We know that because she won that award from the Washingtonian magazine, in 2002 and 2004. (She lost out in 2006 to a trio of Republicans.)
The magazine used what I think is a reasonable way to make this award; they polled congressional staffers, anonymously.
Members of Congress work hard on creating a positive image, so we usually know little about them that they don't want us to know.
But their aides know a lot--who's smart and who's dumb, who's gutsy and who's a blowhard.
Every election year we survey top Capitol Hill staff--administrative assistants, press secretaries, legislative directors, and chiefs of committee staffs--to get the lowdown.
Not a perfect way, but a reasonable way, especially when we remember that members with no academic achievements, and low SAT scores, are unlikely to share those embarrassing facts with the public.
So aides, at least twice, said that our senior senator is not the brightest member of that body. But we didn't need those votes to know that — if we were paying attention. A careful reading of this devastating 1996 Seattle Times profile would lead you to the same conclusion. (As it happens I have an acquaintance who worked for her — and came to exactly the same conclusions that Robert Nelson did.)
Even without those awards, even without that profile, we can tell that Murray is not the brightest member of the Senate, just by listening to what she says. Although aides — and all too many "mainstream" journalists — have tried to protect her from the public, especially in recent years, she sometimes escapes her handlers, and says something silly in public. Her Osama building "day care" facilities is the most famous silly thing she has said, but it is not, by any means, the only silly thing she has said.
We should be able to make these obvious points about our senior senator, since they directly affect how she serves, or, all too often, does not serve, the public. But, in her last two elections, nearly all of our local journalists have taken the position that such facts are out of bounds. Most of them even argued in 2004 that quoting her Osama day care statement, accurately, and in context, was somehow unfair. Saving Private Murray is not always easy work, and sometimes requires our journalists to take absurd positions.
Frankly, there are other things I would rather discuss during this campaign. But I don't expect any of our local journalists to describe her weaknesses, so it will up to those of us who do not work for monopoly news organizations to inform the public, to tell them that their senior senator will never win an award as the "brainiest" senator.
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
(Apology: The Washingtonian award is the "no rocket scientist" award. I have sometimes relied on my faulty memory and said that she won the "not a rocket scientist" award.)
Posted by Jim Miller at June 30, 2010 01:12 PM | Email ThisSeriously, Jim -- is this something you frequently ask for when sizing up the quality of middle-aged adults?
Posted by: scottd on June 30, 2010 02:27 PMAnd that, in my opinion, is much more damning than anything some blogger could write.
Posted by: jimg on June 30, 2010 03:50 PMYou're kidding, right? Patty Murray as alluded to @ 1 doesn't engage in independent thinking in her senate position. In reality she receives her marching orders from the DNC and party elites and votes as she's told. So far, of the 3 traits you mentioned, laurel, Murray's batting a solid .333 percent-
She is, afterall, without a doubt a woman.
Posted by: Rick D. on June 30, 2010 04:19 PMThanks.
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on June 30, 2010 06:10 PMI hope she knows that Washington State has boundries with Mexico.
Posted by: Emiro Burb on June 30, 2010 08:08 PMGotta admit that it would be fun to be able to quiz her about the economic justification for some of her votes--to have her attempt to use economic and financial terms and buzz her for the use of lefty buzz words.
It won't happen, but it would be funny.
Posted by: scott158 on June 30, 2010 11:29 PMHow are doing with your promise to send in the additional $25,000 to the Washington State Deartment of Revenue? You don't want to be proven a liar now do you? In case you haven't noticed Chris and Company are running a little short on other peoples money since the Fed's shorted them, she could really use the money you promised.
Posted by: Smokie on July 1, 2010 06:51 AM...Palin told a crowd at a fundraiser at California State University in Stanislaus last weekend that Ronald Reagan, personal hero and inspiration, was a California college graduate. She told the cheering crowd: "This is Reagan country, and perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California's Eureka College would become so woven within and interlinked to the Golden State."
There's just one problem here: Reagan went to Eureka College in Illinois from 1928 to 1932, the Alaska Dispatch reports. He didn't move to California until five years after his graduation.
And, there is no "Eureka College" in California.
Maybe Jim can tell us what Palin's SAT scores were.
I had a similar discussion with some liberal friends of mine, and they agreed that there are politicians of both stripes that are simply unfit for their jobs. There are basic Constitutional, historical, economical, business, foreign affairs, cultural, and scientific minimums of knowledge that a politician should possess if they want to seek office.
Anyway, we had the idea that there should be a bi-partisan board that puts together an exam for people wanting to run for office. They would take the test under exam conditions and their scores would be posted, by section, for voters.
It would all be voluntary, of course, but the idea of having a variation of 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader' might have a very important appeal to voters in a much more complex world.
I'm not talking about the game show, but the idea of having some working knowledge necessary to legislate without having to rely either on staffers or on Party Leadership.
Sections could be pertinent to states and cities, for example.
I know one issue that would be less likely to rear its head - 'Church and State'. Few know that when an Englishman or German tithed to their church, it was through a tax. Germans paid their government to give to the Lutheran Church.
This was the idea of a 'national religion' that the founders wanted to avoid. They even wrote the clause in a way that states could still do what they wanted. (Maryland especially)
Anyway, an SAT like exam for politicians would be an exceedingly good thing. I shudder to think who'd be left governing in Detroit, for example.
Another useful thing about it is being able to pull up their test results and say, "We know you understand the concept, how come you can't bring yourself to usefully apply it?"
Anyway, with Frank and Dodd up there concocting the next horrible Sarbanes Oxley debacle, I'm not so sure a 'Basic Exam for Governance' would be a bad thing at all levels of government.
Posted by: RinaseaofDs on July 1, 2010 10:38 AMAs much as I agree with you, you know that dems and their good friends at the teachers unions are against any form of standardized testing.
Unless we're willing to come up with versions of the test in Spanish, Korean, Ebonics, Russian (for our more soviet inspired friends currently in the WH) and 40 other languages, plus a special verbal test version for those with ADD like our current POTS and his teleprompter, we'd never get them to agree to even discuss the idea.
Posted by: johnny on July 1, 2010 01:15 PMWhy? Were talking about an elected official currently still (dis)serving this state, not Alaska's former Governor. Why do liberals always fall back on obsessing with Palin and her family? Patty Murray's low SAT scores pale in comparison to her pathetic leadership in D.C. and is the sole reason why she's not going back for a 4th time come November. We're tired of the current crop of mental midgets running this country (and yes, Murray leads the pack in that distinction) into unsurmoutable debt while mismanaging every possible domestic and international issue put before them.
"When we took our trip to Africa and visited [Barack's] home country in Kenya, we took a public HIV test." ~ Michelle Obama in 2008
Better find out MamaObama's SAT scores too...the truth is out there.
Posted by: Rick D. on July 1, 2010 01:49 PMPosted by: laural on June 30, 2010 03:03 PM
The blogger ain't callin' her dumb.
The people who have seen her up close & in action are!
We should give them the Wonderlic test. Works for the NFL. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_Test
Posted by: Dengle on July 1, 2010 03:16 PMBesides, I'm waiting for the Leftists to dump Murray so we can have equal representation in the Senate. Right now, half our population isn't represented in the Senate, and how can we have our balanced quotas with two white women as our Senators?
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on July 1, 2010 06:57 PMTry having the GOP send better candidates than Linda Smith and George Nethercutt. (I'm sure if the former had won -- snort! -- you'd still complain about "two white women", right?)
Posted by: tensor on July 2, 2010 01:24 AMPerhaps if leftist "men" weren't such limp-wristed little weenies, they wouldn't need to elect mommy figures to represent them. But then, most of their mommies probably still tell them when to pee.
Posted by: Saltherring on July 2, 2010 06:09 AM" Right now, half our population isn't represented in the Senate, and how can we have our balanced quotas with two white women as our Senators?"
Too funny!
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on July 2, 2010 11:00 AMWhy don't we make voters in this state take this test?
Posted by: glasater on July 4, 2010 06:53 AMShe has to go and I don't care who replaces her, they could not be any more embarrassing.
Posted by: Pete in Seattle on July 4, 2010 12:56 PMHer supporters who are behind what she stands for have the underlying motto that runs 180-degrees from John F. Kennedy's famous quote;
"Don't ask what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you."