Continuing again…

State Court of Appeals Division 1 District 1 Position 6: Only one candidate, so I vote for me.

State Superior Court Judge Position No. 1: My primary choice was Susan Amini. She did not make it to the general election. So I have to look at the other two. Looks like Bradshaw has a bit more relevant experience. I have no other real way to decide here. So I’ll vote for Tim Bradshaw.

State Superior Court Judge Position No. 22: I ran out of time in the primary, so I have to look for the first time today. Garratt has been a judge before. Her opponent has not. I will vote for Julia Garratt.

State Superior Court Judge Position No. 37: I ran out of time last time as well, so looking at this at the first time. As before, I’ll go with the person who is already a judge, although I’ll say again that I don’t think Judges should be elected positions. The mere fact of having to worry about election has the potential to hurt their impartiality. But oh well. My vote goes to Jean Rietschel.

City of Bellevue Proposition No 1 Levy for City Parks and Natural Areas: This would improve a tax increase to pay for parks. It said tax increase. Not right now thank you. I will vote REJECTED.

Sound Transit Proposition No 1 Mass Transit Expansion: This would raise taxes (although not by much) to fund the expansion of buses and trains to more places in the area. If you have read any of my other comments today, you’ll know I’m fairly anti-transit. It is not that I can’t enjoy a good train system if it is there. I like the Metro in DC. And some of the proposed routes might actually be useful to me. But… I just think it is not the best use of resources, and the subtext of trying to get people to drive less annoys me. I will vote REJECTED.

And that is the end of my ballot. Time to get it all set in the official security envelope and walk it over to my local polling place to put in the box.

Continuing Page 2…

Commissioner of Public Lands: My primary choice was once again me, and once again just a protest because there were only two candidates. So I need to look at the candidates. Once again, with brief looks at their statements and their websites, I find nothing particular that would make me lean one way or another. This really should be an appointed position. In any case, as the tie break, I will go with the challenger. My vote goes to Peter Goldmark.

Superintendent of Public Instruction: My primary choice was Randy Dorn. I vote for him again.

Insurance Commissioner: My primary choice was me. Because I didn’t like any of the candidates. OK, I will vote for me again.

State Senator District 41: My primary choice was me, but only because there were only two candidates. So once again I should look at the candidates. If Fred Jarrett had an issues section on his site, I could not find it. Meanwhile, I could easily find Bob Baker’s issues page without trying. And I like a lot of what I read. Plus… I’ve seen his yard sign. It has very few words on it other than his name. It says “No Tolls on I-90 Bridge”. I go across that bridge a couple times a day, and I agree completely. And from his website it seems he is also generally of the same pro-car orientation as I am. So my vote goes for Bob Baker.

State Representative Position 1 District 41: My primary choice was me. Once again a protest of only having two choices. So once again, I need to look at the candidates. Once again I think transportation is the deciding issue for me. Litzow is against tolling on I-90 and seems more car friendly. My vote goes to Steve Litzow.

To be continued in another post soon…

This is another rematch. Four years ago Christine Gregoire (Democrat) beat Dino Rossi (Republican) by less than 200 votes it seems. I was not in Washington at the time, and have not followed local issues much since, so I didn’t know much about either person.

My first impression of Governor Gregoire was when I saw her at Democratic Caucus events earlier this year. My impression was decidedly negative. Almost every word out of her mouth made me want to scream.

Meanwhile, I knew nothing at all about Rossi.

For this general election, I had several Gubernatorial debates on my Tivo. I of course waited to the last minute and had not watched any of them before election day. I just watched the first one I had, recorded September 20th. It is the only one I had time to watch, and so therefore my vote will be based essentially only on the candidates’ performance in that one debate.

I continued to have an incredibly negative view of Gregoire.

First, on policy: She is very statist. It seemed like almost everything was something that could and should be solved by government. This is something I dislike a lot. One of the big issues seems to be transportation policy. She was repeatedly slamming roads and pushing public transportation sorts of solutions instead. Screw that. Give me my car damn it. Give me roads to drive on it. Make the roads big and wide. Take your collectivist trains and buses and shove them. OK, that is overly harsh. I like the occasional train and bus, although I would prefer when they are private efforts rather than public. But they should not be primary policy. Promote maximum flexibility for the individual please. And that is small vehicles that seat a handful of people at most. And this is just typical of the other policies she was promoting. They were all about ways that government could engage in social engineering to try to solve problems. I know government must be involved to some extent in many of these things, but please make it as little as possible.

Second, her attitude and temperament: She seemed cranky and angry. And bitter. She was constantly attacking Rossi. It was very very negative. Very little positive about herself, just attack, attack, attack. And she seemed arrogant and dismissive. She said several times “Those aren’t the values of the people of Washington”. How dare she presume to represent the values of the entire state. She won by a hair’s breadth last time, half the state obviously disagrees with her.

Meanwhile, Rossi seemed even tempered and stable. He never raised his voice or sounded angry. And he kept talking baout fiscal responsibility, living within our means, and generally not having government intrude where it did not need to. And on transportation he was much more pro-car.

I can’t say I actually LIKED Rossi. He seemed a little slimy too. And perhaps even like he was hiding his true self a bit. It seemed slightly fake. Like he was forcing himself to be calm.

However, more so than before, I actively DISLIKE Gregoire, and I definitely disagree on her general approach to government.

Therefore, my vote:

Dino Rossi (Prefers G.O.P. Party)

…although I must say, that absolutely idiotic “GOP Party” thing almost makes me want to change my mind in and of itself. Grand Old Party Party my ass. Just say Republican.

OK, I read the bios and statements of all eight tickets on my ballot. But I am running out of time and won’t waste it going through all of them. All of the third parties this year are a joke and aren’t worth it. (This includes the Libertarians, who I am usually inclined toward.)

Anybody who has been reading my blog or listening to my podcast this year knows my choice here, I’ve talked about it multiple times.

I disagree with Barack Obama on a lot of things, mainly in the area of Domestic Policy. I will be angry and annoyed at many things he does. But on foreign policy, which I generally believe is more important, I am very closely aligned with Obama’s positions.

But more importantly, there is an issue of temperament and process. From reading his books, especially his second book, one thing is clear. Obama is a thoughtful person. He considers issues carefully and deliberately. He takes into account and respects the opinions even of those he disagrees with adamantly. He is calm and cool in a crisis. He does not act impulsively. He acts out of rational analysis, not out of emotion.

This is the kind of person who should always be President. It is not what we have had for the past 8 years (arguably for the last 16 years actually). It is certainly not what John McCain would provide. But it is what is needed.

And yes, I believe the post-partisan message Obama has expounded in his 2004 Convention Speech and with regularity since then. I hope that his “Progressive” supporters that expect him to push strongly for highly partisan left-wing policies will be sorely disappointed. Of course, it could just as well be me who is sorely disappointed. As I said, I expect to be quite upset with many things Obama does.

But not only do I believe he is better than the alternatives, I believe that on balance he will be a positive force more in line with what I would want than not.

So my vote:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden (Democratic Party Nominees)

Full text is here.

This makes the King County Executive, King County Assessor and the King County Council into non-partisan offices. I frankly think ALL elected offices should be non-partisan. Parties are generally a bad thing. I’d rather candidates stand on their own views and merits rather than tying themselves to some larger group. The opposition to this points out that candidates will still have such associations, it just won’t be on the ballot. Sure, but the information will still be easily available for those who want it, and this may just encourage people to think about the candidates themselves rather than just voting blindly for the party they generally prefer. This is a good thing.

My vote:

YES