On Tuesday night members of the Kitsap Sun Sounding Board, a collection of locals who agreed to take part in our election coverage, got together for pizza and soda and some time to meet each other. And there was a debate.

We didn’t hold high expectations for major developments out of the meeting, just a chance for us to all know each other a little better. Maybe we’d understand each other too. For all the high-voltage stuff that gets distributed behind anonymity on the Internet, there is an equal amount of depth we get to see when we manage to interact with each other in person. Sure, even in person we can resort to sound bites, but Tuesday night’s event was refreshing.

Before the debate there was lots of conversation going back and forth. I didn’t hear a lot of it, but they apparently got into some depth.

It seemed to be a pretty even mix in the room, maybe more left-leaning than right. That’s a contrast to our earlier experiences with the live blogging.

David Nelson, local news editor, asked those attending what they got that was new, what struck them in the 90-minute exchange between the two senators who would be president, John McCain and Barack Obama.

Heather McClellan said she most noticed McCain’s last statement by McCain, one in which he recognized the sacrifices made by those in military service. “I know what it’s like to put country first,” she said.

Nikky Southerland pointed out the candidates’ differences on health care. McCain said it was a responsibility for government. Obama said it should be a right for individuals.

Jeff Kehring drew out McCain’s call for the Secretary of Treasury having the right to help homeowners renegotiate their mortgages. He also wondered whether Obama would be strong enough to kick against Democrats. “I can see him taking on Republicans,” Kehring said. “I don’t know if he’s strong enough to take on his own party.”

Susanne Hughes again criticized McCain for picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. Hughes was quoted in one of our stories saying she had been willing to consider McCain after her first choice, Hillary Clinton, lost. But Palin was the deal breaker. “She is absolutely in over her head,” Hughes said Tuesday. She cited McCain’s melanoma as reasons Palin is closer to becoming president than Biden.

Fran Lawrence sided with Hughes on the Palin pick. “I want somebody smarter than me and my buddies” as vice president, she said. Lawrence described herself as a social conservative and said McCain’s character has disappointed her. Overall her support for Obama has to do with her three children. She favors Obama’s “temperate and thoughtful” demeanor. “If my sons go to war I want to know there has been a lot of thought that went into it,” she said.

Colleen Smidt pointed out McCain’s answer on Israel as one of his strengths. McCain was decisive, Smidt said. That was a point Jeff Kreifels referred to as well. To them, Obama’s decision to first talk about prevention in a question about what to do should Israel be attacked seemed an avoidance.

Kreifels also referred to Obama’s failure to answer how Obama would have parents punished for not insuring their kids. Jane Rebelowski said it would be like parents who don’t get their kids educated. But it was not something that could be answered in our room, especially because it hadn’t been answered on stage.

My question was about whether a meeting like this would have been easier or tougher four years ago, during the Bush-Kerry contest. Most seemed to agree with me, that this election doesn’t seem to be as emotionally charged as the last one. Kreifels said he thinks it might be moreso, drawing attention to those who instantly pounce on opinions from others. I conceded that in the case of our Web site, that is true. We didn’t have story and blog comments four years ago, and from my memory that’s probably a good thing.

That said, overall I think this election is less extreme than the last one. Then again, I was covering Bainbridge Island in 2004.

If you didn’t have a half hour Tuesday morning to listen to Dino Rossi, what makes me think you will now? Nonetheless, here is the speech broken into four parts.

Republican Dino Rossi spoke to the Port Orchard Rotary this morning and gave his regular campaign speech. I’ll have a story about it later and more details here. It’s a busy day, let me tell you, though I can’t tell you all the reasons why. Not yet.

At the event I had my little Flip Video camera, just like I did weeks ago when Gregoire was here. I was filming his speech when I was politely asked by a Rossi staffer not to. I had cleared it with Rotary before, but the staffer tried to offer a quiet explanation why they didn’t want it taped. I pulled out the “Do you know who I am?” card, because that always works so well with cops.

Actually, no I didn’t, but I made it clear that I understood (That isn’t to say that I agree.) why they’re reluctant. There are “political operatives” out there who record these things and love to post them on YouTube, out of context, etc. I also said I was with the newspaper. No change. So I said if he could get the Rotary official, because it was a Rotary event, to tell me not to video than I would stop.

A few minutes later the Rotary guy politely (I’m not being sarcastic in either case. Both requests were polite.) told me Rossi’s people didn’t want any taping. So I stopped. Charlie Bermant from the Port Orchard Independent was there and taping. He went to the back of the room and was chatting with the Rossi staffer, then returned and started recording again. I went to the back of the room and got the reluctant OK from Rossi’s people and continued on recording. So when we post the speech, which lasted somewhere in the ballpark of 20 minutes, parts will be missing.

Of course, this is a bigger deal here in lovely Kitsap because of James Olsen being prohibited from filming Eggs & Issues events. Different party, same general reasons.

Republican governor candidate Dino Rossi stopped by our office Monday, hours after news broke that another suit had been filed by supporters of Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Two former state Supreme Court justices sued, saying that Rossi’s interactions with the Building Industry Association of Washington in 2007 were illegal campaign fundraising efforts, because he was planning to run for governor.

We’ll have more Rossi video later this week and more from Gregoire. The governor is visiting the editorial board Wednesday. Here’s Monday’s Rossi video.

Go to the Port of Bremerton’s Web site to download a PDF of the final consultant’s review of the Kitsap SEED business plan and feasibility report.

This is how Canadians debate.

I admit I’m letting others do the heavy lifting today. I’m just copying my e-mails and pasting them here. Or, as in this case, I’m just posting a link and a couple of quotes that relate to the subject matter on this board. That might have to do for a while.

Writer and movie critic David Cornelius shares the template for late-night openers.

Today in the news, a political candidate made a speech as part of his continuing campaign for public office. He said something mildly controversial, and my comment on the matter relates to an oversimplification of his personality that has come to define said candidate in the eyes of those who do not regularly follow the news.

The candidate’s rival also said something today, and the same reduction of a lengthy political career to a one-word description of personality applies here as well, with equally predictable comic effect.

Thanks to Eric D. Snider, of Eric D. Snider fame, for the heads up on his blog.

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island, voted against the bailout the House approved today. Here’s his explanation.

“Our credit challenge is real, but this plan was both inadequate and inequitable.”
“It protected neither the taxpayer nor the need to address the underlying reason for this credit crisis — the collapse of the housing market.

“We are now reaping the bitter wind of the great irresponsibility of Wall Street.  It’s not enough to have a provision asking for some unidentified President to present some unidentified plan to take back taxpayer money from Wall Street.  It was an illusion of protection.  We also must do more to help people stay in their homes by addressing the root of this financial crisis, the collapse in the housing markets.  We should work for a plan to require that taxpayers get what Warren Buffet gets — equity.”

“I repeat that I am willing to stay here and keep working for a bill that works for taxpayers and addresses the real problem.  The fundamental problem is the housing crisis and the effect is it having on American families and homeowners.”

“I realize the need to find consensus and I hope this plan works to firm up credit, but this plan is far short of what the American people need.”

Click on the link below to read the pledge requests sent out by the two vice-presidential candidates after the debate.

Read the rest of this entry »

I received the following from the Public Disclosure Commission. I had to tweak the chart formatting to make it look right here.

One of the ways that citizens, businesses, unions, organizations and political committees who want to support (or oppose) a candidate beyond the limited amount they may give directly to candidates is by making “independent expenditures” and “electioneering communications.” Independent spending usually takes the form of political advertising: yard signs, brochures mailed to voters, radio and television ads, etc.

Independent spending may not, constitutionally, be subject to any limit. Every citizen’s and entity’s right to free political speech means that they may spend as much as they choose to support or oppose candidates, so long as those expenditures are made independently of candidates and their campaigns.

$6.5 million has been spent this year on independent ads & electioneering communications to affect the governor’s race - this includes pre- and post-primary spending:

TOTAL FOR 2008
Gregoire $3,860 (for) $3,826,117 (against)
Rossi $321,554 (for) $2,350,346 (against)

POST-PRIMARY SUBTOTAL
Gregoire $3,160 (for) $2,055,351 (against)
Rossi $44,790 (for) $421,216 (against)

The Public Disclosure Commission tracks independent spending. Our tracked report is not limited to the governor’s race - it includes all state and local candidates and ballot measures. Access the on-line report under Spotlight On … at www.pdc.wa.gov.

(Insert your answer about the vice-presidential debate here.)

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Before I launch in my expectations for tonight’s vice-presidential debate, let me tell you what I have planned for right after it’s done. I’ll post a blog entry entitled, “That Was . . . ” There I’ll invite you to leave your comments about the debate, the state of the election, the world, your hair, whatever you want.

Here’s my expectations for tonight’s debate: It will be more positive for Republicans than Democrats. This is actually an easy expectation to announce, because things have been so bad for Sarah Palin lately, I don’t see how the debate can do anything but improve her stock. Even if Biden “technically” wins, I don’t see Democrats benefiting a lot unless the margin of victory is overwhelming. Personally, I think Biden will be so cautious that he’s going to be too careful to deliver a knockout. And Palin has delivered well in debates in the past.

One more reason to believe as I do comes from a column, There They Go Again, in Time written by Mike Murphy, who in 2000 was on the McCain team.

A lot of debate prep is given over to mastering another basic rule: never make the rookie’s mistake of actually trying to answer the question you are asked. Candidates are told instead to quickly “pivot” into their central campaign message whenever possible.

Question: “Governor, why is your hair on fire?”

Answer: “Nobody understands fire better than America’s brave firefighters, which is why I’m so proud to say that the heroes who make up the National Firefighters Association took one look at my 11-point plan for comprehensive national health-care reform and strongly endorsed me as the only candidate in this race who is standing up for working, middle-class families who need health care now.”

There is a whole lot more in the column. I highly recommend. The main point is both candidates are likely to stay on script. There’s little positive in that for Biden, other than reducing the risk of the negative. There’s plenty of positive in it for Palin. Now that Saturday Night Live has lampooned her twice, my bet is she’ll make reference to asking for a lifeline. She’s good enough to make it look spontaneous, too. If I were in her shoes, my feet would really hurt. But I’d also be waiting for an opportunity to diffuse that image by deprecating myself. Biden will also probably find a way to poke fun at his verbosity, maybe even his arrogance. America loves that. As a patriot, I love it, too.

It’s too bad there isn’t more self-deprecation in the state races on down. Last night I watched part of the Gregoire-Rossi governor’s debate and this morning I saw most of the Jan Angel-Kim Abel legislative forum in Gig Harbor. Rossi and Gregoire took shots at each other and were NOT funny. Abel and Angel were pretty serious, too. I can understand that. All candidates seem to get better on stage as the weeks go on, but comedy is an awful thing to be bad at, so it’s often best to not get close to that cliff.

During Tuesday morning’s Eggs & Issues debate, two chief differences emerged. One was on abortion. The other was on climate change.

The Republican challenger for the state Senate seat in the 23rd District questioned Tuesday whether legislation can make a difference in global climate change.

“I think it’s very arrogant at the taxpayers’ cost to think that the state of Washington can make any kind of difference in global warming,” said Connie Lord, a Poulsbo city councilwoman seeking to unseat state Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D-Bainbridge Island.

Rockefeller was a state representative for six years until successfully running for the state Senate in 2004.

Lord has eight years on the Poulsbo City Council.

Lord’s comment came after she said the science is still out on the global warming issue and that even Kyoto Protocol standards proposed nearly a decade ago would have little impact. She said it is good for people to conserve energy and that the state should be encouraging private companies to come up with solutions to reduce carbon emissions.

Rockefeller said the state is working with private companies and took issue with Lord’s statement about the science.

“The science is not still out. It is overwhelmingly clear that we are having an impact and it’s not a good one,” Rockefeller said.

On abortion, Lord said, “Women’s rights to reproductive choices is the flipside to what is the baby’s right to exist,” she said. Lord said she believes life starts at conception. Women need to be protected from life threatening pregnancies, but she also believes those babies have a right to live. “I would rather err on the side of moral caution and expediency.”

Rockefeller said it should be a woman’s private right to make the decision over whether to end a pregnancy. “What gives us as a state the right to invade that right and make that decision for her?” he said.

It was the first time I’ve heard anyone discuss abortion in any of the Eggs & Issues forums this year.

I received this e-mail with the tagline Has it come to this?

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I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 199 0S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.
THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.
PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBA ILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.
YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

Friday night’s debate between John McCain and Barack Obama proved that you can’t judge winners and losers solely on the performance within the 90 minutes. Equally as important are the expectations beforehand, the biases of those watching and the long-term perceptions that turn into feelings about the candidates. That last point was true in the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960. The first one was key in the 1984 matches between Reagan and Mondale and the 2004 Bush-Kerry contests.

Nonetheless, on Friday I tried to watch objectively. My conclusion was that neither side was awful or outstanding. Each was competent. On points, particularly the Kissinger point (based solely on perception, not on the facts), I thought McCain probably won the night. I watched CNN’s punditry afterward and they tended to agree. McCain probably won, but not by a ton.

Then they got to the question, though, of who benefited the most that night. Some speculated that it might have been Obama. David Gergen, of whom I am an unabashed fan, said he thought McCain might have needed more than a judges’ decision, that he needed a knock-out. McCain didn’t get that. Then they showed polls with Americans thinking in large numbers that Obama won. They qualified the poll with the belief that more Democratic-leaning voters tend to watch these things. This year I think they’d be more inclined, hopeful that the new candidate can oust the party that’s held the office the last eight years.

Over the weekend, however, I had more information that caused me to wonder who won the debate. I know someone who was a McCain supporter, but changed allegiances based on the perception of McCain as “arrogant,” a perception earned at the debate.

We might want to dismiss such judgments as unworthy of being rationale for voting behavior. I’ve had cause to wonder lately. Another someone I know saw Obama on the television and said, “He just looks evil to me.” Sure there are biases at work. Perhaps this is someone (I confess to not knowing much at all about this person’s political leanings.) who is predisposed to see the Democrat on television as Beelzebub.

What first gave me pause was probably Blink, the Malcolm Gladwell book that discusses how some of our most important decisions are made in an instant and often aren’t any more influenced by the years of study and research we do. They’re not always better decisions, but they’re not always worse, either.

Secondly, Bill Clinton was on The View and he made a case that no one should necessarily be criticized for supporting McCain just because Sarah Palin is his running mate. I got from that conversation that few people are single-issue voters, but certain issues rise to prominence ahead of others. So we can assume that there are voters out there for whom having a woman in charge is the best thing that could happen to this country, regardless of anything else. Even if a woman, or a black man, does badly in office, Americans would have conquered a barrier that had yet to be broken. That, to some voters, might be more important for this country than anything, even more than how we handle Iraq, the economy, the environment and whether we wear flag pins on our lapels.

Maybe the perceived arrogance of one candidate, or the condescension of another, is something we don’t want in our president. Maybe there’s something to that, more than many of us want to admit. It could be those kind of things that make the most difference as the two candidates work to woo the middle, those whose ideology can’t always be colored blue or red.

And this could be what matters most on Thursday. Sarah Palin and Joe Biden each have earned perceptions. How well they overcome or confirm those may say much about who’s celebrating the night of Nov. 4.

Our two Democratic congressmen, Norm Dicks and Jay Inslee, split on their votes on the bailout. Dicks was for it, saying those who were against it should look at Monday’s stock market and re-evaluate their positions. Inslee would be among those, but he said the bill didn’t contain guarantees that the $700 billion would be paid back and didn’t address the housing market collapse.

Their opponents, Republicans Larry Ishmael and Doug Cloud, both said they would have voted against it.

Ishmael, who is running against Inslee, said the House did the right thing, “because I think we’re protecting Wall Street with the current bill in front of the House and we’re not protecting the individual investors.”

He said there needs to be accountability in the bill and that generally Congress is moving in the right direction. “If we move in and take over the financial institutions, we need to have a guarantee that we can sell those assets over the long term and recoup that money.” He said the Congress is in such a rush to pass something that it’s just protecting Wall Street.

On Inslee’s vote Ishmael said, “In this particular instance I tend to agree with him.”

Cloud, who’s running against Dicks, said it was unlikely he’d favor a bailout bill in any form. “What Congress is attempting to do is reinflate a popped balloon,” he said. “Economic forces that are already operating are not going to be stopped by any bailout that the federal government can enforce.”

He said there are winners and losers in economics and the current bailout is being crafted by the people who have always won in the past.

Of the gloom and doom scenarios people are predicting if Congress doesn’t pass something, Cloud said it’s impossible to know, and that it would ultimately be better to let the market correct itself. He called Congress “economic morons.”

“If you listen to those people speak, they’re simply reacting in panic. Panic is a symptom of human emotion gone amok and Congress has contributed to the problem by their constant pronouncements of doom,” he said.

Cloud said it wouldn’t be the end of the world to have some of the major financial institutions go under, that smaller banks “run by smarter people” would pick up the slack.

This morning the board members of the Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority met in executive session for more than two hours in the county administration building. The result, announced at a 1 p.m. meeting of the county commissioners, was a resolution laying down specifics for how the housing authority will use money it receives from property sales.

Namely, it is to use it to repay its loans, those backed by the county.

The county issued a press release and within and here is the actual resolution (It’s a PDF download.) county commissioners approved today.

Earlier this week we posted a survey online following Sen. John McCain’s suggestion that the debate be postponed. The response was pretty heavy, almost 400 people at last check.

The group believing that putting aside politics to work on the problem was about 30 percent. Those arguing that McCain was afraid to debate Sen. Barack Obama was about 38 percent. Another 19 percent said the debate was more important than any role he might play in the debate right now.

Thursday morning, after watching a collection of pundits on Wednesday, I thought there was one way McCain wins in this thing. My colleagues thought of another. My theory was that if McCain descends on the Senate and gets much of the credit for helping come up with a bipartisan deal, that’s a big win for McCain, who has made the case that he has experience bridging divides. My colleagues at work here said he scores points even if that doesn’t happen, because he’s seen as getting back to work, setting aside his primary political ambition for the good of the country.

On the other hand, he canceled his Letterman appearance Wednesday night saying he had to get to Washington. In fact he stayed in New York until Thursday. His campaign said it wasn’t time to be funny, but that isn’t what he told Dave, according to Dave. In a New Republic blog, I read how the debate spectacle was a win for Obama, at least until the actual debate, which now appears will happen at 6 p.m. our time.

By announcing he’s suspending his campaign to, you know, do the job for which he draws a salary, McCain is basically conceding he hasn’t been doing it for the last year-and-a-half, which could rub a lot of people the wrong way.

By contrast, in rejecting McCain’s offer to postpone the debate, Obama gets to maintain the fiction that he’s been doing his job all along.

Read The Stump blog at The New Republic and you’ll quickly realize it’s still way too early to decide whether McCain wins the campaign suspension scenario, or if Obama does. McCain could argue that Democrats had the votes and didn’t perform, etc. I know this whole thing isn’t supposed to be about politics, but politics is all about managing the perception, and perception is pretty much all Americans have to go one right now

Charlie Burrow, who sometimes comments here, was one of eight to receive a Key Award from the Washington Coalition for Open Government. The award is given to people and groups who work to promote open and accountable government.

The coalition’s award to Burrow states, “Charlie Burrow’s leadership of Kitsap Citizens for Responsible Planning resulted in improved awareness of and access to open government issues in Kitsap County. His actions helped clarify and focus the minds of many Kitsap County citizens, officials, and staff of the functions and value of open government concepts.  Burrow’s actions exposed the undisclosed meetings and arrangements of a very large corporation with local officials.”

According to Tom Nevins, who nominated Burrow for the award, much of the activity focused on interactions between International Speedway Corp., their supporters and local government officials. The issue was regarding ISC’s consideration of Kitsap County as a place to build a new speedway for NASCAR races.

Wrote Nevins:

“Charlie’s efforts to shine the light of day on ‘matters of the public business and in the conduct of the public’s business’ had significant results.

“Officials charged with doing the publics business became more aware of their open government responsibilities.

“Citizens became informed and involved through Charlie’s web site. Private agencies became aware that when their private business involves public agencies, the public has the right to know.”

The Washington Coalition for Open Government describes itself as “an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization founded in 2002 by a group of individuals representing organizations with a broad spectrum of opinions and backgrounds, all dedicated to the principles of strengthening the state’s open government laws and protecting the public’s access to government at all levels.”

Crossing the e-mails right now is news that Republican presidential candidate, and let’s not forget Arizona Senator, John McCain wants to postpone Friday’s debate so that he and Illinois Senator, and Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, can help the Senate focus on the economy.

Obama wants to debate.

Friday’s event would be on foreign policy.