Maria Cantwell

Presidents have (very) occassionaly favored Washingtonians with prominent appointments. Our senators' replies to whether they wanted to be vice president led us to look into other Washingtonians in presidential administrations.

Don't expect Washington's U.S. senators to be a presidential runningmate. In a survey of the U.S. Senate's membership not already running for president on whether they'd accept an offer to be vice president, The Hill newspaper found a variety of responses to the veepstakes question. Some were accompanied by laughs, others took the question seriously.

So, how did Democrats Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray respond?

Washington's superdelegate count stands at five for Obama, five for Clinton and seven undecided. State Republican deciders may know something the Democrats don't know, since they've been campaigning against Obama, without a single mention on Clinton in recent letters. The Republican decidee is coming to town, and you can meet him for dinner for only $33,100.

We like to complain about gas prices. We also like to drive. On Earth Day Eve, we ought to recognize both that gas prices will continue to go up, and that we will continue to drive just as much as before.

By bringing environmentalists into the reality-based community, we can help them refocus their goals to support better-engineered cars that burn cleaner fuels.  read more »

Washington's two U.S. Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, have followed the lead of their stateside Democratic colleagues by calling on the NBA to postpone a vote on whether or not the Seattle Sonics are allowed to move to Oklahoma City at Friday's NBA owner's meeting.

$268,294,892: That’s total value of the 269 pork barrel projects secured from the federal government by Washington’s Congressional delegation, according to the 2008 Pig Book.

It's a small number compared to the $17.2 billion national total that Citizens Against Government Waste found in FY 2008’s 12 appropriation bills.

With $41.48 of pork per capita, Washington ranks 25th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Three days after making statements to The Columbian's editorial board that were construed by many to mean that she would be switching her superdelegate vote to Barack Obama in June, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Seattle) tempered her words today in Spokane.

Rep. Adam Smith, an Obama endorser (and one who made the decision based on both his conscience and his constituents - something Senator Cantwell ought to note) takes on Hillary's dubious memories of sniper fire in Bosnia on Hardball. Ever accurate, Smith contends that "dishonesty is not something we're looking for in a presidential candidate."

The Columbian is reporting that, in an interview with their editorial board, Senator Maria Cantwell has decided to cast her superdelegate vote for the leader in pledged delegates at the Democratic National Convention.

The presentation of a $5M WIRED grant to the Pacific Mountain Workforce Consortium, a group comprised of businesses, unions and governments in Thurston, Mason, Lewis, Grays Harbor and Pacific counties brought a high profile set of politicians to Tumwater today reports The Olympian.  read more »