Washblog

The Washington Poll has just issued the results of polls conducted between October 22 and 28, 2007 among 601 registered voters throughout the state.    Pacific Market Research, a Renton firm, did the telephone interviews.  Oddly, the results are in PowerPoint documents.  Also, I find it odd that Senate Joint Resolution 8212 -- on prison labor -- was not part of the poll.  Given the disproportionate incarceration rates of African Americans one might expect an organization that focuses on issues of race to be interested in polling on a prison labor issue.  Hmmm.  Links to those documents and summaries of what I see as the most telling results, appear below the fold.

The best news here is that "NO on R-67" looks like it's going down in flames. Ten million dollars has been poured into Washington State by the insurance industry -- mostly from out of state -- to trick Washingtonians into cheating themselves. Even if the insurance industry pours $10 million more into this campaign, it's not likely to make a difference now. This $10 million, which comes from money that people paid to insurance agencies, should have been spent for its intended purpose. This is strong evidence that criminal greed in the insurance industry is a major factor in trashing our healthcare system and overburdening business. More legislation -- that at least extends this new law to healthcare -- is needed to bring this industry into line.