The victory of former state Sen. Ellen Craswell in last week's Republican primary for Governor was extremely good news for the citizens of Washington.

Craswell is a near certain, um, lock to lose the general election. Not that her opponent, King County exec Gary Locke, is someone to put faith in. His elevation to Visionary Leader by the media and business parasites who will be seeking favors from him for the next four years comes after a rather undistinguished career as a liberal who "gets things done" (i.e., actively seeks the middle ground between the public good and unfettered greed). But Craswell's well-earned reputation as a bigoted fanatic whose ideas of good government would resonate in Tehran will terrify virtually everyone not already in her camp - which, last Tuesday, was about 85% of primary voters.

The real impact of Craswell's presence in the most visible statewide race, however, will be its impact on other races. In several lower-profile state races, extremely destructive people are running who stand a better chance of winning than Craswell. The attention her views will draw, whether she can win or not, will make it harder for others to avoid the attention, and alarm, they deserve. The most notable:

Ron Taber will face Teresa Bergeson for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Bergeson is favored, but her past career as an NEA head will be used against her. (A teacher! Eeeek!) Taber, whose platform is essentially to dismantle public education through vouchers, gets uglier as he gets more familiar. His remark early in the campaign (while opposing bilingual education) that Spanish was the language of doormen and fruit pickers would be tragicomic if it weren't so widely believed. (Note to Ron and others: Over half the population of the Western Hemisphere speaks Spanish. Get over it.) His advocacy of caning in the schools, and public funding of (conservative) Christian education, deserve a lot more attention. Taber is a menace to children.

In the race for Insurance Commissioner, incumbent Deborah Senn postures as a champion of consumer rights. She is, in fact, much less of an advocate than she claims to be, and that ought to be an issue since watchdogging the insurance industry is the definition of the job. But she, and what's left of our state's health care reform, has still pissed off insurance companies so much that they are pouring truly massive amounts of money into defeating her. Their paid candidate, Anthony Lowe, would take away your only recourse should you become ill and some enormous company decides that your body does not represent a lucrative enough profit center. Beyond urging Canada to invade, our best bet is to make sure Lowe loses.

Locally, based on primary results, there's an excellent chance that property rights wingnut Jeanette Burrage could lose her King County Superior Court seat. Judicial elections cause most peoples' eyes to glaze, in large part because only people who hang out in courtrooms have much of an idea what these people actually do. But Burrage is a particularly notorious case of how ideology can be used to extract maximum damage from the judicial system; her opponent, Doug North, needs support.

Craswell's emergence may even help further damage the state's six freshmen Gingroids running for Congressional reelection. Most showed themselves vulnerable in the primary, including the presumed-invincible Linda Smith. Particularly heartening was the primary loss (it'll rerun in November) of South County's Randy Tate, a snot-nosed little creep whose arrogance cannot be explained by either wealth or intelligence. Tate's accidental election two years ago may forever be used as an argument against allowing people under age 30 to hold office, and for that alone he should be retired (to 40 years as a successful lobbyist, no doubt) ASAP.

In addition to being valuable for the political issues at stake, the defeat of people like Tate, Taber, Craswell, and some of the Christian Coalition loonies infesting Olympia's legislature would be a huge relief for many Christians. As with any faith, Christianity's adherents are mostly decent folks spanning the usual range of humanity. Intolerant zealots in office endanger everyone, Christians included, and give faith a bad name.

It's a sad measure of even our local elections that the best we can hope for again this year is to block the election of the unusually vicious. In a genuinely representative system, people would regularly have a chance to vote for someone who reflects their interests and needs. There is nobody, in any of these races, with a meaningful chance of winning who is not at least well-off and is not being financed primarily by the very wealthy. Even simple reforms--like meaningful campaign finance laws or proportional representation--are complex enough to bore people to tears. But if we're ever going to get beyond trying to protect ourselves from a few of the very worst politicians, and on to the real business of creating the society we WANT, we hafta start learning this stuff.

In that regard, progressive activists would do well to look at the structure of the Craswell campaign. A so-called "fringe" candidate defeated far better-financed opponents by sheer street level organizing; every city, town, hamlet and cow pasture in the state this year has had someone delivering the Craswell message. If, as progressives like to believe, we've got better answers than the Craswells of the world for peoples' fears, needs and desires, we should look closely at how she got her message publicized to so many.