Author: switzerblog

Just an announcement:

Shortly after the State of the Union ends, Congressman Jim McDermott (D/WA-07) will post a rebuttal and will respond to comments live at Washblog.  

For those who haven’t heard yet, Washblog is Washington state’s answer to Kos and Booman, a scoop-based community blog focused on Washington state politics.  We already have a Mukilteo City Councilman as a front-pager, and we’re thrilled to welcome Congressman McDermott into the fold as our newest Washblogger.

Below the fold is the media advisory we sent out this morning.
Please stop by Washblog tonight around 7:30pm Pacific time, and say hello to the Congressman!
SEATTLE–On Tuesday, January 31, 2006, Washington political activists will join Congressman Jim McDermott in a live on-line rebuttal and discussion after President Bush’s State of the Union speech.  Washblog (www.washblog.com), a local community weblog focused on political debate, will host the conversation shortly after the State of the Union ends.

Featuring Washington politics and free, open debate, Washblog was founded in 2005 by Brian Moran of Everett.  Readers are encouraged to create a free account and interact by leaving comments or writing their own stories, known as “diaries”.  Washblog recently blogged live as HB 2661, the gay civil rights bill, wound its way through the state Legislature, and was first to report on the bill’s passage.  

Congressman McDermott will join his colleagues Tim Ryan (D-OH), Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ) in a coordinated response beginning at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s blog (http://blog.dccc.org/).  About 45 minutes after the State of the Union, the Congressmen will each post on different blogs, MyDD (www.mydd.com), Blue Jersey (www.bluejersey.net), and NJ for Democracy (www.njfordemocracy.com/) respectively.

“We are extremely excited to have Congressman McDermott join the conversation at Washblog,” Moran said, “His is a powerful voice in Washington State, and we look forward to his thoughts on the various subjects that affect all of us.”

McDermott is expected to speak to issues regarding the war in Iraq, healthcare, and the difficult economic choices average Americans face under the Bush Administration. Other possible topics include warrantless wiretapping and the Republican corruption scandal in Congress.

“Political discourse has changed,” said writer Arthur Ruger of Willapa Bay.  “Elected officials have the opportunity, and a responsibility, to use these new tools to engage directly with their constituents.  We’re all very excited that Congressman McDermott has chosen to lead the way in embracing this new opportunity to speak with voters.  As Democrats, we certainly look forward to his take on President Bush’s optimism in the face of real-world problems.”

Cross-posted to Washblog.  It’s very Washington-centric, and may refer to specifics that are unfamiliar to a national audience, but the lessons are portable – and important, I think.

The election of Washington’s new State Party Chair was an opportunity to define ourselves.  Not just by who we elected, although that is vital, but by how we elected them.  I think, as activists, we did ourselves a disservice in the way this campaign took shape.  Rumors, complaints, angst, assumptions, meanness, bomb-throwing…we didn’t comport ourselves with dignity.  

I’ve felt for some time that the candidates themselves were behaving as they should – with mutual respect, confidence in their rightness for the job, and passion for the Party.  But on the ground, where it counts, we got personal.  We called each other names, assigned spurious goals and nefarious plans to others who didn’t support our candidate, and attacked the candidates themselves as tools of this or that group.  Meanwhile, the candidates – all of them – traveled the state, met people, and talked about how the Party needs to move forward.  

Who are we?  Is this us?  Is there not more to us than this?
I think there are several reasons for the problems we’ve faced, and they’ve been brewing since 2003.  I’ve seen a “we need something new” camp coalesce, totally willing to accept anything as long as it isn’t what Paul Berendt wanted.  I’ve seen folks new to politics pissed off and frustrated that they haven’t gotten what they wanted, not yet seeing the 20-year arc for most political change.  I’ve seen old-guard politicos with decades of political knowledge, sick of these damn new people trying to change everything all at once.  New folks who learned fast overreaching.  

And everyone seeing everyone else as the problem.  If only “they” would get with the plan, we’d start winning races left and right!  If only “they” would start fighting.  If only “they” would fight less.  If only “they” would pick better fights.  If only “they” would just die and let us take over already.

At the meeting of the Central Committee in Kent, I saw the culmination of this.  Rumors spread, tempers flared, people set against each other.  We finally elected a new chair, but didn’t manage to do so without a whiff of controversy.  Both candidates, after the election, gave statements calling for reconciliation and Pelz reminded the Committee members to remember that blogs have bad attributes as well as good – something us bloggers would do well to remember, too.

They shouldn’t have had to give those statements.  And it wasn’t their fault; it was ours.  

Intra-party activism is a powerful force – we can bring about our own change, and it can sometimes be painful.  But whether acting as bloggers, activists, or both, we must always act responsibly.  Facts matter.  Rumors must be treated as rumors, not as salacious tools, weapons to be wielded against the “other”.  Since what we write is taken seriously (I hope we’ve learned this lesson), our responsibility to do research before we write something is ever greater.  We have the ability to, with a push of a button, poison a debate or a race.  

This is something new – whisper campaigns have always been around and wielded by some; but they take time – people chat, make phone calls, and stir things up.  But that can take days to work.  A blog post with even one harmful inaccuracy can be read by thousands and e-mailed to thousands more.  The damage can be done in minutes, and is so much more difficult to undo, as people take what is written even more seriously than what is whispered by friends.

The rhetoric here since the election has been a relief.  We all seem ready to reconcile and put our differences aside so we can start with our lit drops and phone banks, organizing and leading in our districts.  Hope seems to again be the theme.

But we’ve got a Senate primary to face, and while it is unlikely to be competitive, it will certainly be heated.  I hope we can remember the lessons of the race for Party Chair, that while we may disagree with the candidates or their supporters, we’re all lurching towards the same goal in the end, we all want Democratic control of the Senate, and we all want to get our country back on the right path.  A different view of how to get there is not a sinister plan for a different result.  Facts must be our stock in trade, reality our guide, differing opinions our divine right and great strength, and the common goals of freedom and democracy the beacon lighting our way.

Also, beer on Tuesdays.  Let’s don those beer-goggles of freedom together!

Read live blogging of this at Washblog, Washington state’s progressive answer to Kos (and Booman, heh!) – a Scoop-based community blog.

Shortly before noon today, the Washington state Senate passed HB 2661, 25-23.  Just after noon, it was received by the House (which passed the bill last week) and the amended version was passed 63-37, sending it to the Governor’s desk to be signed before the sun goes down today. Update [2006-1-27 17:7:6 by switzerblog]: I’ve just learned the Governor will actually sign the bill on Tuesday morning at 10:00am.  HB 2661 amends the jurisdiction of the Human Rights Commission to protect any sexual orientation from discrimination in employment, housing, insurance, credit and other public services.

This bill has been introduced to the Washington Legislature every year since 1977, famously championed by Representative Cal Anderson.  Representative Anderson succumbed to AIDS in 1995, and the torch was passed to Representative Ed Murray, who fought every year until his final victory today.  We are all so proud of everyone who worked on this bill, and know Cal Anderson is smiling down on Ed Murray today.
You can read more live coverage of this historic day at The Stranger’s blog, Slog.  Eli Sanders has done a great job with this story today.

We have fought so long and hard on this bill with little success against the closed-minded, skittish and plain old bigots in our Legislature, but last year was historic in that we came within one vote in the Senate of passing the bill.  Many of you will remember Microsoft’s role in the imbroglio surrounding HB 1515 and Reverend Ken Hutcherson (who we thank for creating the final blowback making today possible).   (I want to add and stress that Microsoft did the right thing in reversing course last year, and joined many corporations in forcefully advocating for the bill’s passage this year)

Before this session started, Senator Bill Finkbeiner (R-45th) stepped down as Minority Leader and announced that he would cross the aisle and support this bill, becoming the 25th vote.  This took tremendous courage to break party ranks, as the Republicans are vehemently opposed to even the most basic fairness for gays.  His courage in voting for the bill today (he previously voted for it as a Democrat, when he served in the state House) is to be commended.

I close with Ed Murray’s words, quoted on Slog:

Anticipating passage by the senate today, I asked Murray last night how it would feel to see the bill finally become law.

“Tomorrow, I’ll be able to say, `Promises kept, mission accomplished,'” Murray told me. “And not just to Cal, but to a lot of people I’ve known, who worked on it and went on to other things in their lives. And to a lot of people who are dead…

“When it passes, no matter what happens, there is no turning back. There is no taking away from this moment. A group of elected legislators, many of whom it’s a tough road for, did the courageous thing and legislated that discrimination against gays and lesbians and transgendered people is wrong. And nothing will take away from that, no matter what they try.”

Words fail me.  Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to finally pass this bill and bring down legally sanctioned discrimination.

I’m posting this in response to some offline requests from our friendly discussion group.  (This is cross-posted at Washblog, btw)  Yesterday, it was suggested in that group that our legislators are lazy and ineffective.  That stuck in my craw, as while some may disagree with individual votes they’ve taken, it’s impossible to say with any degree of credibility that they’re lazy or ineffective.  My first response was almost entirely about Patty Murray – this is because I know Senator Murray very well and could dredge this info up, and because I was sleepy and couldn’t as easily come up with stuff for Senator Cantwell.  

That being the case, I’ll post only the information regarding Senator Murray here, and I’ll just make this a series.  I’ll update it as often as possible, but hopefully at least a couple times a week.  
First, it was mentioned that Washington gets less back than we pay in Federal taxes, and that rather than building schools in Alabama (much-needed, btw), our taxes should go towards mass transit here in Washington.  Well, it doesn’t work that way.  Federal legislators don’t make local transit decisions; they provide funding for the transit that’s being built by local agencies. (IOW, freeways yes, buses no. Not without local decisions) That said, Patty Murray is the most powerful Democrat on the transportation committee, and annually brings about half a billion dollars into the state for transportation projects. Without Patty, Sound Transit wouldn’t have put one rail on the ground. Without Patty, subtract about 50% of the buses driving in the state. This is as much true within King County as in the rest of the state.

Patty’s the second ranking Democrat (and first and still the only woman) on the Veterans’ Affairs committee. Every year, she fights for veterans and pisses off the right. In 2004, she managed to prevent closure of VA hospitals in Vancouver (a hospital that has expanded since, btw), Walla Walla and one other – I apologize that I can’t remember the third. She recognized there would be a shortfall in this year’s VA budget and tried repeatedly to enter an amendment to provide the necessary funds. It lost on a party-line vote every time, until the VA itself announced that it was out of money and unable to stay open. Then the amendment got passed PDQ, and even Rick Santorum was forced to say, on the Senate floor, that Patty had been right and they had been wrong.

The reason Plan B is still being discussed by the FDA (and the interim director resigned instead of being confirmed)? Patty and Hillary Clinton refused to allow the confirmation to go through and investigated the nominee, revealing his ties to the Christian Right. Why is there ANY port security – at all? Patty and Susan Collins of Maine. Patty held up Bush’s nominations (again) until he released the appropriations for port security projects. Patty has provided – against extreme Republican opposition – armor for National Guard troops, childcare and healthcare for National Guard families when they’re deployed, and job protections for deployed Guard troops. She led – LED – the fight to protect National Guard re-enlistment bonuses when the Pentagon decided not to pay them. Just this weekend she revealed that the IRS has been gathering partisan affiliation information on taxpayers.

I can obviously go on and on, but these are just a few examples. In fact, Patty’s one of the hardest-working members of the Senate and is one of the most powerful members of the Senate minority leadership. There’s a reason the right hates her so much, and it ain’t because she’s lazy.

So this is quoted verbatim from my response to the discussion group.  In the future, I’ll write specifically for this venue (I’m at work and in a hurry today – hence, no links.  Sorry.).  I welcome any feedback, corrections or suggestions.  In fact, consider this a Patty Murray thread – what’s she done for you or your community?  What has she done for Washington state that I missed?  Would anyone like to fill in the blanks about Operation Safe Commerce?

Cross-posted at Washblog.

When I heard the news that Paul Berendt was resigning his post as State Party Chair after 11 years, I was very drunk and standing on a bridge over the Strip in Las Vegas. Naturally, my thoughts turned less to my future in the party, and more towards finding a place to sit down. I am now partly sober, and have had time to consider what all this means to me. I was not considering running for State Party Chair, but after reading this diary at Kos which contains two comments urging me to run, and receiving a third query about my future from N in Seattle, I did some basic math. As we’ve learned from Family Guy, one comment equals one billion people. So I realized that 3 billion people want me to run for State Party Chair for the Washington State Democrats. Today, I proudly announce the candidacy of switzerblog for State Party Chair – the people’s voice cannot be ignored!
I know that when I am State Party Chair, I will work for YOU. And that will be a lot of hard work, because I don’t like most of you, but I pledge to you today that I will try my hardest, every single day, to be friendly and not act repulsed when I meet you on the street or in my office. Because the Party runs because of you and all your hard work. Without the hard work and dedication of people who don’t know any better than to make phone calls to complete strangers and walk around in the rain knocking on people’s doors for candidates, this Party would go absolutely nowhere. Because I sure won’t do any of that stuff! No, what I will do is fight for YOU, the everyday working man (or woman) Democrat.

Before I get into my platform, let me tell you a few things about myself. I am a heterosexual person, although I find Jake Gyllenhall entrancingly handsome and L.L. Cool J simply dreamy. I feel what I feel. Next, you should know that switzerblog is not the name I was born with. My name was franceblog, but when I joined my partner germanyblog, I agreed to take a neutral name. Some of you in Eastern Washington may not approve of my lifestyle, but I feel strongly that the Democratic party should be inclusive. I am a D-List celebrity at Daily Kos, which means that when I write a diary, as many as seven people may read it at any given time. Some say I’m an idiot, but that’s because they’re jealous of my upper body musculature.

My platform:

• I will use the internet to raise $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) to wage campaigns in every precinct in our state. This works out to $500,000,000 for every precinct. This will be almost enough to match the money corporate interests will pour into their local campaigns through developers, illegally undisclosed contributions to the Chamber of Commerce, crappy campaign sponsoring radio from KVI and KTTH, and amazingly poorly researched blog entries at Sound Politics.
• I will adopt a technology platform exceeding anything seen in politics to date. The voterfile will be entirely open-source and available to every PCO. All party business will be conducted via blog, with open comments for input and platform development. LaRouchies and Republicans leaving troll comments will be hit with a massive electrical charge, destroying their computers.
• I will personally arm-wrestle State Republican Party Chair Chris Vance for Party supremacy. If necessary, I will join him in a duel. I will also mount a death-ray laser on top of our downtown Seattle offices, and fry any Republican filing voter registration challenges.
• I will travel to Washington, DC quarterly. There, I will give a hug and wet kiss to Howard Dean once every quarter. I will also sneak into the White House and kick George Bush in the nards. Boy, will he get tired of that game!
• I will kick Maria Cantwell repeatedly in the shins until she promises to apologize for voting for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War resolution. Or at least admits that she wishes she hadn’t. I will also kick Adam Smith in the nards, but will provide him with ice and a hug afterwards, beacuse he’s been coming around.
• Every time someone is found not filing PDC reports on time or embezzling money, I will call a press conference. At that press conference, I will punch the guilty party in the face repeatedly on live television to send a message that Democrats will not tolerate unethical behavior. Enough is enough!
• I will adopt Flying Spaghetti Monsterism as the official faith of the Democratic Party. Because beer fountains and stripper factories – well, that’s what democracy is all about.

I need your help. This is YOUR campaign. There are several strong, worthy candidates seeking this position, and the other three guys, too. It will not be easy, but I know with your support, and your many generous contributions, the era of old-style politics will end and the era of blog-run Party structures can begin. Join me in my fight for Democratic principles today! I need your endorsements, your support, and your evangelism – go tell your friends that the day of switzerblog has come!

Please, leave your ideas, endorsements, and the things you want me to believe in the comments below. I humbly ask for your vote, and thank you for your support. May his noodly appendage be upon America.

This diary references the voter registration challenges in King County Washington, as diaried (at Kos) here, here and here.  A full chronology of the events can be found here.  Crossposted at Washblog.  Sorry we haven’t hit Booman with this story yet!

I spent a lot of my Thanksgiving discussing and thinking about the incredibly irresponsible and reprehensible (thanks for that turn of phrase, Dick!) bogus voter registration challenges from the GOP and Lori Sotelo.  It started to click in my mind that this is the leading edge of something larger, and the importance of showing the GOP that there are consequences for their actions.  In other words – they need to be taught.  It’s a teachable moment, and we need to seize it.

Before you read on:  Sign the petition for Norm Maleng (best, but not required, to be from King County).  Then tell all your friends to do the same.
The Republican Party of today has apparently decided no laws apply to them.  They feel compelled to act on any and all urges, and are eager to pursue any means to ensure more and more power.  In Ohio and now here in King County, they have decided to try and win elections by challenging voter registrations in Democratic areas.  Lori Sotelo, in her eagerness to cheat voters of the franchise, has now been shown to be a liar, poor manager of volunteers, and bad person – willing to blame those volunteers for her poor decisions and perjurous actions.  What should become of her, and why is it important?

Republicans around the country are watching these challenges, to see if they’re successful and plan their own attacks on unsuspecting voters.  Every voter  thrown from the rolls will be a victory for them, and a loss for democracy.  

Should people register legally?  You bet your ass.  But the legislature has decided, wisely, that the overwhelming burden lies with those who would challenge voters, not with voters themselves.  The state has chosen to trust people with the franchise, so it is taken at face value that the address given on a registration is in fact the voter’s address.  Election law allows voters to make a mistake; when discovered it must be corrected, but no penalty is appropriate unless the voter intended to defraud the state.  

Republicans don’t like this.  They want voters punished, no matter what.  Changed your name, re-registered, and the county hasn’t purged your old name yet?  BANISHED!  Live on a boat and registered at a PO Box in a best-effort attempt to register legally?  BANISHED!  Have the misfortune to live at an address that matches a mailbox facility somewhere else?  BANISHED!  Homeless, and registered at a public building such as the elections office (according to the law)? BANISHED BANISHED BANISHED! Republicans’ message to voters:  Fuck off.

Republicans watching this travesty unfold need to see what happens when voters are abused.  Actions must have consequences.  The law requires the challenger to provide the actual address of the voter at the time of the challenge; Lori Sotelo failed this in every single case.  The challenge form asks the challenger to sign “under penalty of perjury” that they have “personal knowledge” the challenged voter is not legally registered.  Lori Sotelo definitely failed this test.

Perjury, despite Republican’s newly discovered moral equivalency, is a crime.  This petition will be given to Norm Maleng, King County prosecutor, to put pressure on him to investigate and prosecute Lori Sotelo for perjury.  It’d be nice to bring 1944 signatures from King County voters – and we’ll be looking for challenged voters to sign it as well.

I hate witchhunts.  But this woman intentionally and directly challenged the rights of nearly 2,000 people, causing some of them not to vote, and trying her damndest to get the votes of many hard-working, honest, tax-paying citizens thrown out because of her vendetta.  The GOP and Lori Sotelo have a lesson to learn.  Sign the petition, and then tell everyone you know about it, and ask them to sign it, too.

That’s the newest, shiniest version of our logo at the moment.  Nice, huh?  Still in dev, so we don’t know if this is the one we’ll use, but for now it’s the latest purty thing.

So it’s time for our monthly Washington git-together.  We still only have a Seattle option set up, sorry, but as we get more folks online in Eastern/Central WA, I’ll try to coordinate with you folks so we’re having fun at the same time.  

This month, we’re changing things up a little.  We’re still meeting at 7:00pm tomorrow, Saturday the 12th.  However, instead of the Pike Brewery as advertised, we’re going to start the evening at Uptown Espresso in Belltown.  (2504 4th Ave)

More past the flip…
We’ll eventually adjourn to Pike Brewery because we loves our brews, but it’s too damn loud to talk there, so we’ll make it a migration later in the evening.  This is a trial to see if we want to change the way we do things!  If it sucks, we’ll go back to just having beer.

Lots to talk about, of course – big wins (and losses) on Tuesday, commiserating with our own Nigel on the unfortunate defeat of Dwight Pelz, celebrate the demise of I-912, and start chatting up 2006.  Etc, etc.  

So make it if you can, and if you can’t make it, you suck!

And for those curious folks from Washington who didn’t know we do this…We’ve adopted Washblog as our home blog, and are eagerly awaiting the scoop version.  If you want to be in on our conversations, Join our Yahoo group today!

Sorta cross-posted to the Seattle group.  For photos of the playas in this drama, click here, thanks to dinazina for being our photog.

So we had our get-together on Saturday night, attended by 14 local folks).  We chatted with Nigel about the Pelz campaign before he abandoned us early (again), and talked a little baseball.

We got down to the nitty-gritty pretty shortly, though.  Brian from Washblog was there to make his case, and in the end, he sold us on adopting Washblog as our Washington state progressive politics blog.
We set a deadline of November 8 for the Scoop conversion, and started setting some really generic guidelines, such as having a small “editorial board” to handle administrative issues, such as look/feel decisions and the  squashing of supertrolls (so we don’t have to put EVERYTHING to a vote).

Once we’re up and running with Scoop, we’re planning to have a mix of community rating, semi-permanent frontpagers, and “sticky” posts.  Providing all this works out as planned in the  coding, the community will be able to rate diaries, and those that reach a certain diary-mojo threshold will be automatically frontpaged.  There will also be semi-permanent frontpagers, a la Kos, Booman, SusanHu, etc., who will provide a  consistent voice and will serve as “insiders”, so we can keep a communications feed going with  local governments, Olympia, and our Congressional delegation. The “sticky” posts suggestion was Cyrilb’s, and the idea was to have certain posts be available on an ongoing  basis – so if someone posts an authoritative diary about upcoming initiatives, it can be made “sticky”, and will remain visible longer  than diaries normally do, and hence will have a longer useful life.

As for the editorial board; at the moment it’s Brian and the folks who were out Saturday night  (and I assume Brian will include Noemie and  Portdork and his strong posters already at Washblog).  Moving forward, we’ll let strong writers rise to the top and have elections or something to get a more solid board to make day-to-day background decisions. This wasn’t nailed down, but we can work it out as we go.

We will have input with the Scoop developers on look/feel, operations, graphics, categories, etc. We want this to be a fairly polished  product, as we’re obviously hoping to expand the audience.  Brian’s the Scoop liaison, but I think several of us will wind up with our fingers in the pot here and there.

So, thanks to Brian for handing Washblog over to the progressive community, and thanks to everyone who helped with the conversations to this point (and will help moving forward). Thanks ‘specially to everybody who came on Saturday night and helped hash all this out…

N in Seattle

Nigel

Harriet

Jason and Julie

cmk

em

dinazina

Blair

seattleliberal

The dude from Randy Gordon’s campaign we never got introduced to

cyrilb

and last but not least, Brian!

The identify yourselves part is below the fold, but first, a reminder:

Don’t forget our Seattle Kossack/Booman (not a) Meetup this Saturday at 7:00pm.  As usual, we’ll meet at the Pike Brewery (1415 1st Avenue, Seattle).  I’ve already reserved space in the back of the room, so we can be ourselves, make noise and knock stuff over.  If you haven’t, RSVP here yea or nay so I know who’s coming.

We meet at the big table in the back of the room. When you come in, just go all the way to the back, and you’ll see us. We’re the noisy, slightly crazy bunch.  I will wear my bright red Patty Murray sweatshirt to be more obvious.

There’s one more reminder coming, on Friday – so pay attention!
Okay, now:  if you’re here reading Booman and you live in Washington state, please identify yourself and where you live – no need for real names, just your town or city is fine.  Let’s see who we are and where we live and who we’re missing.

If you’re from Washington, please join the group whether you’re in Seattle or not because we’re trying to get everyone included and connected – even if you’re a lurker, at least join and select “No email” so we can identify that you exist.

Yeah, we’re called Seattle Kos.  I know, it’s exclusionary.  I know this is Booman Tribune.  We needed a name and I was in a hurry!  I promise when we build a blog for local news a la Colorado Pols, we’ll change the name and include everybody, with my continued and fervent apologies.

(fair warning:  This is targeted to Kos folks, but with the crossover and similar styles, it’s relevant here, too.)

So there are lots of Seattle folks here, lurking or posting, and not all of you belong to our handy-dandy Seattle Kos Yahoo group.  (click the neato graphic below to join, if you’d like)

Click to join seattlekos

Big ideas below the fold…
So we started chatting this weekend about maybe creating our own kos-esque blog for us Seattle Kossacks.  For the record, “Seattle Kossacks” is a generic term gathering up anyone in the northwest, most specifically Washington state, who frequents Kos.  We have lots of folks living outside Seattle; like Plutonium Page living in Belgium or some frickin’ place.  Seattle is nice and generic, and prevents confusion with those losers in DC.

Anyhoo, the idea is to provide a blog/website where we can write about local issues without getting lost in the shuffle as it’s so easy to do here, and where more progressive voices can join in with their own diaries and observations.  Think My Left Wing or Colorado Soapblox.  With luck, skill and hard work, it could be a central meeting point for Washington progressives to do some organizing or just vent about local douchebags in politics.

So the question before us today is ‘should we make our own blog?’.  I’ve already run a poll at the yahoo group, which overwhelmingly voted yes.  Should the results be the same here, we’ll move to the next question, of how to build it and host it, and then the important question of what to call it.  But those are all for another day.  Today, I just want your opinions on IF we should carve out our own space in the local blogosphere.  (I’m adding a question about naming just to get a baseline feel for how folks think of it)