Jeff Reifman connects a few dots quite nicely.

Sean Pender points out that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission tomorrow is holding a public meeting at 1:00pm at 1225 New York Ave, N.W., Suite 1100 in W ashington, D.C. Go to the meeting and tell the Bush administration to preserve American democracy and back off its plan to hijack the election for its own pol itical gain. If you’re not in Washington, e-mail them at this address: HAVAinf o@eac.gov

(http://www.prospect.org for more information)

Adam Smith was was one only four Democrats who voted to uphold the “Patriot” Act this week. The measure in question w ould have prevented the government from looking at your library records and boo k-buying habits without a warrant.

With the final vote tied at 210-210, just one more vote from Adam Smith would h ave made the difference.

Shame on you, Adam Smith. Your constituents deserve better. The government ha s no right to investigate my intellectual habits without a warrant.

If you live in the 9th District here in Washington and want to let Rep. Smith know how you feel, yo u can email him here .

Dave Pollard has a nice summary of yesterday’s election results from Canada. Good news for progressives:

The rightist Conservatives lost nearly a quarter of their support, and only gained seats because they combined into a single party to exploit Canada’s antiquated first-past-the-post voting system. The three progressive parties, the NDP, Bloc and Greens saw their share of the vote rise by 50%. Canadians clearly said once again that Bush-style right-wing governments are not for us. I’m very proud of my fellow Canadians today.

I’m delighted to report that the Green Party got more than double the 2% of the vote nationally they needed to get the new government campaign funding of $1.75 per vote per year until the next election, and also behaved so credibly the Canadian media conglomerate won’t dare exclude them again from the national leaders’ debate next time.

The Seattle PI today covers Ron Sims’ decision to make tax reform the centerpiece of his bid to become Governor.

Last month, Sims’ campaign commissioned focus group surveys of 20 loyal Democrats from King County on the issue of tax reform. According to a summary of those interviews, the participants favored tax reform as a means to a system that would be more fair, business friendly and stable. “Participants … spontaneously identified tax reform as a critical issue facing the state,” reads the report. “… They did express a concern if a candidate raised the specter of an income tax — that it might make the candidate ‘unelectable’ because of well-known controversy surround the issue, but they admired the ‘backbone’ and ‘guts’ that it would take to raise it. “Upon discussion, there was general consensus that this was not an issue to be avoided.”

This is unexpectedly bold. And very, very welcome. Tax reform is definitely the most important issue facing our state, and it’s refreshing to see someone taking the political risk of addressing the big issues head-on.

I hope that this moves the debate, even if Ron fails to gain the nomination.

Kayne McGladrey makes the offer I wish I had the time and energy to make myself. The response, however, was disappointing.

A few weeks ago, I sent out an email to multiple Democratic candidates and their campaign managers in Washington State. In the email, I posed the following question: “Would the public read the web log of a local candidate? And would a local candidate periodically write on a community web log?” I offered to handle all the technical bits, promoting a new community site, and I’d pay for all the hosting costs and bandwidth. In turn, all the candidates had to do was write on the site and hopefully reply to comments. Volunteers would also be allowed to post entries. The idea was to establish a local Democratic echo chamber to promote these candidates, and also to make them more accessible and interesting to the public. As the replies came back, I came to realize that most campaigns are still in the 1990s when it comes to effectively using technology. Most political websites are woefully non-interactive – just some statlc pages on policy, a glossy photo and an email address. Some campaigns now have donation links, but these are the exception. This is not the compelling content that brings people into the process. None of the campaigns I contacted took me up on my offer. The common thread in the replies was that they didn’t have enough time to write. The other reason that was cited was that while people might read about John Kerry, who’d read about a local candidate? Small campaigns are often short on time and on volunteers. I can understand this line of reasoning. However, small campaigns depend heavily on targeted mass-mailings, which are a primary expense on a local campaign.Web logs are inexpensive by comparison, and can be easily updated, unlike a mail piece. The technologies are complimentary, not mutually exclusive.

The only ray of hope I can offer is the observation that several Seattle City Council members — most notably Richard Conlin and Nick Licata — write in-depth, personal, informative email newsletters… content that could just as easily be adapted to blog format (hint hint). So I think there is some precedent for small-scale elected officials (if not campaigns) to do this.

… how the Saudi government was able to find and kill Paul Johnson’s killer within mere HOURS of his execution — unless they already knew where these guys were? This whole think stinks. And what stinks more is that nobody seems to be asking this most obvious question of our so-called allies in Riyadh. Media, hello?