There is no bright line rule about what constitutes a personal attack as opposed to constructive discussion, but some types of comments are never acceptable:
1. Racial, sexual, homophobic, ageist, religious, political, ethnic, or other epithets (such as comments against people with disabilities). Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, race, sexual preference, or ethnicity is not an excuse to indulge in bad behavior.
2. Using someone’s affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views - regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream or not.
3. Linking to external attacks, harassment, or other material, for the purpose of attacking another person -
These examples are not exclusive. Insults or disparaging remarks against another person is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done.
Councilwoman Laurie Caskey-Schreiber shouldn’t have called Gwen Hunter an idiot in a public forum, that was just rude. She should have called her an idiot to her face. Civility is important but it isn’t a free pass to act like, well, an idiot whenever the mood strikes. I wonder if the prominent role whisper campaigns have achieved in our local politics hasn’t simply grown out of an understanding that no-one will challenge the people who spread them publicly.
Over at Sam’s blog a commenter said something about holding our elected officials to a higher standard and I agree completely. Our elected officials, and candidates, should be expected to shut down any idiot who tries to spread such garbage. This isn’t junior high anymore, and the blind repetition of petty lies and ham-fisted intrigues are turning local politics into a joke. I wish that the Councilwoman had done it another way, but she did exactly what I think we should expect her to do.
Next time I hope that she will be more direct and address them personally. Everyone has to learn at some point in their life that if you’re going to be an idiot, you shouldn’t get surprised when people call you on it.
Calls to action come in many different forms. For some, it is a mystical/spiritual ‘call’ that gets them off their feet, I challenge people’s badness (which only seems to work on Republicans), and Ty over at KVOS tells it like it is. His latest posts is in response to complaints about the lack of local television, and includes full instructions on how to go about getting on NorthWest Notebook if you’re looking for exposure.
Now, I’m not going to do anything foolish like promise to stop whining about how I wished KVOS was all local news 24/7 because complaining is kind of ‘my thing.’ But Ty does a very good job with NorthWest Notebook and I think that we all owe it to him, as a community, to acknowledge that and call him every time something comes up.
Don’t forget to come down to the the Ranch Room tonight for Drinking Liberally. The Ranch Room is located in the Horseshoe Cafe at 113 Holly St, and we’ll be gathering at about 7 and hanging out for hours and hours afterwards so show up whenever you’re able.
There will be a special emergency session of Bellingham Drinking Liberally sometime in late December, and if you want details on that go to drinkingliberally.org and sign up for the Bellingham announcement list. That way you’ll know just as soon as I figure it out.
There were a lot of races this year, and a lot of dumb things happened. For my purposes in this, however, I’m going to focus on the Mayor’s race because that was the one that was of greatest importance to me, personally.
Following the Ken Mann/Sam Crawford results has been agonizing. Currently it stands at 6,223/6,371 with Crawford ahead but there are still ballots to be counted. It’s like Curling, everyone has done their part and now we’re just waiting for the stone to stop moving. As I write this there’s only another hour before the next update.
I am shocked and amazed that Mann has done as well as he has in the count so far. Not that he’s a bad candidate or ran a bad campaign, but given my own prejudice about Council District 2 I assumed that despite his impressive fund-raising he didn’t stand much of a chance. Clearly I stand corrected and I hope the good people of that district will accept my apology.
In other news, Ian Imhof’s write-in candidacy for County Exec. didn’t fare too well this time, but MySpace is a tough place to get a message across. I hope he’ll stick it out and maybe get more formally involved.
This post-election span here is really starting to drag out, and I apologize. Maybe next time I’ll set it up a whole special “Election 20xx: Week-long Coverage” event so that a bunch of low-content ½ posts wont look so out of place.
I’m about to head out the door but there’s a few things I wanted to cover:
NWCitizen has the ballot return status, and it’s disappointing. I would have thought that with so much heat on a few races that turnout would have been higher so far. Maybe it’s a good thing, as people are devoting a lot of time to choosing their candidates and we’ll see a surge tomorrow.
Sam Taylor has posted the letter from the PDC to the Pike campaign that started the recent mess last Wednesday. I’ll have more on this later as I work through information that I’ve received and try to track down sources, but there wont be any real definitive answers until after the election.
Transparency is something that is very important to me, and I think that some people really went over the line in attacking Elizabeth Britt over her filing the complaints in the first place. Without people willing to step up and do the research then our disclosure system simply will not work, and trying to intimidate them or challenge their integrity without even acknowledging their complaint is shameful. I don’t have time to get in to it now, but look forward to my extended version of that rant in the next few days.
I’ve got a couple of drafts in the queue on actual topics like Lake Whatcom and the Waterfront that I was hoping to have done last week but I’m still getting them together so they might have to wait until after the election.
I’ll be back tonight with something of substance, in the meanwhile, go check out the NorthWest Notebook candidate forums again and get your ballot in the mail!
It’s supposed to be a panel discussion on open record and public meeting laws in Washington State, and will be moderated by the Herald’s Scott Ayers. I don’t need to tell you that this is a very important topic for me, and I’m very excited about it. Seating is first come, first served, so show up early.
In her comment to my previous post on the PDC, Anne-Marie is correct: There is more to this. The siren song of PDC drama proved to strong to resist, I guess.
I just got off the phone with Elisabeth Britt, who filed the 60-violation complaint against the Pike campaign, to confirm some things. Here’s much of what I’ve learned since the last post:
On Thursday, the day after the Pike campaign announced that they had received an email from the PDC clearing them of all charges, Britt contacted the PDC and spoke with Phil Stutzman (the Director of Compliance) and Randall Unruh (the Political Finance Specialist 2 who had contacted the Pike campaign). She says that the conversations were technical in nature, clarifying some points in the compliant.
The next day, Friday, Britt receives an email from Randall Unruh, explaining that he had reviewed the complaint and decided to open an investigation. (I’ll have more on this soon, I’m waiting for confirmation on the text of the email)
Saturday (Today) Britt gets an email containing a scan of an official document from the PDC stating that an investigation has been opened.
The investigation is not currently listed under the Formal Complaints section of the PDC’s website, though the case number identified for it in the PDF is 08-089 and the most recent post to the list is 08-088 so it might not have been scanned and uploaded yet.
The scanned document can be viewed as either a PDF or a more browser-friendly PNG.
I’m going to try and confirm a few more things with the PDC over the next couple of days. I’m also going to try and get some follow-up on a few more items that might be relevant, so stay tuned.
I’ve requested a copy of the original complaint filed against the Pike campaign in order to see what it actually contains and to provide some context to all of this, so look forward to some confused analysis of that in the near future.
Fresh off their near-endorsement of McShane last week, the Cascadia Weekly is at it again. This week’s Gristle column (page 6) firmly but politely takes some Pike supporters to task:
Why do or don’t people want Dan McShane elected mayor? Because his mind, his character, is clearly made up on issues related to Lake Whatcom, the waterfront, neighborhoods and growth. Why do people want Dan Pike elected mayor? Because, despite his authoritative statements on those issues, the sense is his mind is not made up on those issues.
Is this an unfair characterization? Isn’t, in fact, the central appeal of the Pike campaign that the candidate is open-minded and evaluates all sides?
Well extend further and suggest one reason Pike gathers such broad support from diverse groups is, face it, their hope - however faint - that he can be rolled on his stated positions. Dan Pike himself warily senses the truth of this; and the question of whether he can be or cannot be rolled is that leap of faith supporters must take.
And that’s not all, you can read the whole thing in this week’s issue or download the pdf from their website.
It’s nice to see this kind of comparison and analysis of the race, even if it does feel a little bit late. The Herald has done some good work, but at the same time the decision to allow open and anonymous commenting has made them the epicenter of much of the mudslinging.
It’s really a shame because the Herald really is the epicenter of the local online community and could bring people together. It doesn’t have to too involved, but by adding some authentication and separating the ‘News’ and ‘News with public commentary’ areas of the site I think that they could really make something amazing.
Back to the main topic: Go the Weekly and especially the Gristle.
On Wednesday a PDC employee (titled “Political Finance Specialist 2″) sent the Pike campaign a note explaining that some of the complaints against him were without merit and that he was recommending that no further action be taken.
Later that day, Sam Taylor contacts the PDC’s “Communications & Training Officer” to get further information and it is confirmed that there will be no further investigation (based on her discussion with the “PDC’s director of enforcement”), and that they will be in communication with Elizabeth Britt who filed the original charge. Sam asks her to find out if this is just for the complaint about the fundraisers or if Pike has been cleared of all charges.
Thursday (yesterday) the Communications and Training Officer gets back to Taylor and says that because the information got leaked to the public the investigation will be reopened. And Elizabeth Britt will not be contacted.
Is that what’s going on here? Because it seems pretty… strange. I wonder what the hell happened at the PDC between
“We looked into some of the allegations. They were really minimal reporting errors,” said Lori Anderson, PDC spokeswoman. “We asked them to fix them and they did.”
and
But because that e-mail was sent to Pike, the investigation will continue and a letter to Elisabeth Britt, a Dan McShane supporter who filed the complaint, will not be sent as originally planned, said Lori Anderson, PDC spokeswoman.
…
“It’s in response to a candidate informed of some internal communication that should have never been released outside of this office,” she said.
NWCitizen saw a conspiracy, but I don’t think that’s very likely. I don’t see how dragging this story out is really going to be good for anyone. I suppose that as a McShane supporter I should be thrilled that Pike is back under investigation, but really I just want this whole mess to be over with.
And apparently Elizabeth Britt feels the same way. As I was typing this and poking back and forth between browser windows Sam Taylor posted another update saying that Britt has withdrawn her complaint:
Elisabeth Britt has sent a letter to the Washington state Public Disclosure Commission withdrawing her campaign disclosure complaint against Pike.
In a very brief letter, Britt told the PDC that she is withdrawing the complaint “at my family’s urging.”
Britt supplied a copy of her PDC letter to The Herald.
“You have my permission to dispose of the documents in a manner that is acceptable to the PDC. I do not want copies,” she said in the letter.
This was my fourth attempt in three days to write about this, and every time I try the story changes midway through. I think I’m going to stop now instead of tempting fate any further.
