The End of 2004

So, the year 2004 is slowly but surely coming to a close. The top political story this year, of course, was obviously the gubernatorial race, which has been helping to drive traffic to a lot of blogs here in the Pacific Northwest recently.

One of the Seattle P-I's last editorials of the year is a good one: One word: Preposterous. The paper takes Rossi to task for his decision to support a re-vote. A couple excerpts:

Gregoire's conduct throughout the difficult post-election period has been exemplary. She showed optimism, patience and a disciplined pursuit of legally valid processes on the basis of facts and principles, not vague feelings....Gregoire was right to reject the request for a new election. It's one more sign that she is well suited for the office.

It's troubling to see Rossi's lack of discipline in questioning the court and asking for a quick decision on a new election. This suggests that his decisions as governor on the environment, worker safety and the like might be based more on his feelings than on facts.

And Seattle Weekly columnist George Howland Jr. has a new column this week: "The Republicans Blow It". Of course, Howland is talking about the Republicans' strategy throughout the recount of the governor's race. An excerpt:

On Thursday, Dec. 23, Democrat Christine Gregoire won the third and supposedly final tally, a recount by hand, beating Republican Dino Rossi by 129 votes. This turnaround wasn't happenstance. The Democrats played a brilliant endgame, aggressively hunting for votes that had been incorrectly disqualified, while the GOP focused on trying to ferret out fraud that wasn't evident. Now the GOP's best hope is that the courts will nullify the election because the tabulation was so chaotic.

Howland has got it right. If you read his column, you'll notice that he carefully details the strategies of both the Democrats and the Republicans during the recount. He concludes the Democrats had the better strategy because they eventually came away as the winners.

And for those who continue to insist that Rossi won "two out of three", or that the first two counts were more accurate than the hand recount, consider this:

1. Over a thousand new ballots were counted in the hand recount that couldn't be counted in the machine recount.
2. Hand recounts are indeed more accurate than machine recounts. That's because humans are smarter than machines.
3. State law says that the final recount is what counts, not any previous counts. When you've finished the final recount, you have a winner.

Finally, it's nice to see that bloggers have been named People of the Year by ABC News. Here's an excerpt from the story:

As a driving force in politics this year, bloggers covered the 2004 presidential campaigns and election. Political candidates also used them as valuable campaign tools. "The Internet taught us, rather than the other way around," said former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean.

This year, for the first time, bloggers were permitted to cover the national political conventions firsthand. Bloggers have taken the lead over traditional media on a number of stories, including racist remarks made by then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., at former Sen. Strom Thurmond's birthday party.

As 2004 closes out, we look ahead to a new year: NPI's third year of operation and Permanent Defense's fourth year of operation. In August, NPI will celebrate its two year anniversary. In February, Permanent Defense will celebrate its three year anniversary.

Happy New Year to all of you, and we hope that Governor Gregoire will be able to put her team together in a short time frame. It's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. 2005 is here.