Washblog

Stillwell over at the NWProgBlog just tells it like it is, in his mind (I think he's a him):

What always happens with large independent expenditures is that someone lies, or walks so close to the line that the ads are basically lies, and then the candidate they want to help disavows the ad.

It's dishonest, it's ridiculous and people are sick of it.

Conservatives are busy giving Democrats warnings about "not overreaching," but I have one friendly caution for Democrats, both in the Legislature and in Congress: put yourselves on the side of regular people. It is not in the public interest to have campaigns awash in independent expenditure money.

And for goodness sake, don't resist efforts at reforming the political system. Regular people know it's a cesspool and they don't care about the "rights" of groups to make stuff up and throw it at the wall.

Steve at Majority Rules has a supportive tone, but also points out that we should also be taking a hard look at public financing of campaigns. Amen brother, and look for Washington Clean to be working on that. Last session there was a bill to reestablish the local option for public financing, but there seems to be indications that public financing may be an option for all judicial races. Strange Bedfellows, the Seattle PI's political blog, also has a good post.

On Sam Reed's side of things, the NWProgBlog (this time Andrew) is all over things, focussing favorlably on the registering online feature of Reed's proposals. And, that's it. No one else (that I've read of been able to find) has any thoughts on Reed's proposals, which in my opinion are really just touchups on the pick-a-party primary. Just plugging holes, nothing to see here.

Except of course, the registering online thing, which I'm really surprised the right side of the netroots isn't picking apart yet. Either way, pre-filing for bills starts on Monday, so we'll start to see where these ideas land.