• President

• U.S. Senator & Representative

• Washington state initiatives

• Governor & other statewide offices

• Judicial

• Legislature

• Seattle City Council

• Seattle levy

President

You might disagree with Kamala Harris on fracking or Gaza or any number of issues. But remember, perfect is the enemy of good. (Ralph Nader supporters proved this when they gave him 97,421 votes in Florida in 2000, while Al Gore lost by 537. Even Nader conceded that if he hadn’t been in the race, exit polls showed that his voters would have supported Gore over Bush, 38-to-25%. Bush appointed extremist Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.)

 

However, Harris will name reasonable judges to the federal bench. She’ll listen to defense and security experts. She’ll support science. She’ll reading her briefing papers. She’ll understand and support the rule of law.

 

As more than 111 Republican former national-security and foreign-policy officials and former Congressmen wrote on Sept. 18, Harris is “a principled, serious, and steady leader who can advance and defend American security and values, strengthen our alliances, and protect our democracy. … Harris has demonstrated a commitment to upholding the ideals that define our nation—freedom, democracy, and rule of law.”

 

Character counts.

 

If you’re inclined to vote for Donald Trump, consider his character witnesses: 
The men and women he appointed to office.

 

These are the people who know him best. There has never been so many appointees who turned on their boss solely due to his lack of character. These are conservative, sometimes deeply Christian, voices.

 

• Stephanie Grisham (Press Secretary): “I wasn't just a Trump supporter, I was a true believer. I was one of his closest advisers. The Trump family became my family. … He has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth. He used to tell me, ‘It doesn't matter what you say, Stephanie: Say it enough and people will believe you.’”

• Mike Pence (VP): “I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump.”

• John Kelly (Chief of Staff, Marine Corps general): “The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me ... He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life.”

• Mick Mulvaney (Chief of Staff): He “failed at being the president when we needed him to be that.”

• Cassidy Hutchinson (Assistant to Chief of Staff): “If he is elected again, I don't think we'll be voting under the same Constitution.”

• Alyssa Farah Griffin (Assistant to the President): He has no “commitment to fiscal responsibility, a commitment to the sanctity of life, a commitment to American leadership in the world.”

• Ty Cobb (White House counsel): “He has never cared about America, its citizens, its future or anything but himself.”

• Mark Esper (Secretary of Defense): He isn’t “fit for office because he puts himself first.”

• James Mattis (Secretary of Defense, Marine Corps general): “His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice."

• Rex Tillerson (Secretary of State): He’s a “moron.”

• Mike Pompeo (Secretary of State): “We need more seriousness, less noise, and leaders who are looking forward, not staring in the rearview mirror claiming victimhood.”

• Mark Milley (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army general): He is a “wannabe dictator.”

• John Bolton (National Security Advisor): “Trump wants Americans to treat him like North Koreans treat Kim Jong Un.”

• H.R. McMaster (National Security Advisor, Army general): “Putin, a ruthless former KGB operator, played to Trump’s ego and insecurities with flattery.”

• Dan Coats (Director of National Intelligence): “He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”

• Richard Spencer (Secretary of the Navy): He “has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically, or to be governed by a uniform set of rules.”

• William Barr (Attorney General): He “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.” He’s like “a defiant nine-year-old kid.”

• Betsy DeVos (Secretary of Education): In her resignation letter, “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the [Jan. 6] situation.”

• Anthony Scaramucci (Director of Communications): He’s “going to flex and be a dictator on day one.”

• Michael Cohen (Executive VP, Trump Organization): "I gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty. … He is a racist. He is a con man. He is a cheat. … He has become the worst version of himself. … He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole.’ This was when Barack Obama was President. … He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did. … I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant, but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.”

• Nikki Haley (U.S. Ambassador to the UN): “Chaos follows him, and we all know that’s true. We can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.” [She went on to endorse him, in an example of hypocrisy at its purest.]

 

Then there are other Republicans:

 

• Dick Cheney (VP): “In our nation’s 236-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic. … He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.”

• Michael Steele (Chair, Republican National Committee): “I get it with some Republicans who say, ‘Oh, I just can’t vote for a Democrat.’ But this is not — you’re voting for your country.”

• Paul Ryan (Speaker of the House): The presidency is “a job that requires the kind of character that he just doesn’t have.”

• John Boehner (Speaker of the House): He “incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullshit he’d been shoveling since he lost a fair election. … He claimed voter fraud without any evidence and repeated those claims.”

• Liz Cheney (Chair, House Republican Conference): He “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. … There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

• Adam Kinzinger (Congressman): “Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He’s a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He’s a perpetrator who can’t stop playing the victim.” 

• George W. Bush (President): Trump is “too damn old. … I know what it takes to be president.”

• Mitt Romney (Republican presidential nominee): “He just is not suited to be president of the United States and to be the person who we hold up to our children … Having a president who is so defaulted of character would have an enormous impact on the character of America.”

• John McCain (late Republican presidential nominee and war hero): “Trump's behavior makes it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy… He fired up the crazies.”

• Chris Christie (New Jersey governor, Trump ally): “I know him too well, and he is wholly unfit to be president of the United States in every way you think.”

• Todd Young (Indiana U.S. senator): “Trump’s judgment is wrong” in not labeling Putin a war criminal.

• Bob Corker (Tennessee U.S. senator): “Never ever, ever allow someone like President Trump to serve again.”

• Geoff Duncan (Georgia lieutenant governor): “He's a felon and thug who walks down the street and throws sucker punches at people like [Republican Georgia Gov.] Brian Kemp, like African American journalists, like [Republican war hero] John McCain. … If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat. You’re a patriot.”

 

If you don’t think character counts, think of his appointees to the federal courts, and their fringe legal theories that make it easier for criminals to escape justice and for Big Government to interfere in our private lives.

 

I’m not even talking about abortion, an issue on which caring, religious people can agree to disagree. 

 

Take Trump’s appointment to federal district court of Aileen Cannon. She tossed the prosecution of an alleged theft of top-secret documents. Cannon ruled that the appointment of a special prosecutor was illegal. As the prosecutor pointed out in his appeal, Cannon misinterpreted basic grammar, and then ignored 150 years of legal precedent—including precedent that Republican Justice Brett Kavanagh cited in an essay he wrote. If her decision is upheld by the Republican Supreme Court, then the special prosecutors who went after Confederate traitor Jefferson Davis, as well as Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, were illegal. (If you’re a nerd like me, reading the appeal is fascinating.)

 

It's that low quality of blatantly partisan appointments to federal courts, often recommended by the extremist Federalist Society, that’s on par with national security issues. The appointments are in the spirit of Republican Justice Clarence Thomas, a walking conflict of interest who has his own history of sexual harassment. In 2022, Thomas wrote an opinion urging his fellow Republican justices to “reconsider” decisions legalizing birth control and same-sex relationships—in other words, let each state decide about basic human rights, just as abortion has now become a confusing hodgepodge of laws, legal in some states, illegal in others.

 

This set off a chain reaction of anti-privacy, Big Government actions by states to criminalize in vitro fertilization, and equate birth control with abortion. Trump flip-flopped on this, first supporting the right of states to restrict birth control, then saying he opposes it. 

 

The flip-flop reflects his lack of moral compass. While Mike Pence has never backed away from his opposition to abortion based on his religious faith, Trump said he was “very pro-choice” in 1999; “I’m pro-life” in 2011; supported states choosing to keep abortion legal or not in 2022; bragged about his Supreme Court overturning Roe; said individuals should make their own choice in April 2024, which prompted a response from the president of one anti-abortion group to say, “His concern is political only”; said he doesn’t support the proposed six-week abortion ban in Florida, but refused to say if he supports an initiative to repeal it, then said he’d vote for the repeal, then said he'd vote against it, while lying that doctors in some states “execute” babies after birth

 

Vote Kamala Harris.

 

U.S. Senator & Representative

I won’t go into detail about each candidate other than say, with one exception, vote for Democrats. Even anti-Trump Republicans would contribute to extremists controlling the House and Senate. 

 

If Republicans control the House, we’ll see more tax cuts for the rich and a huge deficit due to revenue losses and trade-war imbalances. (I was struck by a commentator on Bloomberg financial news who said Republican trade wars would lead to higher inflation and higher prices.)

 

If Republicans control the Senate, more extremists will be appointed to the courts. Remember what anti-Trump then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did in the last year of Obama’s administration: He refused to let any Obama nominees come to a vote.

 

Even so-called “mainstream” Republicans now pander to the Trump cult.

 

I say this as someone who was once president of my local Teenage Republicans. Once, Republicans had principles—whether Margaret Chase Smith, who attacked extremist Joe McCarthy; Ed Brooke in Massachusetts, who advocated for affordable housing;  environmentalist governors Jay Hammond in Alaska and Dan Evans in Washington; Bob Dole from Kansas who supported social services; and Arizona’s John McCain who, despite Trump’s slander of him, was a true war hero, ensured Obamacare’s implementation, and defended Obama’s integrity, even as he disagreed with him. 

 

For those of you who live in Washington state:

 

U.S. Senator

 

Maria Cantwell. Her Republican opponent is a pro-choice doctor, but if elected, he’d be just another Republican enabler.

 

U.S. Representative

 

See District 4 for the sole exception to the “vote Democratic” rule.

 

District 1 (Eastside). Suzan DelBene. Her opponent has no experience except for being an “active volunteer” in his church.

 

District 2 (Edmonds to Bellingham). Rick Larson. His opponent believes the 2020 election was stolen, opposes support of Ukraine, and would reduce gun violence by making guns more easily available.

 

District 3 (Vancouver area). Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is challenged by an extremist who once held a rally to attack the state Board of Health’s plan to round up unvaccinated people and lock them up in quarantine gulags. The problem was that no such plan existed. The guy knew it and lied anyway.

 

District 4 (Tri-Cities, Yakima). Dan Newhouse. Newhouse is a rarity: a standard conservative Republican who voted to impeach Trump. His ultra-extremist personality-cult opponent would “be the best ally in Congress that President Trump ever had.”

 

District 5 (Spokane, Eastern Washington). Carmela Conroy, a former foreign-service officer and county prosecutor. Her opponent brags that he taught a class with a coach who promoted a doctored anti-Obama video.

 

District 6 (Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas). Emily Randall. Her Republican opponent is keeping the Trump cult as far away from him as he can—unless he gets elected.

 

District 7 (Seattle). I’m no fan of Pramila Jayapal, my rep, but she’s going to win by a huge margin over her Republican opponent who is trying desperately to avoid saying anything.

 

District 8 (Eastside to Ellensburg). Kim Schrier. Her opponent “looks forward to tackling the drug epidemic.” Don’t we all.

 

District 9 (South King County, Renton, Kent). Adam Smith. Smith is a centrist. His opponent is a one-issue candidate who opposes military spending in general, and aid to Israel in specific. I despise Netanyahu, too, but sorry, the world isn’t black and white.

 

District 10 (Tacoma). Marilyn Strickland. Her opponent wants to drill for oil, maintain dams that harm the fishing industry, and will defend Social Security from “corrupt politicians”—without saying how he’ll do it. His website is devoid of specifics.

 

Washington state initiatives

All of these initiatives came from extremist Republicans and made their way onto the ballot with the help of professional signature gatherers paid for by Republican hedge-fund billionaire Brian Heywood. As a Seattle Times reporter said in his profile of Heywood, “Think Tim Eyman with a gigantic bank account.” In other words, the only reason why these initiatives are on the ballot is that one super-rich extremist wanted them on the ballot, and spent $6 million to get them there.

 

Vote NO on all the initiatives.

 

• 2117. NO. Repeals the carbon tax that funds one-third of the state transportation plan, and would increase pollution. Both environmentalists and the typically conservative Building & Construction Trade Council oppose the initiative. 

 

• 2109. NO. Repeals the capital gains tax on rich people. The Republicans make it sound like it’s an income tax that affects everyone. It doesn’t. It only affects you if you have capital gains profits of at least $250,000. In other words, scare-mongering. C’mon. Most people in Washington don’t have $250,000 in their retirement accounts after years of saving.

 

• 2124. NO. Repeals a mandated payroll tax for long-term care. This is like allowing healthy people to opt out of paying for Medicare. Insurance doesn’t work that way. We all pay insurance premiums that are lower because we all contribute to the pool. If only unhealthy people paid into Medicare (or any health insurance), premiums would soon be unaffordable. The existing law does allow you to opt out if you have your own long-term care insurance. The initiative is opposed by the AARP, League of Women Voters, Planned Parenthood, and virtually every health care system around.

 

• 2066. NO. Repeals a phaseout under the Clean Air Act of the use of natural gas. 

 

Governor and other statewide offices

Bob Ferguson. He’s been one of our better AGs and deserves to be rewarded. His opponent, Dave Reichert, is trying to thread the needle between what passes as Republican moderation these days and the Trump cult. The result is his flip-flops on abortion and other issues. He makes promises to do things that are far beyond a governor's power, like ending the fentanyl epidemic, stopping human trafficking, and lowering the cost of groceries. Of course Bob Ferguson, as AG, is doing more to lower the cost of groceries by suing to stop the merger of Albertsons/Safeway and Kroger/QFC. Reichert is silent on that.

 

Other state offices

• Lt. Governor: Denny Heck. Honorable and decent with a track record to match.

 

• Secretary of State: Steve Hobbs.

 

• Treasurer: Mike Pellicciotti. The incumbent, he used to be an assistant AG prosecuting financial crimes. As treasurer, he’s done a good job investing and protecting our money.

 

• Auditor: Pat McCarthy. Her opponent is an election denier.

 

• Attorney General: Nick Brown. Brown was an Army JAG officer, U.S. Attorney, and counsel to Governor Inslee. He has a Harvard law degree and Morehouse BA. His extremist opponent compared vaccination efforts to the Holocaust, and he defended a “doctor” from Yakima who was disciplined for giving worm medicine to treat Covid.

 

• Commissioner of Public Lands: Dave Upthegrove. His opponent is a rare Republican with integrity who supported impeaching Trump, but she doesn’t have the same sense of preserving our forests for future generations that Upthegrove has.

 

• Superintendent of Public Instruction. Chris Reykdal. SPI has always been a cesspool of mediocrity, but at least Reykdal supports education. His extremist opponent said he’d like universities to go bankrupt, and “that would save America.” He also wants to ban history from classrooms—history like the fact that slavery caused the Civil War.

 

• Insurance Commissioner: Patty Kuderer. Her opponent is a former state senator who pledges to reduce “burdensome” regulations. Translation: The fox will guard the henhouse. Kuderer is a former trial lawyer and prosecutor. She’ll focus on consumer protection, and, unlike Republicans, will ensure that coverage of things like birth control and abortion will continue to be available.

 

Judicial

I despise electing judges. Voters don’t know who the hell they’re voting for, whether they’re liberal or conservative. Much better to go with the federal system in which the executive names judges, and they’re confirmed by the Senate. So voting for judges comes down solely to who endorses them. Presumably, the endorsers actually know their endorsees.

 

State Supreme Court, position 2. Sal Mungia. Hands down, he has the best qualification and the best and most endorsements, including my former Group Health colleague, Judge Frank Cuthbertson, and politicians I respect like former governors Gary Locke and Chris Gregoire. 

 

King County Superior Court, pos. 41. Paul M. Crisalli. Endorsed by Bob Ferguson. Named to the bench by Jay Inslee. He’s vetted and approved.

 

Pierce County Superior Court, pos. 1. TaTeasha Davis. Named to the court by Inslee, so was properly vetted. Endorsed by everyone including Rep. Marilyn Strickland. She quotes Thurgood Marshall on her website, so that’s a recommendation in itself.

 

Pierce County Superior Court, pos. 4. John Cummings. Endorsed by Rep. Strickland and AG Ferguson. His opponent’s endorsements aren’t as impressive.

 

Pierce County Superior Court, pos. 9. Doris Walkins. Endorsed by Rep. Strickland et al, but no one will lose sleep if her opponent is elected.

 

Pierce County Superior Court, pos. 10. Camille Schaefer. Endorsed by, among others, Speaker Laurie Jinkins, but no one will lose sleep if her opponent is elected.

 

Pierce County Superior Court, pos. 15. Ingrid McLeod. Has the best and most endorsements including Rep. Strickland and Speaker Jinkins.

 

Snohomish Superior Court, pos. 12. Whitney Rivera. Endorsed by everyone, from Rep. Suzan DelBene to Sen. John Lovick, who I worked with on the Gardner campaign back in Stone Age.

 

Legislature

These are only the races where our top-two primary resulted in either two Democrats or two Republicans. (For races pitting one Dem against one Rep, you know who to vote for: You can’t trust any Republican to put the state ahead of extremism. Even if they eschew it, they’d caucus with extremists and contribute to the fear-based politics.)

 

 

D=district

P=position

 

D2, P2 (Pierce). John Snaza sends out fewer right-wing dog whistles than his fellow Republican opponent.

D4, P1 (Spokane). Kristopher Pockell

D7, P1 (North Central Washington). Soo Ing-Moody. A Republican environmentalist running against a Republican.

D12, P2 (Chelan, Cashmere): No pick. They’re both sketchy.

D15, P1 (Benton, Yakima). Chase Foster

D15, P2 (Benton, Yakima). Jeremie Dufault. Less crazy than the other Republican.

D20, P1 (Centralia). Peter Abbarno. Less crazy than the other Republican.

D22, P2 (Thurston). Lisa Parshley. The more grounded Democrat with better endorsements.

D27, P2 (Pierce). Jake Fey. The more grounded Democrat with better endorsements.

D29, P1 (Pierce). Melanie Morgan. The more grounded Democrat with better endorsements.

D38, P1 (Snohomish, Everett). Julio Cortes. Better in every way than the other Democrat.

D39, P1 (Snohomish, Skagit). Sam Low. Unlike his fellow Republican opponent, incumbent Low doesn’t brag about his NRA rating or illegal immigrants. Instead, he points to bipartisan bills he’s worked on.

D39, P2 (Snohomish, Skagit). Carolyn Eslick. Less crazy than the other Republican.

D43, P2 (Seattle—my district represented by the retiring great Frank Chopp). Andrea Suarez. Her opponent isn’t a Democrat; he’s a socialist “progressive.” It’s not progressive to let addicts decide whether or not they want to be treated and remain on the streets blocking sidewalks, shooting up in public, and demeaning police, most of whom are trying to do an impossible job as fairly as possible. It’s not progressive to ignore misdemeanors. Suarez seems to have a middle-of-the-road platform—plus she herself is an advocate for the homeless through a nonprofit she founded.

D45, P2 (Eastside, Kirkland, Redmond). Larry Springer. He’s a small-business owner and former Kirkland mayor. His fellow Democratic opponent spent her career in organized labor. His perspective would bring more diversity to the legislature.

 

Seattle City Council

City Council, position 8. Tanya Woo. Let’s not return to the extreme politics of Kshama Sawant sympathizers. Woo is a community workhorse. Her opponent harkens back to past politicians who turned a blind eye to crime and drug addiction in favor of unworkable do-gooder plans.

 

Seattle levy

Proposition 1. NO, NO, NO. This $1.5 billion levy would raise the average Seattle homeowner’s taxes by an additional $21 a month. But the Seattle transportation department is unaccountable and out of control. Every week, there’s another story of its mismanagement. 

 

It advocated for the South Lake Union streetcar, which gets all of 500 riders a day at a cost of $4.6 million a year. And it had to shut down earlier this year because of a missing part. And it wants to expand the streetcar lines. 

 

In my neighborhood several years ago, SDOT got into the business of “activating” street right of ways. What that means is that it started building pocket parks, and then sponsoring entertainment events. Why is SDOT in the park-building and entertainment business?

 

The directors of the Ballard, Fremont, and North Seattle business associations correctly noted in a Times editorial that SDOT hasn’t analyzed the impact of bus-only lanes in less-dense neighborhoods. 

 

There’s been no independent performance audit of SDOT’s pet projects.

 

Then there’s the levy proposal itself: 7% of the levy would go to bike lanes, a nod to the powerful bike lobby. Another 5% would go to miscellaneous projects such as tree planting related to climate change. I’m not against bikes or trees, but in a city in the midst of budget, public-health, and crime crises, these aren’t priorities.

 

Until there’s an independent performance audit of SDOT programs, we should vote NO to entrusting our money to this rogue department filled with car haters, whose actions hurt families and working-class people who need their cars to get to work or to buy cheap groceries at Costco or Walmart.

 

City Council should propose a smaller levy focused on street maintenance, freight, and repairing bridges.

 

It’s not just me opposing this bloated levy. Former Councilmember Alex Pedersen, the former chair of the council’s transportation committee, opposes it. “City Hall cheerleading in lockstep with lobbyists paying for slick ads about this misguided 8-year tax is not helpful,” he said. “Prop 1 is unaffordable, inequitable, and ineffective.”

 

He’s joined in that opinion by the esteemed former City Council President Margaret Pageler as well as the chair of the Latino Civic Alliance who described it as a “boondoggle” that squanders our tax dollars on “expensive pet projects.”

 

Vote NO.