A lesser evil is still evil

This fall, Washingtonians will face a peculiar dilemma when they are given the opportunity to select a junior senator for the next six years.

A six years that no doubt will see many crucial votes by our august solons, furthering their quest to exacerbate the problems facing the country.

The incumbent, Maria Cantwell, is a conservative Democrat. She voted to renew and make permanent the Patriot Act, she has supported “free-trade” schemes, such as CAFTA, NAFTA, the WTO, all of ‘em. She has also been a mousy but steady supporter of the war.

The Republicans have nominated Mike McGavick, a pantload from the insurance industry. Creative gang of vampires, those Republicans.

The Green Party has slated Aaron Dixon, a Seattle-area community activist and former Black Panther. I don’t know much about him, but I feel comfortable saying he’s the most honest person running.

McGavick has no friends in Seattle, and he’s mistrusted on the east side. But he’s a white man, and that plays well from Kennewick to Bellevue. He’ll take the west side’s ass-backward county, Lewis County, but Cantwell will have a contest in the Gray’s Harbors and Clallams. Dixon will get a chunk of the Seattle liberals saying four-letter words like “Iraq,” but Cantwell will still take King County. If it comes close, if McGavick can resurrect his bored-meeting campaign, and Dixon turns out the vote, Cantwell could lose. And she won’t be losing to Dixon.

Dixon, despite his intentions, is a bigger threat to Cantwell than the pantload, therefor a bigger threat to Democrats who may wrestle control of the Senate from the Republicans,* and therefor a bigger threat to human beings everywhere.

The system is rigged toward the two parties. They control the money, they control the law, which is often the same thing. A third party candidate, if they are at all lucid and run a decent campaign, will do nothing but sap votes from one side or the other.

By the way, it is infuriating, and completely heartbreaking, how our political system inverts good and evil. But this frog doesn’t have wings.

I like Dixon, but he’s not even qualified. He needs to go to the statehouse, learn the system. The candidates that swing for the fences in the spring turn me off (he’s a sorry sack of shit in so many ways, but a good example is Arnold Schwarzenegger). I want a candidate who has spent a few years in the statehouse, and showed they could get things done. Both Murray and Cantwell were state lawmakers- don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of either, but they had experience.

I’d send Dixon to Olympia any day. But to D.C.? It would be like me going, and that’s not a good idea.

OUR CHOICE:

Cantwell - An incumbent who is an accomplice to much of the destruction Bush has waged on the country and the world.

McGavick - A would-be accomplice of the destruction.

Dixon- An inadvertent accomplice of the would-be accomplice.

Man, I’m so excited for this election, I wish I could take the day off from work and drive all over King County, voting to my heart’s content.

Who else could win a statewide election?

-Dino Rossi, the smarmy slum lord from east King County, could beat Cantwell. Dino Rossi, whose resignation speech from the state senate included an open invitation to the governor’s office once he got elected. Dino Rossi, living proof that you CAN polish a turd, has said he will not run. He wants to take on Gov. Gregoire again in 2008. When they make the movie, it will be called “C for Chode.”

-Christine O. Gregoire would get my vote. Christine O. Gregoire, who now officially prefers the gender-neutral “Chris” and is proof that a policy wonk with a fake tan can steal an election, which doesn’t prove anything. She could do it in 2012, after she beats Rossi in 2008, put all the chips on the table and try for the Upper Chamber.

-Where have you gone, Gary Locke? He was a good care-taker governor for having the imagination of a Republican. A smart guy who will give you an answer, you’ll write it down, and once you get to your keyboard and read your notes, you’ll realize that he managed to fill four pages without saying a single thing. I’d vote for him too. The next go-round is 2012.

-What I’d really like is a combination between Robert Redford in the “The Candidate,” a serious Ralph Nader without all that down-home charm, and an Angela Davis social worker who raised three kids in the Central District and has a mind like a steel trap and a mouth like a Marine Corp gunnery sergeant. I’d like somebody I could believe in, somebody that would inspire me.

When was the last time a leader inspired anybody?

*Friday, March 17, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP)

... To their chagrin, GOP officials find themselves debating privately whether Democrats have a better chance to pick up the six seats they need to control the Senate - or the 15 required for a majority in the House.