Seattle's top political blogs: Don't call them rivals
Sound Politics and Horse's Ass are thriving on opposite sides of the aisle by digging up and dishing dirt with plenty of swagger. Each claims the other isn't a rival. And they have something else in common: a dim view of the city's two dailies. Part 1 of 3
First of three parts.
With the primary election and party conventions coming fast, we thought we'd share some of our favorite blogs to help you keep up to speed before you hit the voting booth, now and in November. Today we'll look at the most influential partisan blogs in Washington, and in coming days we'll look at other prominent political blogs, partisan and otherwise.
Whether you lean Democrat or drift Republican, there are two blogs in the Puget Sound region that stand apart — Sound Politics for the right and Horse's Ass for the left. These two blogs are virtual coke mirrors for political junkies — filled with line after line of up-to-the hour election news and coverage. You don't even have to steal your mother's jewelry to read them. Just steal your neighbor's Wi-Fi.
What makes Sound Politics and Horse's Ass so compelling? As for fairness, you can fuhgetaboutit — because you won't find it on either blog. Good writing is a different story. Both blogs are entertaining and smart (depending on whom you ask), and depending on your personal views, they may make you want to weep with joy. Or protest the government. Or go to war. Or pull your hair out. In any case, they're both worth reading before casting your ballot.
Sound Politics
What are the odds that a conservative blog would garner a large readership in the liberal-dominated Puget Sound area? In Seattle, a town so packed with Pinkos that even the arsonists are environmentalists and selling bottled water at public events could get you blacklisted from Starbucks before you can say "I'd like organic milk with that," it would seem easy to dismiss the presence of a strong conservative grassroots. Until you factor in the conservative bloggers at Sound Politics and their monthly audience of more than 100,000 visitors.
Sound Politics is the brainchild of local blogger and conservative political junkie Stefan Sharkansky, 45, who launched the group blog just before the 2004 election cycle. His timing couldn't have been better. That November, the neck-and-neck gubernatorial race between Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Chris Gregoire exploded into an electoral Search for Bobby Fischer — a recount filled with mysterious political chess moves, mud-slinging, and un-dead voters. Sound Politics, meanwhile, became the place for conservatives to turn for vote-counting coverage and partisan commentary about the recount.
Gregoire was sworn into office only days after a recount revealed she won by only 133 votes. Despite plenty of coverage from The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sharkansky felt a closer analysis of the results was necessary.
"I had done some minor investigative stuff earlier, but I managed to really make my mark with the 2004 election," Sharkansky said. "My reporting took off, based on my skill set with database research — that's what was called upon to analyze computer records in the election."
After spending hundreds of hours combing voter registrations and voting records, Sharkansky dropped an electoral bombshell on Dec. 29, 2004 — just days before Gregoire was to be sworn in. The number of King County ballots counted in the final tally was 899,199 — 3,539 more than the number of participating voters reported in the county's list. The blog post sent reporters and Republicans scrambling to explain the discrepancy and assign blame. Meanwhile, local and national media ate it up.
According to a January 2005 story by Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Robert Jamieson, the Web site was averaging more than 19,000 visits per day during the recount coverage. Sharkansky had opened the grassroots floodgates.
"Eventually people began to find me and send confidential information," he said. "They trusted me to tell the story better than professional journalists. The stuff I had dug up went into the trial about the election."
Republicans eventually contested the results of the recount in court. They lost.
But Sound Politics' coverage of the election did underscore one of the few victories for the local Right in 2004 — the beleaguered voice of the "Seattle conservative" was alive and well in the blogosphere.
"I think [Sound Politics] has a diversity of opinion that you don't get from many newspapers," Sharkansky said. "I have a blend of original reporting, commentary, and snark. We're a loosely based collective. Everyone has [his or her] own style and interests. I'd say that's partly why we're successful."
Sharkansky, however, rarely posts at Sound Politics these days. He works for a commercial Web site. "I spent a lot of time blogging, but it was time to move on," he said. "The opportunity costs were too great. I needed to earn a living."
Even without the "Shark" circling in the waters at Sound Politics, "re-elect" Rossi cries ring loud and clear at the blog.
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Comments:
Posted Mon, Aug 11, 9:11 a.m. inappropriate
Goldstein's support will cost Burner another election.: Dropping the F bomb for ratings, real classy. Every time someone says they are a Burner supporter I send them to HA to see what kind of folks she hangs with and considers them as valuable advisors. Burner and Goldstein are both Camp Wellstone Grads and it's been a love affair ever since. He is a web volnteer and fundraiser for her campaign. After your discription in the article I ask you, would you elect someone who might give Goldstien a job in government representing you?
Posted Mon, Aug 11, 11:01 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Goldstein's support will cost Burner another election.: Well, yes, of course I would, but since Burner is running for Congress,not governor, I kind of doubt she would have a position for him that he would want.
Posted Mon, Aug 11, 11:08 a.m. inappropriate
"With supporters like these...": Messieurs Goldstein and Sharkansky are fine, often very good writers. The problem lies in the degree of anonymity allowed on their (or any) blogs.
I snooped around for a while as a poster on Horse's Ass, but gave up due to the sheer, stultifying lack-of-quality found in the comments section. (I've given Sound Politics a looksee, too, but prefer my investigations into the Cretaceous to be within a paleontology class.)
But it is the juvenility of most posters on HA which drives readers away. It is often one online 7th grade study-hall--or detention room--with all the corresponding and expected sophistication. Profanity isn't the issue here, the matter in question is the fact Mr. Goldstein has a small stable of regulars that--under the fetid cloak of anonymity-- are out of their freaking minds. There's a former Olympia apparatchik who evidently thinks posting as a rabbit is both clever and humorous; several cocksure know-it-alls; a goodly number of racists--and this is before we get to the problematical posters...
Read these blogs only for their authors; avoid the comments sections like the plague they are.
Laurence Ballard
Posted Mon, Aug 11, 11:16 a.m. inappropriate
as a reader, the business struggles to serve the community: As a reader of just about everything involving the Sonics trial I can tell you that the newspaper coverage was spotty, at best.
Sports columnists playing Court Reporter made me want to throw up (me, and a few thousand of my closest friends. Greg Johns did some good reporting, the rest were in between since most of the time a sports beat reporter was covering court proceedings with all of the usefulness of having them report on a basketball game by only describing the activity of the coaching styles on the sideline. I was in the courtroom the entire day Clay Bennet was on the stand admitting to everything Howard Schultz is currently suing him over, but most of the reporting was on the city's expert witness getting roasted on the stand by Sideshow Brad Keller.
I would like to completley fault the sports columnists, but the disintegration of the daily print media past the bright line from meaningful to absurd a couple years ago.
Thanks for the outlet for my vent,
Mr. Baker
Posted Mon, Aug 11, 11:21 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Goldstein's support will cost Burner another election.: A fair question Cameron:
We live a world where Michael Scanlon and Jessica Cutler were in the employ Congressional Republicans. They weren't the worst by a long shot, but have the fairly unusual trait of being outed for the unethical behavior. I'd use a blue pencil from time to time on Goldy's documents, but I'd take his integrity over the ilk of Kevin Carns any day.
Posted Mon, Aug 11, 12:36 p.m. inappropriate
Trashing the media: It always cracks me up when bloggers trash the media. Yes, both of these political sites have done some original reporting. Good on them. We need more citizens like this taking interest in the world around them.
Yet the vast majority of blog posts on every legitimate political site from HuffPost on down relies almost solely on newspaper articles. Take away newspaper coverage and they have very little fodder.
Crosscut is yet another example. There's some really good writing being done here, but it doesn't approach the coverage provided by the P-I, Times, News Tribune and other dailies. In fact, the majority of its headlines come from those very sources.
Bite = bloggers
Hands that feed = newspapers
Posted Mon, Aug 11, 3:38 p.m. inappropriate
That having been said, you're absolutely right. If the "traditional" media went away tomorrow, like so many seem to wish it would, the blogosophere would pretty quickly go dark or descend into irrelevant chaos.
As for Sharkansky and Goldstein, I am glad Clark Fredricksen promises to cover not-so-partisan political blogs in the coming days. There's enough partisan yammering out there already, and those two have no monopoly on good writing.
And this, by Goldstein?
One of the comments I occasionally get is something along the lines that profanity is a last resort of people who are otherwise incapable of expressing themselves ... which is, of course, a load of shit. In fact, this critique itself is nothing more than a crutch for those who can't refute me – they're essentially saying, 'Look see ... Goldy curses ... so you can dismiss everything he said.' That's just lazy rhetoric on their part. These are words. Powerful words. And like all my words, I choose them very carefully. I'm a writer.
Yes. He's also an occasional talk-show host on 710 KIRO. A rather whiny, shrill talk-show host whom I turn off whenever he's subbing for Dave Ross. Sometimes the messenger gets in the way of the message. Perhaps all Goldy does want is to preach to the choir, but his current style isn't going to get him much of an audience beyond that. And profanity? I don't mind it, but his critics' argument isn't as empty as he'd like to think. I don't recall Orwell needing to drop F-bombs among 1984, Animal Farm, and his many essays, political and otherwise. Which style does he think is more persuasive?
Posted Tue, Aug 12, 6:52 a.m. inappropriate
Not So Fast Folks: If Goldstein had not publicized State Land Commissioner Doug Sutherland's sexual harassment improprieties the Seattle dailies would have continued to sit on the story. The PI and the Times were quite content to allow Sutherland a free pass for exactly the same conduct they used to crucify Mike Lowry.
Posted Tue, Aug 12, 8:48 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Trashing the media: Swearing is itself a political act in so far as it still ruffles the feathers of conservatives and prudes, so I think it's more than appropriate in political media.
The only thing I find shocking is that swearing still has the power to offend. How many decades has it been since Portnoy's Complaint was written, anyway? How many billions of dollars have Americans spent on tickets to R rated movies? Yet here we are wagging our fingers at Goldstein because he uses the F-word? Someone definitely needs to grow up, and it isn't Goldstein.
Presumably, Mr. Lukoff doesn't think much of John Stewart and The Daily Show either (to pick a more contemporary example than George Orwell). It's the smartest, funniest, and most popular source of political commentary available today, in spite of, no make that *because of* the fact that John Stewart's language and references are occassionaly as raunchy as anything you'd find on HA or Slog.
Posted Tue, Aug 12, 10:15 a.m. inappropriate
As for Jon Stewart, no, Sean, you're wrong. I like him too. (Though he's no Orwell!) But — and I'm making no comparisons between the personal intelligence of Stewart and Goldstein — his work is both smarter and funnier than Goldstein's, and less liberally sprinkled with Portnoyan language. Again, not that there's anything wrong with that. But I'll reiterate: 1) political discourse is more effective without it and 2) it's hard to do well. I don't think Goldstein, or the majority of bloggers, do it particularly well.
There's a difference between wit (see The Economist) and snark. I prefer the former.
Posted Tue, Aug 12, 11:16 a.m. inappropriate
MSM ignored 2004 election skulduggery: "Editors Pick" - Yet the vast majority of blog posts on every legitimate political site from HuffPost on down relies almost solely on newspaper articles. Take away newspaper coverage and they have very little fodder.
Bloody misleading, Mr. Editor. Stefan Sharkansky's exploit of early and repeatedly exposing the finagling of the King Co Elections Dept and its blatant refusal to follow elections laws in hopes of adding to the Democratic 'vote' count was a single-handed feat. And despite his months of pointing out fields for further investigation, neither the Times nor the P-I lifted a finger to investigate.
Sure, they'd scribble a languid paragraph now and then about 'some say that bla, bla, bla', but they assigned no reporters to dig inside the public records - or supoena them, as would have been required - and it was easy to see that they feared the facts that would have turned up. Corrupt, or viciously biased, are proper epithets for both papers during that period.
And Crosscut's story has missed that point: The number of King County ballots counted in the final tally was 899,199 – 3,539 more than the number of participating voters reported in the county's list. The blog post sent reporters and Republicans scrambling to explain the discrepancy and assign blame.
The Republicans did a feeble job, and lost the case. As noted above, the "reporters" did even worse: how could they report on something they buried their heads ostrich-like in the sand to avoid seeing?
Even the Times story linked in this article was a metanarrative - an oh-so-thrilling horserace story about the contending sides and allegations - but it supplied no confirmation or refutation of Sharkansky's well-documented figures, since it had never invested the work required to do so. That's not journalism, it's twaddle.
Posted Tue, Aug 12, 11:26 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Trashing the media: Ben, I'll agree that in the absense of intelligence and wit, four letter words don't work in political discourse.
However, your sweeping conclusion that political discourse is more effective without swearing ignores the dozens of talented political commentators who use swearing to great effect, including Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, Bill Maher, George Carlin, Dennis Miller, Chris Rock, and of course, Lenny Bruce. If anything, these guys prove just how integral irreverent language is to political discourse.
As for Goldie, I don't read HA enough to offer a critique of his style. However, I suspect that if you don't find him compelling with the f-bombs, you wouldn't find him compelling without them, either.
Posted Tue, Aug 12, 1:26 p.m. inappropriate
Perhaps "political discourse" is too sweeping a term. Stewart, Black, Maher, Carlin, Miller, Rock, Bruce, and their ilk are great. They are also all comedians. I suppose what I really meant was "political journalism."
Posted Wed, Aug 13, 9:49 a.m. inappropriate
RE: MSM ignored 2004 election skulduggery: Bloody misleading, Mr. Editor.
It's only misleading if you take it out of context by leaving out the first paragraph of my comment (which you did).
Look at any political blog, big or small, and tell me where the vast majority of its links point to. They'll be newspapers.
Did the Times and P-I fall down in this case? Appears so. Thank goodness Sharkansky stepped in. Do the Times and P-I consistently fall down? Not really, unless your side is the one not getting the coverage it desires.
On the subject of f-bombs and the like, I tend to discount those who rely on "colorful metaphors" (to quote Capt. Kirk) to make their points. That's just me.
As far as Jon Stewart and Co. go, they seemed funny to me until I was turned onto The Mercer Report. It's one of the best-written, best-produced, wittiest shows I've ever watched. It's Canadian, so we won't get a lot of the politics, but it does make me wish Mercer was American so we could enjoy a higher level of humor in this country.
Posted Fri, Sep 26, 1:59 a.m. inappropriate
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