I'm somewhat stunned by Justice Susan Owens overwhelming re-election victory over Sen. Stephen Johnson.
My analysis --
1) Most people, I think, tend to defer to judges. As an incumbent, Owens already has an overwhelming advantage.
2) I think most reasonable people who took the time to understand Owens' controversial rulings, and Johnson's alternative stances on them, would be appalled at Owens' track record and favor Stephen Johnson. But the issues in judicial races are complex and aren't usually as easily translatable to sound bites as is the tradition with contests for most other offices. When people are faced with complex choices they either don't vote or vote for the status quo (NO on an initiative, or to re-elect the incumbent). Short of an extremely simple negative message based on a single powerful issue (as was used against Rose Bird in California 20 years ago), I suspect it's hard to unseat an incumbent justice based on an issues-oriented campaign.
3) Owen's aloofness and refusal to engage with Johnson except on her hometurf (and rarely, at that), minimized the opportunities for her to damage herself, reinforcing her advantages, as in (2).
4) The Owens campaign succeeded in defining herself and her opponent before Johnson did. She advertised herself as "impartial", "fair", "independent", "non-partisan" justice who would "uphold the constitution", and defined Johnson as a partisan who was captive to special interests. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Owens is a highly partisan liberal activist judge, who legislates from the bench, and has cut constitutional corners in numerous decisions. Nearly all her support was from Democrats and liberal interest groups. Nevertheless, her campaign advertising apparently stuck better than his did.
5) Many liberal voters in greater Seattle do like liberal female candidates, and many want a liberal activist judge, even as they claim (whether cynically or sincerely) that she's fair and impartial.
6) Blowback from the big-bucks negative campaign against Gerry Alexander in the primary, which probably turned a lot of people off.
7) The liberal media eagerly carried Owens' water. More editorial boards endorsed Johnson over Owens (not that many people rely on editorial endorsements). But the purportedly objective news articles tended to be biased. See for example this report in the The Herald , which mentioned Johnson's contributions from the BIAW, but failed to mention Owens' contributions from liberal groups; or this P-I article, written for the liberal base, which defines the contest as falling "along party lines", ignoring Johnson's substantial support from Democrats.
What might Johnson and some of his supporters have done differently? (and if his campaign did some of these things, I missed them)
- Those with money to spend should have concentrated their resources to target Owens for defeat instead of Alexander. Owns was weaker than Alexander, and Johnson was a more compelling challenger than Groen.
- Johnson should have simplified his message about Owens to something along the lines of "doesn't interpret the law, rewrites it", "defends big government from the average citizen" and pick one or two of her most emotionally compelling rulings to illustrate the point. Perhaps the Miller case.
- Advertisements could have included testimonials from Democrats talking about how fair and impartial he was.
Discuss. Guidelines for post-mortem commentary apply.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 09, 2006 12:36 PM | Email ThisAll statewide analysis has to start with that fact - Democrats outnumber Republicans by a large amount in WA. Perhaps that is what should be analyzed.
Posted by: Newsworthy on November 9, 2006 01:14 PMThe people are on to the BIAW. When activists see BIAW money flowing then it's red alert time.
The people will not tolerate the agenda of gutting environmental and land use laws. Send Tom McCabe packing to Wyoming or some other red state haven and then maybe the BIAW can return to lobbying on improvements to the laws instead of trying to destroy them outright.
Posted by: Johnny D. on November 9, 2006 01:15 PMFirst- Most people don't know squat about candidates, let alone judges- my mom called me to see which to vote for- so you are on the mark here.
second- yes- the taint of BIAW, same for Groen. People should take a look at how Sanders won- it was before i followed this stuff so I don't know. The BIAW taint made him look more activist than the activist.
third- Owens won the mud slinging match as well as the election. I'm not a fan of negativity, but people have no idea how evil some of our justices are- this is especially true at lower court levels (I'm in Thurston remember).
Posted by: Andy on November 9, 2006 01:23 PMBut, I never saw any ads after the primary for Johnson, while Owens was bistering the airwaves with cries of partisanship, unfairness, experience as a judge, ad infinitum.
And like Palouse says, Johnson was lumped into the Republican group. Pubbies had no message, really, this time around. I hope Johnson does this again.
Posted by: swatter on November 9, 2006 01:23 PMWhile I too was expecting low turnout numbers, what I'm seeing on the SoS website doesn't seem to bear that out.
As of yesterday, there were 3,220,972 registered voters, 1,202,355 ballots counted, and an expected 747,414 baoolts to go, so far a 37% turnout.
If they are correct about the expected, then statewide turnout would be on the order of 60% - far more than the 30%-40% originally expected.
And the labor unions and other liberal groups supporting Owens are not special interests with their own motiviations? Puhlease.
Posted by: Palouse on November 9, 2006 01:42 PMmost people do not follow legal decisions unless it's their neighborhood or school. so, incumbent advantage over 'unknown'--and by 'unknown' i mean voter not taking effort to research the other guy.
as for lobby money, it's perception--unions are 'informing voters' while others or conservatives are "influencing legislation'--in truth, all sides are trying to influence legislation. so what?
again, people do not want to spend time researching just who and why things are sponsored--and that's sad, given the great tools of the internet that make it much easier to be informed today vs. years ago.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on November 9, 2006 02:13 PMThe election of Alexander ( and Sanders for that manner) in the primary exposes a problem that needs to be fixed- In my opinion, now that the citizens of Washington have been forced to have a party preference primary, we need to get the Sec of State and the Legislature to change election rules/law so that NO final decisions can be made during the primary. NO candidate,like supreme court justice, should be elected just because they get more that 50% of an artificially low voter turnout without standing for election during the general.
Posted by: AnacoObserver on November 9, 2006 02:24 PMAlthough this year the climate was not a good one for Republicans, there are far more serious and long-term problems.
The Democrats are organized to control the State Legislature. They identify good candidates, get them into races they can win, and give them the resources (i.e., money and "independent expendicatures.")needed to win. And they ignore the rules.
Republican organizations are uncoordinated, poorly led in some cases, provide inadequate funding, and do little to develop a deep bench.
This year, for example, the Democrats spent hundreds of thousands from the Truman Fund on "independent expenditures" forbidden by law for that type of organization. They just keep enough in the fund to pay the fines and write it off as the cost of winning elections.
Their candidates in our District, which leans Republican, run on a Republican platform of controlling spending, fiscal responsibility and reducing property taxes, even though they have never voted that way in Olympia. Our opponent, in his first try for the Legislature, raised about $30K on his own but received $150K from his Party. This year the Republican challenger, considered by the Party as one of their best candidates, barely received $15K from the Party.
The Party organizations were well aware that Frank Chopp was calling in Republican PACs and businesses threatening them with punitive legislation if they continued to give to Republicans. He effectively dried up many Republican sources of funds and the Republicans did nothing to counter it.
Republican candidates scramble for funding, competing with other Republicans, good and bad, for money from the same sources. In the Legislative races in our District, Democrats outspent Republicans about 7 to 1, including the "independent expenditures." And that doesn't include judicial races.
Some good candidates will surface to take back some of the seats in 2008. However, until the Republican organizations dedicate themselves to winning local and legislative elections, keep your checkbook handy, because the Democrats will be after your bank balance.
Posted by: GRA on November 9, 2006 03:36 PMThe WEA mailing was devastaing to the chances for Stephen Johnson. It was a complete hack job that anybody who who didn't know how to vote for a Supreme Court member would have instantly sided with Owens and that opinion would not have been changed.
If the Republicans or moderate Judges want to win elections in a state with mostly vote by mail, they will have to play the Democrats' game by using their inside knowledge on just when to pester the voters as they get their ballots.
The WEA just has to lose this Supreme Court decision, we can't have that group that has already bought the legislature, now use it's excess funds to buy the judiciary - just ridiculous.
Posted by: Doug on November 9, 2006 05:03 PM2 - Owens lied unabashedly about her record and partisan leanings, with a large and well-funded camaign.
3 - Johnson did not explain - in specifics - to the voters why Owens shouln't get re-elected. I never heard his campaign make the connection between the State Supreme Court and the state government's contempt of popular will (emergency spending on a baseball satdium, striking down car tabs, etc.). I knew these things, but did the average moderate Democrate voter? Or did they just hear one party's nominee saying the other party's nominee was generically no good? I think the latter.
Issue-based elections do work, if you have the right issues and you articulate them clearly. If you're running against high taxes and oppressive government, I think you can win, even in Blue WA. But if you're just running as the generic Republican against the generic Democrat, you're a gonner.
Posted by: John Hawkins on November 9, 2006 06:35 PMWhat I heard repeated around eastern Washington were Johnson's comments to the 10-year olds about how hard it is to work with Democrats and wanting to get rid of Democrats. That doesn't play well, even before a Republican crowd because it demonstrates lack of judicial temperment. In other words, you can want that, but you can't say it and be considered judicial material. As a result, I don't think anyone gave him a serious chance to say what he had to say, nor really care what Owens record was.
Posted by: sowinso on November 9, 2006 07:42 PM