Adele Ferguson - Nov. 17, 2011

ACTUALLY, I was a little surprised that Initiative 1183, moving liquor sales from state operated stores to grocery stores, passed as hugely as it did.

I thought our side – I opposed it – of firemen, doctors and nurses would be influential in convincing voters this would expand the availability and use of alcohol but there’s an old axiom in politics about looking to where the money is, and Costco’s $22 million spent on the campaign to pass it certainly had to help.

However, the money Bellevue millionaire developer Kemper Freeman put into Tim Eyman’s campaign to pass I-1125 returning the responsibility for approving tolls to the Legislature instead of an appointed commission didn’t have the same results. Notice I said responsibility, not power or authority the way TV ads portrayed it.

I pay attention to who and what supporters and opponents are for ballot measures and normally I might be swayed or impressed by two of my oldest friends in politics, former governor, senator and college president Dan Evans and former state highway director Sid Morrison, who were on TV frequently bashing I-1125 as about to hold up jillions of dollars in projects if it passed.

BUT I KEPT in mind that they and many others who spoke against it were bureaucrats who depend on tolls and taxes to do their jobs and would be opposed to anything that makes it harder to squeeze the money out of their constituents.

To return to the money, obviously the voters weren’t impressed by the arguments against I-1163 , increasing the training for long term care workers, that it may be a worthy idea, may, mind you, but we simply can’t afford it. It passed anyway and lawmakers looking for ways to fill a $2 billion hole in the budget now have to pick up an additional $32 million in the next two years just to deal with I-1163.

The two Senate Joint Resolutions on the ballot passed as expected even though some people I talked to said they didn’t understand either one.

Now, let me give you a report on the election day luncheon I attend along with a couple of dozen political junkies from both parties. These include current and former legislators, state, county and city officials and a few businessmen.

We have ballots and we vote according to how we think it will go, not the way we voted or would like it to go. Totals differ because some people skip some races or issues for some reason or other.

ON THE MATTER of the initiatives, we guessed right on all three plus the SJRS. We also voted on some other things, such as who we think will be the Republican nominee for president. Mitt Romney got 17 votes, Newt Gingrich got 2 and Jon Huntsman got 1. Left at the post were Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and none of the above won. I really thought none of the above would win.

We voted wrong on whether the Ohio law limiting collective bargaining would be repealed which it was.

We voted on the 2012 governor’s race, giving Republican Rob McKenna 13 to Democrat Jay Inslee’s 1. Funny so many skipped this one.

Our final choices were the top of the heap. We voted, 11 to 8 that a Democrat would win the presidency next year, 12 to 7 that Democrats would retain control of the Senate and 16 to 4 that Republicans would retain the House.

I’ll remind you of this next year if I’m still around and you are too.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)