This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.
Election officials can’t look like they have their thumbs on the scale, especially when they are on the ballot.
Pat McCarthy knows that. So what was the Pierce County auditor thinking when she signed her name on a voter survey stuffed into the envelopes bearing mail ballots that will decide her bid for Pierce County executive?
The answer, we hope, was that she wasn’t thinking.
The survey registers somewhere between “What’s the big deal?” and “How dare she!” on the outrage meter. Some voters – for whom the Pierce County executive race is somewhat of an afterthought in this presidential election year – might not even make the connection.
This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.
In elections, appearances count.
Think of the suspicion still surrounding the troves of ballots that kept surfacing in King County as votes were being recounted after the 2004 governor’s race.
That’s why ACORN’s blustering defenses of its sloppy voter-registration practices have gotten so aggravating. Its leaders continue to talk as if they’re doing the country a great service with a mismanaged registration drive that lets employees sign up the likes of “Mickey Mouse” and “Donald Duck.”
County officials in 11 states have reportedly found bogus voter applications submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Criminal investigations have been launched in at least two states.
It would be one thing if this were ACORN’s first offense. But it got caught doing precisely the same thing in 2006 in King and Pierce counties, where its canvassers registered, among others, “Veronica Mars” and “Pat Tillman” – who had been killed in Afghanistan two years earlier. Some of the ACORN employees involved have since been convicted.
ACORN's got to find a business model that doesn't involve registration fraud.
Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy was, at best, not thinking when she stuffed ballot envelopes with a voter survey bearing her name. Appearances matter, and in this case, what is apparent to many voters is that the county’s chief elections official is not playing fair.
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.
Your correspondent is on the road again, this time visiting Ashland, Ore., to take in a few plays.
Always attuned to the local political news, I was particularly interested in this news story from the Oregonian about a venal initiative promoter, one NOT named Tim Eyman.
This would be Bill Sizemore, whose money-making initiative machine in Oregon makes Eyman look like a piker. Then again, he's been at it longer than Eyman. Sizemore wrote the playbook, so to speak.
By using a charity like his personal ATM, initiative activist Bill Sizemore has himself at odds with federal law that bans individuals from using tax-exempt foundations for private gain.
Court records show that Sizemore -- who has five initiatives on Oregon's November ballot -- tapped a tax-exempt foundation over a two-year period for tens of thousands of dollars in personal expenses.
He took out $63,000 in cash and rang up $74,000 on the foundation's debit cards. He bought a 2005 Pontiac Grand Prix for his wife, paid private school tuition for his son and braces for his daughter, and vacationed at the foundation's time-share in Mexico.
We're publishing our presidential endorsement of Barack Obama today. It's just about our last endorsement – and for good reason.
We figure a newspaper's endorsement for president is the one that is least likely to sway many voters. Readers are probably more interested in what we have to say about highly local races – so we focus on getting those in the paper earlier. To read endorsements that have already been published, click here.
If you're interested in how newspapers across the country are endorsing, Editor & Publisher has a state-by-state tally here that it updates frequently. It's running 3 to 1 in favor of Obama.
By comparison, the final endorsement score in 2004 was John Kerry 213 over George Bush 205.
