So how does he feel when constituents take the time to come to his office?

"I know we live in a microwave/MTV/give it to me now culture,"

All the lulz.

@1:

Like Maj. Major Major Major in "Catch 22", presumably, he would only see them when he's not there.

"Ready, FIRE, Aim": P. 2, Republican playbook. "Win at all costs" is P. 1.

Manweller is one of the worst pieces of shit in the Legislature. Keep the pressure on him and don't let up.

what -- i can haz an mtv microwave??

wow -- this guy is thirty years late to the party.

microwaves are bad for you.

Microwave and MTV? Those are some seriously outdated references for someone under 50.

I remember an election on Tacoma back in the early 1990's where there was this referendum on whether taxpayers statewide would vote to fund a stadium in Seattle.

I hate sports. I hate them as passionately as other people love them. I therefore didn't want to pay for any stadium, regardless of where it was located. I began to think of how the people in Eastern Washington might feel about this, too. Some farmer in Pend Orreille is unlikely to ever visit Seattle, and if s/he does, would s/he visit the stadium often enough to offset the costs s/he was being asked to incur?

That's when I began to understand WA state politics a little better. It wasn't so much Democrat vs Republican as it was pro-Seattle and anti-Seattle. People east of the Cascades resented being asked to pay for things that didn't benefit them. The GOP capitalized on this after the tech boom, when Seattle and Western WA in general became dominated by the Democratic Party. By portraying things like that stadium referendum as 'typical' of the Democratic Party, which was described as no longer giving one shit about anyone who didnt live in a major city, the GOP was able to capture Eastern WA.

The irony is that Spokane is a major city. It's the second largest in the state. Yet, it too is dominated by the GOP. I wonder what the reaction in Seattle would be if there was some expensive state funded project to modernize Spokane, such as a light rail system or a stadium, which was unlikely to ever be enjoyed by any Seattleite? Would we pay for it, shrugging our shoulders with a sense of "well, they helped us when we needed it, so its only fair that we help them"? Or would the Stranger Electoral Control Board reccommend against such referenda?

Once, long ago, the urban/rural divide did't show upon a political map. FDR Democrats advocated strongly for the needs of rural farmers hit hard by the Dustbowl. They strongly supported unions, and therefore enjoyed the support of areas now deemed too conservative to bother campaigning in. And because we had a sense of equity, a sense that we would in fact be there for people who didnt live in major cities along the Pacific Coast, we elected a President to four terms of office. Now, he certainly had his faults. There's no excusing the internment of Japanese Americans, and we should all have a deep sense of shame for the racism instilled by that and the Dixiecrats FDR refused to silence. However, we also did a few good things, things we can't do any more. Social Security. The WPA. AFDC. We won World War 2.

Nowadays, its impossible to imagine any Democrat teaming up with the USSR to defeat anyone, even a genocidal maniac with global power ambitions. We couldn't pass the EFCA back in 2008, despite having a 60 seat majority in the Senate. Despite the vast swathes of unemployed in rural areas of this state, and this country more generally, and the twin specters of opiate and meth addiction destroying their communities, all we have for them is scorn. We used to have compassion and solidarity for them. We did great things back then, when we had compassion and solidarity.

Back when we enjoyed the support of this rurals, we packed the Court with bold progressives, who for as generation increased the number of people in our country who were, for the first time, treated with the same dignity and respect as everyone else. Abortion bans were struck down, not in spite of rural voters but because of the support they gave FDR,t he President who appointed the judges who made that decision. Back when we enjoyed the support of the unions, we didnt have to take half measures like the ACA, We went all the way with Social Security.

Let's talk to the East. More importantly, let's listen to them. Let's stand in solidarity once again with those farmers, by showing them that we progressives have a better deal for them. Let's rewrite the Farm Bill to favor small family owned farms and not huge corporate operations. Let's talk to union members in Spokane about how we can make it easier for them to organize and fight for better wages and working conditions. Lets listen to them when they tell us about how free trade cost them their jobs.

Lets retake the East for Progressive America. I envision a day when the two major political parties in our state are a Socialist Party and a Democratic Party, and conservatives go the way of bimetallism and other relics of our political past.

Lets move forward, together.

Not to belabor the point, but there are many issues Western Washingtonians want which could be addressed if framed in a non-Seattle-centric way.

Take Rent Control. Everyone in Seattle wants it, except the landlords. So far, all our pleas to Olympia have been framed in a Seattle context. Its as if we really think Rent Control is something only Seattlites want or would even think about. And when we project it in that way, the rest of the state is bound to respond d with, "Well, if it's only a Seattle issue, it's not an issue in my district."

You know what? Rents are soaring in Tacoma, too. And Everett. I don't know what Spokane's housing market is like, but if the same is true there as well, then Rent Control is definitely not just a Seattle issue. It is absolutely a statewide concern. We can pitch this idea to Easterners by discussing allowing local jurisdictions greater control over their housing markets. We could approach Manweller's constituents by suggesting that they have a right to decide if they want Rent Control in their community or not, and Olympia should not deny their local government that authority, even if they choose not to have Rent Control. This should be under the control of the local governments, not Olympia. Pitch it that way, and you might just get the Rent Control you will never see otherwise.

Similarly with light rail funding. You know what a truly ambitious project that could connect the entire state would look like? A statewide high speed rail system. Imagine a dual axis, with one spine stretching from Spokane to Seattle, and another from Blaine to Vancouver. Both with stops in between, allowing kids in Moses Lake to see a show in Seattle, or Tacomans to cheaply and quickly travel to see a show at the Woldson Theatre, or to ride the Keller Ferry. Build the Columbia River Crossing, and connect the light rail system directly to Portland's Max, so Everett's residents can pop down to Powell's for some book shopping. Whatever makes it easier for people to meet each other destroys the barriers that lay between them. And whatever destroys those barriers builds bonds of solidarity. Progressives always win when people see each other eye-to-eye.

We are one state, not two. We are all Washingtonians. And we must support one another.

MTV? What millennium are we in?

@11-12: What a load of garbage.

"...Democrat vs Republican as it was pro-Seattle and anti-Seattle. People east of the Cascades resented being asked to pay for things that didn't benefit them."

Our state government in Olympia is a mechanism for transferring wealth from the urban and liberal regions of our state to the rural and conservative areas ("Welfare State", The Stranger, 10 February 2011). In return for paving roads and building schools in Eastern Washington, we Seattle liberals get diatribes like yours. It's not a worthwhile exchange for us.

As for the glittering infrastructure you want to build, Republicans in SW WA killed the Columbia River Crossing because they were ideologically opposed to mass transit. Good luck with that.

Republicans get elected and stay elected peddling attitudes like yours to rural constituencies which refuse to admit they are receiving subsidies from urban liberals. Your rhetoric here simply encourages such dishonest politics. Should we all work together? Of course we should. Instead of typing your angry and contrafactual diatribes in this urban liberal forum, get out to the rural areas and get them to stop swallowing the lies they want to believe from politicians who obstruct our progress.

@ 14,

Pay attention to the tone of what you just wrote. Does it project an image of rural voters that is at all positive?

If a rural voter read what you just posted, how would it make them feel? Would they trust you? Would they see you as someone who cares about their concerns?

Or, would the hostility you project turn them off?

Human beings are not rational. I could walk up to a total stranger, and hand them a $100 bill. Regardless of how I do so, that stranger would have $100 more after the encounter than they did prior to. So, rationally, they should be pleased with the outcome.

However, if I punched them in the nose (not hard enough to break it, maybe just enough t make them bleed a little) and cared them a disgusting piece of shit, and then wadded the hundred up and there it at them, they'd be pissed.

And that is what you sound like. That is why people hate you. And, they vote against your desires, because they hate you. Even if voting against your desires is against their interests.

People do not vote according to their interests. People vote according to their feelings. And only an idiot will make them feel bad and then wonder why they lost the election.

@15 - Well, forsooth on how people vote.

But its a bit of a shock to see a history of the collapse of the New Deal coalition that does not include a mention of the mid-century civil rights movement.

FDR did nothing about segregation because that was the price southern democrats demanded for their support of the New Deal. Truman didn't continue this arrangement, integrated the military and Strom Thurmond et.al. bolted the party in response. That's where the Dixiecrats came from - in 1948. FDR had been dead for 3 years by then.

Eventually, all those ye olde segregationists migrated to the GOP where they (or their ghosts, at least) remain to this day.

This, combined with sustained, systematic attacks on industrial labor unions (the most devastating of which has been the movement of production out of the country to jurisdictions where they're only too happy to shoot stikers dead in the street), is what broke the New Deal coalition.

There will be no recovering FDR's coalition, no matter how polite the city mice are to the country mice. Because the world that gave rise to that coalition is long gone. Farmers are just another type of industrial capitalist now.

@16,

Your last point is demonstrably false. Most small, family owned farms are being bought out by larger corporations these days. This is because of how a federal law called The Farm Bill, which gets renewed every year, is written.

The Farm Bill was first drafted by Earl Butz (no, I'm not making this up, that was in fact his name), the Secretary of Agriculture under Nixon. In the waning days of LBJ's administration, PBS ran a film on poverty in Appalachia, where starvation and malnutrition were common at the time. Nixon was under pressure to lower the price of food somehow, which he attempted by various means (including wage and price controls). Butz was tasked with finding a way for the federal government to subsidize agriculture so farm produce would be less expensive by the time it hit the grocery store shelves. The Farm Bill, which was introduced to Congress, paid farmers based on a set price per square acre of farm land. Small time farmers in Appalachia would also be able to survive even if they had a bad year because of the size of the subsidy.

The unintended consequence is that the larger the farm, the greater the federal subsidy. Corporations began gobbling up tiny family owned plots and forming large farms that outcompeted the smaller farmers. This is partly why the Midwest is desperately poor these days. People who sold the family farm to Big Ag now have no income.

Farmers (and more importantly, former farmers who sold their farm) are not capitalists. They're the victims of capitalism. And they need our help.

Unions need our help too. Lets not forget that the working class is a revolutionary class, and that revolution only can happen if workers organize. That's what a union is. They still exist. In the same places farmers in the Midwest suffer their poverty, small time steel mills operate alongside the small farms struggling to not succumb to Big Ag. USW is strong in Indiana. And if we're ever going to flip Indiana from Republican Red to either Socialist Red or Democratic Blue, it';s the unions that will do it. The Unions, and the small farmers.

We don't need to appeal to racism to unite these urban voters. We can offer them a broad coalition that includes them and women, people of every race and ethnicity and religion and creed, and every sexual orientation and every gender identity. We can do this because while these struggles for equality might look like separate, unrelated efforts, in fact, it's all part of the same struggle. I am a Eurasian-American cis-gendered gay middle-class professional male. However, I am not free unless my African-American transgendered working class brothers and sisters are also free. I am an atheist. Yet, until my Muslim friends are liberated, I am not liberated. My freedom is inherently bound up in their freedom.

Whatever concessions may be thrown my way- the right to marry, serve militarily or adopt, say- are nothing if I still have to live in an unequal society where some are exploited for their labor while others get more than their fair share for doing half as much or even nothing at all.

We need a fair and just society for everyone. And if we can offer small farmers and steel workers a place in our big tent, not as inferiors or superiors, but as equals, with as much attention paid to their needs as to mine, we can win, not just the state, but the country.

Hell, with a coalition like that, we might even win the whole goddamn world.

Pay attention to the tone of what you just wrote.

Pay attention to the substance of your claim @11, and compare it to the documented facts at the link I provided. The money flows in the opposite direction from the way you claimed, and the entire rest of your posts @11 and @12 depend upon your false claim. When informed it was in fact false, you simply continued lecturing as if it was true. In what universe does lecturing your audience on the basis of a falsehood not insult them? Why are you so immune to your own advice? Do urban liberals simply not deserve the courtesy you keep demanding we provide to others?

Your patronizing claim to the contrary notwithstanding, voters in rural Washington are indeed voting rationally, and based upon their correct perception of their best interests. In the most recent budget analysis, taxpayers in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties provided over 60% of the state's tax revenues. The other 33 counties thus provided just over 1% each (!). When it comes to state government, rural voters give little and receive much, which is why they sensibly vote to keep things as they are. So long as this current situation persists, I wish you the best of luck selling rural voters on tax increases to pay for your grand glittering dreams of infrastructure.

Your claim that we urban liberals should pander to the misinformed tribalism of rural voters, and be oh-so-careful not to disturb their po' widdle fee-fees with our harsh statements of reality. The long and violent history of the Twentieth Century should have taught us something about pandering to irrational tribalism, and why educated persons should never, ever acquiesce to it.

We urban liberals can respond to rural voters biting of our hand which feeds them not by being ever so solicitous of their feelings toward the truth, but simply by withdrawing our hand. Given how you've here encouraged them to believe they are subsidizing Seattle, instead of the way subsidies really flow, they might well get behind a measure to limit state government expenditures within a county to the taxes paid by voters in that county. Should they agree to such a plan, will you be there to tell them why their taxes must now rapidly rise as funds for schools and roads decline?

As for your tiresome position as our self-appointed Miss Manners, I don't need your permission to get into an extended dialog with your imaginary rural friends, with you judging me most harshly at my every utterance. My Seattle-based employer recently opened an office in Eastern Washington, and I spend quite a bit of time out there. My new co-workers there are quite forthright about the challenges they face, and my employer is happy to have such a great local workforce.

Finally, it's spelled "Pend Oreille County."

I recently received my (form) emailed legislative update from Rep. Manweller. Here is my reply:
"I'm sorry, Rep. Manweller, but this email fails to meet the standard established in your previous form mail that correspondence between us should be individualized and crafted to the specific recipient. In addition, its format (and a little content) appear derivative of Rep. Dent's form email, received previously.

I'm afraid that I must ask you to re-write and resubmit."