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.
There was a miracle in Tuesday’s election returns: the spectacular victory of Sound Transit’s Proposition 1.
That victory was all the more sweet combined with the equally spectacular defeat of Initiative 985.
Those two results suggest that Washingtonians have a sophisticated and farsighted understanding of the state’s transportation problems, especially in the Puget Sound region.
I-985 – a so-called congestion reduction measure – had led in the polls until a few weeks before the election. Cobbled together in Tim Eyman’s initiative shop, it was tarted up with a bundle of pseudo-solutions engineered to knit together various aggrieved groups.
1. It took a thoughtful electorate to approve mass transit expansion in the Puget Sound region and defeat Initiative 985 statewide by similarly massive margins.
2. Now that she's been re-elected, Gov. Chris Gregoire faces a potentially bruising budget battle in the Democratic Legislature – a battle in which the most vulnerable Washingtonians will need protection.
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.
More from editor emeritus Dave Seago, on the road in New England.
Today your correspondent reports from Stow, Mass., where he's visiting relatives.
One sign of the magnitude of this election: Nearly all copies of The New York Times available in the vicinity were gone by 8 a.m.
I had to scour several nearby communities before I could find a shop that still had one. At one store, I found several copies with the front sections missing.
People obviously consider the Times' front-page announcement - a one-word headline, "Obama" - a historic keepsake.
A couple hours later, my daughter working in Australia e-mailed me and asked me to save a copy of the Times for her.
We all know history when we see it. My biggest disappointment on this occasion is that some disgruntled McCain supporters still persist in complaining that Obama's win means "socialism" for America.
They've got to know that's campaign nonsense. What exactly is it that the Bush administration and Congress have been practicing lately in the Wall Street bailouts?
I didn't vote yesterday. I'm ashamed of that. I will kick myself over it the rest of my life.
But while I didn't have excuses, I did have reasons – and some of Pierce County's traditional go-to-the-polls voters may muster a bit of sympathy for me.
My dereliction was my own fault: I lost my ballot. I moved over the weekend, and it vanished – along with my socks and my wallet – somewhere amid the piles of boxes and sacks that wound up strewn all over the new place.
I ransacked the house looking for that precious envelope. Heaven knows what happened to it; I'm sure it will turn up in two weeks in some spot that should have been obvious.
In retrospect, I should have had the sense to fill the ballot out and mail it before I plunged into the chaos of moving. But I hate to vote early. Often, candidates show their true colors in the closing days of a race by launching vicious "late hits" on their opponents. I don't vote for people who spring lies on the electorate when it's too late to rebut them, so I generally hold off until election day or the day before.
I have only my own stupidity to blame, but that's what happened to my ballot.
So I decided to go to the auditor's office Tuesday morning and get a replacement ballot.
When I walked into the county "elections center," I discovered a stunningly long line that wasn't perceptibly moving. The queue was backed up behind a counter at which – at least then – only a single harried election worker was doing her best to handle everyone's ballot business.
If John McCain was hoping to pick up a lot of women's votes with his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, he struck out. Women went for Barack Obama over McCain 56 percent to 43 percent, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
Male voters split almost evenly: 49 percent for Obama, 48 percent for McCain.
The gender gap – defined as the difference in the proportions of men and women voting for the winning candidate – was 7 percent this year, the same as it was in the 2004 presidential election. The gap has been as high as 11 percent in 1996 (Bill Clinton vs. Bob Dole) and as low as 4 percent in 1992 (Clinton vs. George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot).
Here's the entire press release from the CAWP:
