Thursday, May 05, 2005
Local action
Spokane's Republican mayor is getting hit by a dramatic set of sexual revelations in the local paper. Apparently these things have been known by insiders for a long time. Some of the older charges are dubious, but there's plenty of new and factual stuff which the mayor has admitted today.
A couple of weeks ago (mentioned here, 4/26) the city council passed an ordinance giving benefits to domestic partners; it struck me as a bit odd and hasty, with vague undertones of blackmail. Now the haste may be explainable.
The state Republican Party organization should do a better job of filtering out candidates with messy pasts. A party's job is not just to elect anything that breathes! Dems can afford to do that because they own the media, but Reps have to defend the brand more effectively. As I've said a hundred times, they need to understand the enemy; they also need to consider the effect on other party office-holders. When a Rep official is exposed like this, the whole party is damaged.
Story link: see the contained link to Spokesman-Review story as well.
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Bit of background on Spokane politics: For most of the 20th century, Spokane was essentially owned by the Cowles family, which still runs the newspaper. Their hold was gradually loosened through the last decade, partly due to the efforts of local talk radio hosts who exposed the various links between politics and money. As of last year, the city council was entirely non-Cowles for the first time in living memory. And in the last couple of weeks, the council has "closed the books" on a wildly complex deal that bound the city to pay the Cowles family even more millions.
I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, but given the way things have worked in the past, I wouldn't start with the hypothesis that this outing is coincidental. The Cowles outfit previously made life exceedingly difficult for politicians who opposed them; they used their newspaper to make such folks look ridiculous, and actually sued two councilmembers for daring to oppose the imperial dynasty in public.
¶ 12:11 PM
A couple of weeks ago (mentioned here, 4/26) the city council passed an ordinance giving benefits to domestic partners; it struck me as a bit odd and hasty, with vague undertones of blackmail. Now the haste may be explainable.
The state Republican Party organization should do a better job of filtering out candidates with messy pasts. A party's job is not just to elect anything that breathes! Dems can afford to do that because they own the media, but Reps have to defend the brand more effectively. As I've said a hundred times, they need to understand the enemy; they also need to consider the effect on other party office-holders. When a Rep official is exposed like this, the whole party is damaged.
Story link: see the contained link to Spokesman-Review story as well.
-----
Bit of background on Spokane politics: For most of the 20th century, Spokane was essentially owned by the Cowles family, which still runs the newspaper. Their hold was gradually loosened through the last decade, partly due to the efforts of local talk radio hosts who exposed the various links between politics and money. As of last year, the city council was entirely non-Cowles for the first time in living memory. And in the last couple of weeks, the council has "closed the books" on a wildly complex deal that bound the city to pay the Cowles family even more millions.
I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, but given the way things have worked in the past, I wouldn't start with the hypothesis that this outing is coincidental. The Cowles outfit previously made life exceedingly difficult for politicians who opposed them; they used their newspaper to make such folks look ridiculous, and actually sued two councilmembers for daring to oppose the imperial dynasty in public.
¶ 12:11 PM
