washington’s first general strike since 1919—when all that happens, Mc-
Kenna will calmly put on his glasses, step before the cameras, and cite FDR in defense of his union-bashing agenda. And the next day, the editorial boards will applaud him for his bipartisanship, remarking on how lucky we are to have a governor who is such a moderate, centrist, different kind of Republican. 
This article has been updated since its original publication.
Good GOD AND GODDESS!!!
WTFing HELL is the matter with this country???
I can’t believe I’m the 1st post on this!
@2,
You’ll have to blame Frizzelle for this one. He edits the features.
This has got me very excited for the possibility of a Governor McKenna. If he’s willing to stop rewarding failure, let’s get him in charge!
there won’t be a red wave in 2012. it peaked. and furthermore, the worry that mckenna can actually win is the same worry that rossi could win the three times he ran. granted, he came close last year but he still lost in a year where americans were drinking stupid juice and pressing the shiny, red R button. i suspect we’ll be talking about governor inslee very shortly unless someone else steps up to the plate. maybe rep. mcdermott would like to go out with a four year stint as governor!
@4 -Please explain the ‘Rewarding of Failure’ to me. I suspect you are talking about the teachers’ unions, but i think you may have been subjected to some over-simplification on the parts of reformers who do not have the numbers behind them. I would also be interested to see if a WA effort would actually include the Police, Firefighters, and Corrections unions?
rewarding what failure? The failure to not teach children? The failure to prosecute abortion providers? The failure to leave children uninsured? The failure to let polluters not pay what is owed? Be specific. I should add that Washington State is no longer a 19th century territorial backwater. We live in a state that has a lot of technology, industry, and some very dense areas that require a lot of collective investment, and we need government to play that part. And remember, in a democracy the intelligence of the governance is directly proportional to the intelligence of the people. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the tea party agenda-sponsored politicians wish to assault public education – to diminish the intelligence of the people and therefore debate to the lowest common denominator. Perish the thought.
on to ferry county yeeeeearrrgghhh!
Obama is going to be comfortably re-elected in 2012. While McKenna may very well be elected Governor, the legislature will be more Democratic than it is this session. The scenario playing out now in Wisconsin may end with the Republicans winning a battle but loosing the war. Wisconsin is not going to work out well for the Republicans. You have outlined a nightmare scenario that is very unlikely to happen.
i like to ride with rob in his v8 suv to our waterfront mansion friend’s house and have cocktails. afte3r a few we get into napkin wonk sessions. great fun.
Good article.
Amusing rumor I heard today about Governor “Tunnel and Debt” Gregoire wanting to run for a Third Term.
Running for any political position has always been a popularity contest. Rob McKenna is a household name, a brand name. He’s our next governor without a doubt.
But who can the Dem’s put up as a strong candidate against him? It may not be worth infesting too much in the Dems at this point?
Rob McKenna also recently spoke at a Farm Bureau conference where they identified the minimum wage, labor unions, “the evolution of worker rights” and the new federal health care law as some of the top ten issues of 2010.
http://www.wsfb.com/system/files/WFB+Lab…
Him and his friends are REAL class acts.
There are no need for unions. Unions had a very valuable place in time when workers had no rights. Now with the advent of minimum wage, working age restrictions, paid vacations, sick days, THE LAWSUIT, etc. It’s not right that the tax payer has to pay for thier pensions.
With a union density of 20% in Washington state, (the 4th highest rate of unionization in the country) I think that McKenna will pay dearly for attempting to bust the unions if he wins. I think that Republicans nationwide will find that out next election cycle with the class war they are waging on organized labor right now. Even though the majority of jobs in the country are not unionized, there are many union supporters out there who work nonunion jobs, who know which side their bread is buttered on.
McKenna really has that “youth pastor just waiting for his sex scandal to hit the press” look, doesn’t he?
@16, union grievance procedures are almost always more cost effective in both time and money resources than lawsuits for both the employer and aggrieved employee. Also, anti-union politicians, such as the disingenuous Rob McKenna, would have no problem weakening the minimum wage, paid vacations and sick days. Unions help keep those assholes in check by being involved in the political process (hey, if a corporation can influence politics, so can organized labor). There are some states that don’t have a minimum wage law, such as Mississippi (a good old right to work state, where unions are weak). So if a job is not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, the employer in Mississippi can pay less than the federal minimum wage.
“There are no need for unions. Unions had a very valuable place in time when workers had no rights. Now with the advent of minimum wage, working age restrictions, paid vacations, sick days, THE LAWSUIT, etc…”
Dude, those things didn’t just have “an advent”-they were WON by the labor movement, and sometimes working people died winning them. Now, the rich are trying to take them all away.
If we become a totally union-free country, you and I will be living like our ancestors did in the 19th Century-and living like that was what made people WANT unions. Read Howard Zinn to find out what those days were like here.
If that’s too remote for you, the look at how people live today in places like the Philippines, Guatemala, Mexico and, in fact, most of the world outside North America and Europe. THAT’s what a “right-to-work” country looks like, sport.
Don’t let Fox News trick you into giving up your dignity.
@20: WHEW! THANK YOU, AlaskanbutnotSeanParnell!!
And no, I do NOT want to go back to the 19th century, thanks!
Goldy, you mangled the details of McKenna’s case against the WEA that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state supreme court decision did not grant unions the right to use members dues for politics, as you said. Rather, that decision threw out a law that required the union to get permission to use NON-members’ dues for politics. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state supremes and said it’s constitutional to require unions to ask permission before using nonmember dues.
By the way, it was a 9-0 ruling…not even Ginsberg, Breyer or Stevens agreed with the WEA.
Reitz @22,
I only had so many words, but the point’s the same: McKenna appealed a pro-union State Supreme Court ruling, and chose that case as his first appearance before the SCOTUS.
“It’s not right that the tax payer has to pay for thier pensions.”
Taxpayers (who, by the way, include public employees)pay for the total compensation of their government employees. Compensation includes benefits: Health insurance, vacation, sick leave, retirement. Just like a private company, the the total package is part of the renumeration for working…..you earn every penny–well, maybe not in your case.
From what you’re saying, you consider your benefits (if you have any) as some kind of gift from the sky? And when you interviewed, you didn’t even bother to ask about the company benefits?
And if you take a $2.00/hr pay cut to have $2.00/hr contributed to your retirement, do you really believe that is the “company’s” money?
Are you really that stupid, Jake?
You only lost me when defending “animal control officers” and their guild. Unfortunately that one was more nuanced; it was progressive activists blowing the whistle on that one as well as many Dems on the council including Dow. Thousands fewer animals are being euthanized today due to reforms the union vehemently opposed.
McKenna is certainly worrisome, but at least the WFSE isn’t doing itself any favors either with its own membership. “Tread lightly and try not to make a damned bit of difference” seems to be their motto.
As far as effective representation by at least Washington’s Federation of State Employees union, the state of Washington appears to be no Wisconsin.
It is important to retain the right to collectively bargain, but who leads collective bargaining is totally up for grabs. So if the primary union representing state employees wants to drive home the point of relevancy to its own membership, they are going to start having to invest some resources into making a positive difference in the work lives of those members. Otherwise, to many, my guess is that the union just looks like another layer of bureaucracy to its members.
What people like McKenna leaves out of the “unions cost us pension money” argument is how much the state pays for exempt employees retirement packages. You know, like McKenna.
I’d hate to say it but perhaps this entire country needs to go down this rotten pit of right wing extremism. Perhaps we won’t start to really stand up for the rights of middle and lower classes until we have felt the jack boot of the Republican party grinding on our throats for a few years.
And frankly the current crop of democrats we have on a state and national level haven’t really made me thrilled to vote for most of them.
Way to go STRANGER…stirring up the Lib base against a potentiality that is base only on YOUR liberal fantasy.
I don’t know, is Washington state in the hole??? IF it is, then some sort of balancing of cash flow might be in order.
But for you to assume the cuts will be exactly like what IS HAPPENING in Wisconsin…is “journalism” at IT’S WORST.
Actually, what you’re doing ISN’T journalism at all, it’s publishing your opinion on what MIGHT happen.
Jinning up the left on your supposition is reckless and unfounded.
I knew your paper pandered to your readership, but what you’re doing is STUPID.
What’s even more stupid are the people lapping up your vomit, and calling it a movement.
Thank GOD you’re at the extreme fringes of this Union.
“Jinning up the left on your supposition is reckless and unfounded.”
“I knew your paper pandered to your readership, but what you’re doing is STUPID.”
You sound a little worried and insecure, osage2112. If it is any solace to you, Fox News jins up the right wing every day, but on a more widely broadcast scale.
29
As does all the other media outlets in the U.S.
Why is it such a burr under your saddle that Fox exist alongside ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC???
As I count it, that is FIVE biggies and one FOX.
Sounds like you’re the insecure one…even with a majority of the news outlets spewing lib opinions.
Some more right winger lies. To suggest that Obama is some far left leaning socialist is a flat out lie. Obama is actually not near left enough for most of us progressives who pay attention to such things. If you consider the position of the Republican party during Eisenhower or even Nixon’s administration it’s easy to see that Obama is actually right of them. McKenna is of course first and foremost a Republican. As such he will say and represent himself in whatever manner it takes to gain the governorship. I hope to God we don’t see him make it. He will indeed turn against the working class and most likely the public employee’s unions with a vengeance.
Geeze, you go on and on as though working yourself into a froth from which there is no escaping.
A little brevity, editing, coherence and consistency of thought might help. Even when you preach to the choir they’ll stop going to church if you bore them to tears.
All that aside, McKenna might have a slim shot at governor, especially if Inslee is the choice of Democrats. A Republican Legislature stretches things to the extreme. You’re in fantasy land there.
Life will be not be comfortable for unions if McKenna is elected. They have owned the shop for quite some time now. I would hope he would end the unsustainable pension system, bring the benefits more in line with the private sector and find a way to undo the ever-rising and nation’s-highest minimum wage.
But end collective bargaining for public employees? Though it would be fun to see that battle fought in Washington it is extremely unlikely. Extremely. Several thousand words haven’t convinced me otherwise.
But I guess it’s never too early to start painting the boogeyman mask on McKenna. If you’re a partisan hack.
“I’d hate to say it but perhaps this entire country needs to go down this rotten pit of right wing extremism. Perhaps we won’t start to really stand up for the rights of middle and lower classes until we have felt the jack boot of the Republican party grinding on our throats for a few years.”
That has already happened, dude. And if things get worse, there comes a tipping point not when more people fight back but when the patient is too sick to recover, the ecology collapses, the car is totaled. Then people can’t fight back because they are struggling too hard to survive. People have lived in grinding and relentless poverty and oppression far more often than they have rebelled. Don’t go there. Fight back now and hard, while you can.
@ 32
Nice post… so silly the way thestranger just has to get the red-flags flying before there is even a wind up.
Red-baiting if there ever was.
30, it isn’t a burr under my saddle that Fox exists along with the other corporate media outlets (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC). Fox news tell such laughable lies (I find them entertaining) at times that it only gives people like myself material to easily disprove.
As for the other 5 news organizations, they are heavily edited corporate outlets that will not uncover uncomfortable truths that are a threat to the power structure. ABC, et al. were complicit in covering up uncomfortable facts about Iraq War, for example. They are far from liberal news organizations, but small kernels of truth that at times come out of them expose the class warfare that the right wing is deliberately waging on the working class. The truth is what threatens the right wing.
After this article, I am DEFINITELY voting for McKenna. Suck it.
@4 Yeah, because we live in a meritocracy.
@ 35
OMG…we have a Che Guevera-wannabe among us.
I must be a dupe then, because I’m all for a person having ALL the tools at their disposal to achieve (take a look at all the ILLEGAL ALIENS with their own businesses…that’s great) and all for getting as many warehoused humans (read generational welfare families) off of the system as moocher and back into the system as producers (and not just more babies)
Class warfare???…you are so zonked.
@38: “Che Guevera-wannabe”?
You clearly don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.
@ 39
Your constrictive criticism is greatly appreciated.
Fuck you very much.
Lemme guess you’re a hipter that thinks ol’ uncle Che was a loveable-huggable kind of communist.
Typical.
Here are a few more quotes from FDR. Wake me up when the Republican’ts start siting these:
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little… I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-nourished.”
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”
“Taxes, after all, are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.”
@ 39
OMG a fucking canuck sticking his nose in everyone’s business.
Keep your opinions in BC.
Take your “know better than the U.S. and can comment on how you should do it” attitude and cram it, asshole.
@41
As soon as you move in a MOOCHER that contributes NOTHING into your home, spend all your time and money taking care of him…then get absolutely TIRED of wasting your time on that MOOCHER…then you can talk about taking more of my money.
If you’ve never met a MOOCHER, then that means you have steered clear of them…meaning you want nothing to do with them.
WHY, then would you think it’s OK for someone else to take care of MOOCHERS???
Are you a MOOCHER needing to be taken care of???
I’m a young handsom retired multi-millionaire.
Are you a crank-infused human/porcupine hybrid?
@40, @42: Kiss my hairy white ass. I’d wager that I know a hell of a lot more about the US than you do about Canada. In fact, I’d wager that I know a hell of a lot more about the US than you do.
I’m also richer, better looking, and get more blow jobs.
Sucks to be you, dipshit.
@ 44 45
HEY, you hurt my FEELING.
I only had one, and you went and hurt it.
You turds.
Why don’t you two hook up??? Just leave me out of it!!!
@46
ROFL!!!!!!!!!1
@38, no, I’m not a Che Guevara wannabe. In fact, I own stocks, I work hard at a corporation in the private sector and enjoy the fruits of our capitalist system every day. A well regulated capitalist system, with its warts and imperfections, is what has been proven to work best time and time again ad nauseum. The Cold War is long over. It has been won. Our globe is mostly capitalist.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, an elite capitalist, saved our economic system from collapse through successful government intervention. Many in our country were joining the Communist Party during the Great Depression and the United States was closer to bloody revolution than many people realize. But I see from your posts, though, that you have to resort to insults because you are rather insecure in your own convictions, or you are afraid of the truth.
SPOG is the best union out there!
I’m a big fan of labor unionism,but no fan of the Global Labor Aristocracy (who talk the talk,but do not walk the walk!).Fuck arbitration;get rid of the Ruling Class altogether.NEVER BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL! . . . .NEVER!!!
@50: I second that!!
i bet certain unions support this lobbyist-created corporate bullshit:
Boeing Boondoggle: Pork Can Fly
“Building the tanker means Boeing can continue to make the wide body 767 jet on which the plane is based. The backlog on the 767 has dwindled to 50 orders as customers await the 787 Dreamliner, the composite-plastic plane now about three years behind schedule. … The news is an antidote to Boeing’s struggle in recent months with the Dreamliner and the 747-jumbo jet. The passenger version of the 747-8 is a year late, and Boeing is running two years behind schedule on the freighter model.”
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/boei…
what boeing does ain’t capitalism.
@ 48
What truth?
You talk a good circle…por qua?
If McKenna is not a teabagger, maybe what the dems really need is a further right teabagging d-bag to bloody the republican waters… make McKenna look like a liberal in wolfs clothing!
Aw fuck it, Ellen Craswell for Governor. I want Dan Savage to do another awesome interview with her;)
@56: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Profi…
Learn2activitytracker, mah boi!
@ 55
Great post! Basically, I didn’t ask that question b/c anyone that thinks FOX is the bane of their existence will have boogeyman-stories to back up their psychosis…so why bother?
For a sizable Seattle segment, they comfort themselves by calling the Tea Party, teabaggers…that segment is beyond diversity and civility.
Mayhap as well ask a PIG to stop stinking. Ain’t going to happen…and the PIG IS STILL IN BLISS.
On one account I think the libs and I can agree…in my heart, I don’t think there is a rational dem/lib out there…it’s ALL rank emotion and insults. They think there is not a repub/conservative w/ a heart.
One way to get a lib to realize throwing money at a problem has NEVER worked is…ask them if they liked the MOOCHERS they’ve known in their lives.
TO a T, they will say NO…moochers are vile.
So why do they believe the MOOCHERS of society should be pandered too?
The answer will be ALL EMOTION, not logic.
WHITE GUILT is bankable baby.
Seattle is eat up with the gullible hipster cat.
Cha-CHING.
@60: Do you have a grandmother? She’s a MOOCHER.
Are you planning to live past 65? You’re a MOOCHER too.
Teabagger? Meh…
I call them Teahadist Koch suckers: basically religious nutjob glibertarians — essentially Ellen Craswell’s base — ignorant fucks.
If there was any there, there we’d have had Clint Didier to crush in the general and no “everything but marriage” law on the books, etc.
The Teahadists are a paper tiger.
But Goldy is exactly correct: McKenna is a menace because of a carefully constructed lie that he’s a “reasonable Republican.”
Right – no need for unions – except for the fact that decades of union busting and assault on working people that began under oil baron tool RayGun, wages and benefits for working people have been declining in the United States, while the largest redistribution of wealth in modern history has created depression-era level disparity between the classes. At the same time, social safety nets enacted largely as a result of pressure from labor have been dismantled by both Republican and right-leaning Dems.
The golden age of the American middle class, not coincidentally, mapped to a period of massive unionization of the workforce (as well as high taxes levied against the wealthy (between about 70-90%) who were expected to pay their fair share).
So, in the end , there are only two kinds of people believe there is no need for unions – the rich and the stupid.
Right – no need for unions – except for the fact that decades of union busting and assault on working people that began under oil baron tool RayGun, wages and benefits for working people have been declining in the United States, while the largest redistribution of wealth in modern history has created depression-era level disparity between the classes. At the same time, social safety nets enacted largely as a result of pressure from labor have been dismantled by both Republican and right-leaning Dems throughout the 80s, 90s and certainly over the past ten years.
The golden age of the American middle class, not coincidentally, mapped to a period of massive unionization of the workforce (as well as high taxes levied against the wealthy (between about 70-90%) who were expected to pay their fair share).
BTW – the minimum wage has been whittled down to a pittance and hardly represents the buying power it once did (which (if contrasted against 60s levels) would now be more like $12/hour – which is still a pittance compared to some forward thinking European nations)
LAWSUIT (your caps, not mine) – The union, through its collective strength and capital, is the de facto mechanism through which an individual has the economic means to sue a larger and much more economically viable corporations. Without that, its a simple matter attrition. Corporations own the messaging via their economic might, own the an army of lawyers and as such, own the courts. Even when finding in favor of a individual, the corporation can and historically has filed appeal after appeal until the plaintiffs are incapable of proceeding – and in many cases simply die off.
So, in the end , there are only two kinds of people believe there is no need for unions – the rich and the stupid.
I’m a union worker. I’m not the problem. Teachers, police officers, paramedics, firefighters, road workers etc. are NOT the enemy. If you’re jealous of our benefits, FIGHT FOR YOUR OWN!, not against ours. The rich who created this crisis are pitting working families against each other. We live here, pay taxes, work hard & try to support our families too.
I’m not jealous of your benefits. I’m jealous that you get to give money to the guy on the other side of the bargaining table when you “negotiate” your pay and benefits with him. And I’m jealous that that guy is negotiating with my money, not his. I’m also jealous that you get to buy him off with my money too.
Its a racket and you know it.
yes, taxpayer is right. we’d never, ever give money to politicians to get tax breaks or extend tax cuts; we’d never negotiate with representatives in order for them to get out support. Our pay and benefits depends on the government not taxing us, but no, we’d never link those things to who we support in politics. And my god, when we go to the republicans we’d insist that any tax breaks we get be paid out of boehner’s own pockets, you know, we’d never ask for our tax breaks to be paid by …other peopel! no, only senat6ors pay them. And when we get those tax breaks, my god, we’d never use the amount saved to turn around and give more donations to keep the cylce going. Nope, we wouldn’t do that, only the damhn evil unions do that, let’s see how many working class idiots we can fool into hating unions, hahahahahaha!
#66 has just shown that the taxpayer is an ignorant moron after all. Who knew?
Civics lessen: when you pay your taxes, it’s not your money anymore. You spent it to pay for a service: government. Government isn’t like the drive thru window at Mcdonalds, you don’t get to have services a’ la carte. When the government pays a front line civil servant to teach school, pave roads, write parking tickets, they also get to spend it on whatever they want. If this seems like a “racket” to you, try living in a pay-as-you-go government country like Haiti, Dubahi, Singapore.
Even if I concede that the taxes I pay aren’t my money – and I don’t – please explain why its okay for unions to give millions of dollars to the people they negotiate with before, during and after the negotiations start? In any other sector both parties would be fired and/or jailed. See for example Boeing’s first attempt to land the tanker deal.
Nice little racket you got there. Too bad if something can’t last, it won’t.
@61
You are soooo miopic. In your world, there is no evil, no swindlers, no grifters, no cheaters.
The people you talk about have PAID INTO the system…got it?
The people I’m talking about HAVE NOT.
You do support the HAVE NOTS???
Just wondering if you can see the yang of the yin.
Sayin’
Spelling flames are sooo bogus but… “myopic”. If you want to bring the ten-dollar-words, spend an extra buck to spell them right.
To the meat of your argument… do I support the have-nots? As in, people who have not the resources or the capacity to work for a living wage, for reasons as varied as illness, lack of education, or the vagaries of the global economy? Do I support people who have not the influence to buy politicians and lobby for laws and regulations that benefit them? Do I support the people who have not the family connections and wealth that buy them entrance to the best schools in the best neighbourhoods, where they make the connections that get them the best jobs? Do I support the people who have not benefited from bank and corporate bailouts, who have not seen their assets skyrocket as income inequality has increased?
Yes. Yes I do. Because I recognize that my wealth and my success are products of both hard work and good fortune. Because I recognize that a fair and just society benefits all citizens. Because I recognize that it isn’t right to let someone die on street because they aren’t as smart, or as hard-working, or as lucky as me.
To those who think union organizing is a “racket” or somehow a form of organized crime- My union (IBEW 46) pays a fellow wireman journey scale to lobby in Olympia on behalf of our interests. We have decided, as a group, to contribute campaign funds to politicians who support labor interests. My international organization paid out 4 million in contributions the last election cycle, mostly to Blue Dog Dems who took our money and voted with John Boener anyway.
This is how you band together for survival: Go to meetings, sit through boring speeches, argue with redneck assholes in your membership, pay dues, vote. This is how fish and monkeys in the wild survive. You don’t last on good looks and the kindness of strangers forever. Yes, a lot of government and industry interests have made what unions do illegal. My leadership could be fined and thrown in jail for calling a strike during contract negotiations, labor arbitrators are notoriously sympathetic with crybaby industrialists, state and municipal governments consistently offer tax breaks to corporations that bust unions. A systematic grinding away of union power has been in place since WWII, and the middle income earning class has shrunk with it.
Now state governments have gotten into the act of busting unions by declaring collective bargaining by public servants illegal, and apparently taxpayers who aren’t in unions agree with them. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that much trust in my fellow man to let the boss decide how much I get paid.
It is wrong for McKenna and his bullies to rail against state workers. All elected Republican officials benefit enormously from government benefits. Republicans don’t rail against corporate CEOs and top executives excessive salaries and compensations but they despise the little guy making a living wage and some government benefits. I predict that many republicans will be voted out of office come next election.
Goldy (the writer of this article) chooses to avoid the hyphen in “politically easiest” and chooses to insert a hyphen into “under- estimates.”
Is this writing style intended to draw young , semliliterate Tea Party activists?
Don’t have a pension?
Haven’t gotten a raise in 10+ years?
Taken a hit on your insurance premiums or not have insurance at all?
Had your productivity rise but not been compensated for it?
Working longer hours just to keep your job?
Then you’re probably one of those rugged individualists that wants to go it alone and need no one to support or stand with you.
Back when unions represented 30% of the working force the bottom 90% received 50% of the GDP. Now with only about 12% the bottom 90% receive only 10% of the GDP.
These teabaggers keep saying “If you don’t get paid enough, get a better job.” Well, unions provide better jobs, so the teabaggers scream about how unfair it is!
McKenna said unions are “dangerous.” Sounds like you’ve got the goods on him, Goldy! Can you post the full audio/video here?
McKenna said unions are dangerous. That’s big. Sounds like you’ve got the goods on him, Goldy! Can you post the full audio/video here?
How would you react if all public sector jobs were subject to a compulsory fee collected from the worker and then that money was turned over to the republicans in order to get them elected, and then once elected the republicans gave away sweethart deals to those workers, paid for by the taxpayers who don’t support republicans ideologically?
Integrity counts to some of us.
*** Oh yes, after the ‘lower revenue forecasts come in’ -thanks to the ‘thirty years of Democratic governors that were somehow bad’. ‘Somehow’? Gregoire sat on her butt while real estate screamed upward and said nothing, and spent the hell out of our budget on what? Programs to make citizens out of illegals, and welfare up the gazoo.
* But let’s talk about illegal immigration, and the fact Gregoire and virtually all the other politicians sit on their butts and do nothing, why? Hoping the illegals will vote for them. By my information, McKenna is a ‘path to amnesty’ conservative, which makes him no good choice for governor, which is too bad. Most of his other fiscal positions fit with me and the majority, but we’re also looking for someone to stop illegals from being rewarded in this state, which means there is nobody yet likely to run that I would vote for.
Who needs a Republican to undermine the rights of workers or to privatize the public sector; Gregoire and our current legislature are already doing it quietly. This administration is directing department heads to downsize and “increasingly utilize the private sector”. Between union concessions and furlough days/pay cuts for the rest of us not in a union, the state workers (who get paid to represent your interests) are taking a beating.
Just because a governor is no labeled as right wing does not mean that she isn’t pursuing a similar agenda to what we have seen in the midwest. In this day and age, labels mean exactly nothing. We don’t need to wait for McKenna, Gregoire and Co. have already brought Wisconsin here.
my gosh, you mean McKenna would not be in bed with the public sector unions that elect him, leaving taxpayers shivering outside? That would be awful Goldy. We need to maintain the Democratic party’s circle of life. Big government unions raise funds to help big government democrats get elected, then those big government democrats return the favor to the unions that got them and hope to keep them elected.
Love douchebags or are you a douchebag? Vote for douche in chief, l’il Robby boy.
Also, Osage2112, you sir, are an used douchebag with some douchey unsubstantiated ideas and some really low respect for fellow human beings as you clearly have been expressing nothing but malice on this board.
Your comments on Fox News repeating falsehoods–there have been many sources pointing to evidence–largely the issue is more half-truths & the allowance of outright falsehoods stated by public figures to not be fact checked if those figures happen to agree with their political base. They rile up the political base and they fail to report anything near enough depth to possibly inspire any critical thinking. They’re not news, they’re infotainment and the result of this is simple idiocy when it comes to knowing the facts of world, national and even local events–especially if those events actually MEAN something. I’ve watched plenty of videos where a news anchor has parroted outright lies told by congress criters — I don’t have links now, but found this site that has a bit of fact checking on Murdoch’s little meme empire — http://www.newshounds.us/
Peace and don’t vote for douches!
@80 — Well, to me your statement is meaningless. For me to accept any job, I look at full pay package, including benefits and amount of opportunity costs on my end (travel time to and from work, cost of transit, options, bonus, whathaveyou). The fee is simply an opportunity cost. Same for working with any large corporation, only that you need to look at the fact that you get less pay and your benefits got slashed twice in the last year as that opportunity cost. Oh, and I can’t really recall having a choice as to whether company owners donated to opposing political causes with the enormous profits they make — it’s not like the most of the employers really pay their employees a share that reflects the productivity gains made by workers or merit. Most of that just goes to those who gamed their way to the top (yes not everyone games their way there, it IS a generalization).
Also, for what it’s worth I have never worked for a union job, but I would not be opposed to it anymore than I have been opposed to working for large corporations that handed me a sufficient paycheck to do work that wasn’t morally reprehensible in some way.
Look at it this way–unions allow the employees that WORK TOGETHER (for the most part) add some tension to the system–it’s a shame that this doesn’t happen more within private companies (it’s virtually impossible to establish similar in private industry) as it would help keep execs accountable. Again, I am pro-capitalism. I am also pro-democracy, and I believe that there should ALWAYS be a healthy tension between the two ideals as idiological purity will only lead to failure.
oh, and mckenna really has that santorum look about him. god I’d hate to have to wash that off my hand…
Anyone in the City of Seattle in favor of labor unions after we found out how much the SPD Guild President is getting paid by the City of Seattle? Maybe the labor Unions need a little kick in the pants.