Posted on 01/11/2005 7:18:20 PM PST by Seattle Conservative
Good morning. My name is Stefan Sharkansky and I’ve been writing about the whole governor’s race at a blog called SoundPolitics.com
I’ve never given a speech to this large of a crowd before. Unlike most of the people up here who really are distinguished in their fields, I’m just an ordinary citizen; a husband, a father, a small business owner; a citizen with a computer and some opinions. But that can be pretty powerful, can’t it.
Because we really are in the middle of a kind of citizen’s revolution, aren’t we. No, it’s not of the scale of the American Revolution of 1776, or the current revolution in Ukraine. But if you use the word revolution to describe any exceptional change to the established order of things, then yes, this is something of a revolution. Because the established order of things is broken and we’re changing it. We can all see how our elections process, the core of our democracy, has broken down. It’s kind of a metaphor for all that ails our political institutions. Underperforming, untransparent, unaccountable. Is it really “good enough for government work” to have 3,500 or 2,000 or whatever is the number du jour more ballots than voters? The airlines figured out years ago how to count both boarding passes and the people sitting in the airplane and come up with the same number. Why can’t our elections officials figure out how to match the number of ballots cast with number of eligible voters who cast them?
It’s not a coincidence and it’s not just happy talk that Christine Gregoire says that this election was, and I quote “ a model to the rest of the nation and the world”. Because in Christine Gregoire’s mind the King County Elections office is her model for how she wants to run the State of Washington. And that might be good enough for their idea of government work, but it’s not good enough for ours. We have to take our state government back, so that this illegitimate pretend victory, with its margin of 129 double voters, felons, cemetery residents and imaginary playmates does not stand. So we can have a new election and know that the person who moves into the governor’s mansion deserves to be there and has a legitimate mandate from a majority of the eligible voters. And I believe that in a fair election Dino Rossi will win and will become our next governor.
But whether or not the judges allow a revote and whether or not Dino Rossi ultimately wins; no matter who is governor three months from now, this revolution for election reform that we’ve all started will go on. Because our democracy is not built on “elections”. It’s not built on contests with arbitrary rules and procedures. It is built on the principle that government is subservient to the will of the people. Elections are merely a tool for measuring the will of the people. If an election doesn’t measure the will of the people and is just a contest about counting pieces of paper, you might as well just let the candidates pick a winner by playing a game of Rock, Scissors, Paper. And if the elections system that we have today isn’t good enough to measure the will of the people within the margin of sloppiness, incompetence and illegal voting, then we don’t just suck it up for four years with a governor we don’t want. We say enough is enough, this will not stand, we fix the elections system and we measure the will of the people again so we can have the government that is our right to have.
And it’s only fitting that this citizen’s revolution for clean elections and a legitimate government is playing out not in the mainstream media, but in the alternative media. Not the one-way media of the big-haired pontificators of network TV news or the cocooned editorial boards. But the citizen’s media. Talk radio. Thank you, John, and Kirby and Mike and Dori . Rabbi Lapin. Stephanie Sandlin in Spokane. And their guests from all walks of life and the callers who talk back and every day teach the hosts and the listeners something new. And the blogs. And of course it’s not just me and my fellow Sound Politicians Brian, Andy, Matt, Jim, Marsha, Kevin, Tim, Ambra, Scott, Seth and Ron. You know I learned the other day that in certain parts of Seattle they call us the Dirty Dozen. And it’s not just the other local bloggers like Tim Goddard, privateradio.com, a guy named Mac who calls his blog “Pull on Superman’s Cape?”, or the indispensable OrbusMax. It’s our readers, who post comments and send us tips. You know it was our readers who helped us break the story of double voting. A “freeper” who uses the nickname Hanna sent us that tip. She also sent us the tip that found the first documented case of a ballot cast in the name of a deceased person. The Times and the P-I had to play catch-up two days later. And they still haven’t reported the double voter even though Norm Maleng’s office has referred it for prosecution. And there are lots more stories that we were able to bring to your attention largely through the efforts of our readers. Because our establishment media has grown partisan and credulous and as lazy and complacent as the local government it’s supposed to be watching. “It’s in the P-I” When was the last time you looked in the P-I expecting to find something you both needed to know and didn’t know already. There’s very little in the P-I about how badly botched this election was, only how we should accept the result and move on. But we Americans are a resourceful people, an inventive people, a self-reliant people. When our institutions stop serving us well, we fix the ones we can and must fix, and create new institutions to supplant the ones we can’t fix.
And that’s where these two revolutions converge. The citizen’s revolution for clean elections and legitimate government and the revolution of citizen’s media. And each and every one of us is part of both. And we’re going to continue to work for election reform. And I don’t mean trusting Sam Reed, Frank Chopp and the Seattle Democrats to bring us some girly-man symbolic gesture they call election reform. I’m talking about a citizen’s initiative for real reforms. Like you can only register to vote if you have proof of citizenship. You can’t vote unless you have both a photo ID and a pulse. And you can’t certify an election unless the number of votes equals the number of voters.
What an awesome rally. I don't know who paid for the plane to fly over with the banner but it was hilarious.
Me thinks that the opponents to the revote effort must have crapped their pants when a Dem State Senator spoke as well as a Rabbi (Lapin) as well as a popular black minister. (Hutch).
I guestimate the crowd was between 1800-2500 strong and opponents of the revote between 30-50.
It was perfect. Even the weather cooperated. It was nice and sunny, no breeze. I'm sure the dem's were praying, in vain, for sleet and snow.
BTTT!!!!!
I noticed Fox News are mentioning the WA gov race but what
really surprised me is tonight it made my local news channel. In fact the local news seem to go in more depth with what happened than Fox.
Hmmm, I know President Bush (White House is 6 miles from me)gets Channel 8.
This old bag Chris needs to be impeached/re-called and the King Cunty Elections officials need to go to prison... in general population.
This aint gonna happen. Washington (ruled by Seattle) is a single party state. But the Good Guys almost won! Someone said election reform. Yes! But start over, purge the voting lists and require proof of eligibility to register. Get rid of those corruptible provisional ballots and limit absentees to those who are really absent.
The only way this reform will happen is if it comes from us, the people. The parties aren't likely to do anything in the long run. The party of pure corruption is hoping this will all be forgotten in a few months when she raises taxes and fees to unimaginable rates. If election reform is not aggressively pursued from here on forward, corruption and socialism wins for decades to come. Forget Rossi, the fix is in. The dems will be expecting the good guys to waste effort on him and to be disheartened in defeat. Focus on the next election.
I am considering starting my own business. Nothing big, just wanna make about $60K a year. Why would I want to do that in this state knowing I'll be taxed down to minimum wage within 10 years or so? It aint worth it.
Someone said something about a wall… At times, I wish these filthy dems victory. They can run this state into the ground for all I care. Let them raise the tax and burdens on us working people. Let Washington collapse under the weight of socialist redistribution and fraud. I want no part of it. I will not play their game. The people vote against their policies and then we get their policies anyway! What’s the point?
By know means do I want this!! Certainly it is heading that way, but are we gonna stop it? Are we gonna force the GOP to side with truth eliminate the dems corrupt hold on our elections system particularly in King County and Seattle? Make no mistake; victory over the calcified corruption machine will not be pretty.
(BTW, I toned this down for legal reasons)
Hey PW,I'm still thinking on the PW thing,My problem is time.I only have small blocks of it.Still let me know. Boazo
sent you a private mail on the basics. email me back the times you can be there.
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