Most do, of course, but every four years, like regularly spaced sharp sticks to the eye, we get reminded of how corrupt and venal the leadership of the United States of America is. As noted elsewhere in this issue, Al Gore is awful. George W. Bush is, too. And because politicians are by nature ambitious, Bush and Gore not only follow corporate orders and make bad policy decisions, but inspire local political hacks across the country to be Just Like Them. Yuck.

What to do? Vote (or don't vote) one's conscience rather than for the lesser of two evils, which, as our recent history shows, just encourages things to get worse. And, more importantly, get out on the streets and into the community and organize. Voting by itself doesn't do a damned thing.

With that in mind, here are some recommendations for the November 7 election. The usual caveat: don't take our word for it. Do your own research, make up your own mind.

President (and, oh yeah, Vice President) Full disclosure: I am a longtime (15 years) friend of the Socialist Party candidate for President, David McReynolds. He is also a devoted ETS! reader who has, despite our ideological differences, plugged us a number of times in his own work. So I have a soft spot for his candidacy.

And it's not just friendship. Oddly, for a socialist candidate, David is the only one using his campaign to hammer away at the biggest abuses of the state: its global military hegemony and its prison-industrial complex. These are things that desperately need to be said, and David's the one saying them.

However, third party candidacies are not about getting elected or saying the right things. They're about party building and organizing for the future. Ralph Nader is not the ideal candidate (as the anarchist zine The Match points out, he once proposed a law for compulsory voting, a solution more common to third world despots than true democracies); but the Greens are far more viable than the Socialist Party, and their efforts to become a true electoral alternative should be supported. One quibble: running mate Winona LaDuke should be the Presidential candidate, not Nader. Anyone voting for Al Gore or George W. Bush should just shoot themselves. It's the same thing, really. Ralph Nader for President.

U.S. Senator: ETS! writer Rick Giombetti and I have a friendly disagreement on this one. It boils down to the lesser of two evils thing, and I ordinarily do not believe in supporting the lesser evil--in this case, Maria Cantwell, a WTO-loving Democrat who is every bit as awful as Gore. However, my publishing venture before ETS! was helping to start, in 1991, a local newspaper supporting traditional indigenous rights issues, On Indian Land. (It's still going strong: PO Box 2104, Seattle WA 98111. Pick up a copy.) And Slade Gorton has done more in his career to carry on the Indian Wars than any politician since Andrew Jackson. He is vicious, racist, powerful, and for the sake of Native Americans across the country--we're the only ones who can remove him--he must be stopped. He also happens to be an awful senator. Cantwell for Senate.

U.S. Representative, Dist. 7 Incumbent Democrat Jim McDermott is a fraud. He claims to be progressive, a hoax perpetuated by our uncritical local media; his Voters' Pamphlet statement emphasizes health care issues (on which he's done nothing for years, saving an incident of shilling for the pharmaceutical industry). There's not a word about the issue in which he's invested most of his capital recently, imposing Free Trade and IMF restrictions on sub-Saharan Africa. Joe Szwaja reports that in their Stranger endorsement interview, McDermott didn't even know what a "structural adjustment program" was. He is not only arrogant, he's ignorant. Seattle deserves better.

It's one of the safest Democratic seats in the country, and automatic re-election means the officeholder should be free to advocate for unpopular reforms--not working hard for transnational corporate control of Africa. A Democratic Party operative I talked with thought McDermott was vulnerable, and that Joe Szwaja's campaign had the potential to pull 30% or 40% of the vote. McDermott is taking the challenge very seriously, compiling an enemies' list of Szwaja supporters and refusing joint appearances. He needs to be taken down.

Szwaja is an outstanding candidate, a former Madison (Wisc.) city council member and national figure in the East Timor Action Network. He'd make a great congressman. And, even more so than with Nader, support for his candidacy helps build a genuine electoral alternative to Liberal Politics As Usual in Seattle. Szwaja for Congress.

Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Auditor, Attorney General, Commissioner of Public Lands, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Insurance Commissioner: None of our opinions have changed since September, when, under the last year of Washington's open ballot, almost all of the same people and races were on the ballot and analyzed by ETS!. In case you missed it: Gary Locke is a horror (Gov.), Brad Owen is a horror (Lt. Gov.), Christine Gregoire is a horror (Attorney General), and Terry Bergeson is unopposed (Pub. Instruction).

They're all incumbent Democrats who will easily win re-election; vote for nobody, Libertarian Ruth Bennett, nobody, and nobody, respectively.

Incumbent Dems Mike Murphy (Treasurer) and Brian Sonntag (Auditor) are OK.

Mike Lowry, who is a Democrat and might as well be an incumbent, will win as Commissioner of Public Lands; too bad he's a sexual harasser. Nobody.

Republican Sam Reed is the better choice for Secretary of State. For the open seat of Insurance Commissioner, all of the candidates want to bend over and take orders from the profit-swollen, death-generating health insurance industry. Nobody. How fucking depressing.

State Representatives: Same deal. Seattle is a one-party town, and the Democrats, no matter how bad (Eileen Cody is also an insurance industry enabler), will all get about 80-90% of the vote. With such safe seats, they could take leadership positions advocating for controversial, and desperately needed, reforms. None of them do. When will the Green Party show up?

State Supreme Court, Pos. 2: In the September primary, we endorsed Susan Owens; miraculously, she's still on the ballot. We also noted that the worst candidate was Yakima prosecutor Jeff Sullivan; he, unfortunately, is Owens' opponent. Owens.

State Supreme Court, Pos. 7 & 8: Bobbe Bridge and Gerry Alexander are unopposed. Skip.

State Supreme Court, Pos. 9: Pacific County good ol' boy attorney Jim Foley is running a populist campaign against good ol' boy Tom Chambers, who wears his State Troopers Association endorsement on his sleeve. Foley.

Court of Appeals Judge, Div. 1, Dist. 1, Pos. 4 & 7: Ronald Cox and Marlin Appelwick are unopposed. Skip.

Superior Court Judge, King County Pos. 11: This is the race where, in the primary, we endorsed Mike Finkle--because the other candidates were so bad--only to have several readers point out that Finkle works happily for resident Seattle fascist Mark Sidran. He lost in the primary, so we're back to our original bad candidates, Catherine Shaffer and Robert Bryan.

In judgeships, degrees of evil make a difference; they can add years to some unfortunate soul's prison time. Despite all her law enforcement endorsements, the lesser evil and recipient of our lukewarm endorsement is Catherine Shaffer.

King County Proposition No. 1: This is the 0.2% sales tax measure that made the ballot after the county council rejected county exec Ron Sims' proposal for 0.3% in additional sales tax to replace money lost under I-695.

Why is it that liberal Democrats in our state rely so heavily on the sales tax, the most regressive of all taxes? King County already has one of the highest sales tax rates in the country. Transit is a worthy recipient, but this is the wrong measure. In their scramble to restore lost government revenue, our elected officials invariably tax those who can afford it least, instead of the corporations who not only can afford it, but who also benefit from expenditures on transportation and public transit. I'm not becoming an anti-tax crank in my old age; I just think that corporations should be paying something like the 25% of tax revenues they paid 40 years ago. Now, it's about 7%. No.

City of Seattle Proposition No. 1: The parks levy raises property taxes to pay for a whole kitchen sink of wish list projects, under the voter- friendly heading of "parks." It includes parks, the zoo, playfields, P-Patches, property acquisitions, and so forth. These projects can't be paid for by the normal process of councilmanic bonds, because those bonds are have been used already to pay for voter-unfriendly projects: stadiums, a new City Hall, and the like. Like the transit sales tax, the recipient is worthy--but the only way elected officials will ever learn to use regular government revenues for programs that benefit the public rather than bureaucracy and pet projects is to force them. No.

City of Seattle Proposition No. 2: As Maria Tomchick pointed out in her article last issue, monorail systems are not only more efficient than light rail, but can be built as a complement to Sound Transit rather than as a mutually exclusive alternative. Since voters approved the monorail concept two years ago, Mayor Schell and the city council have tried their best to treat the successful initiative as an unwelcome advisory opinion, not a law. They were found in contempt of court, and this initiative is the result.

Whether you like a monorail or not, supporting Prop. #2 reminds our elected officials that they work for us, not vice versa. Yes.