Elf Sternberg

Omaha dragged the family (just kidding, we all went voluntarily) to a rainy picnic at Angle Lake, where Karen Kieser, Democratic incumbent candidate for the Senate seat from the 33rd district, held her opening announcement that she was running for another term. It was the usual rah-rah kind of stuff, and we were accompanied by the usual local political types from other politicians and local leaders.

This being the Democratic forum, we had more veterans than usually show up at the Republican equivalents. There was the usual smattering of union types. We had a few business leaders, too, which surprises me more than it should, I guess. A local charity gave Karen its endorsement, as did the current King County executive, Dow Constantine.

Dow's been assailed from all sides ever since getting elected. I guess that's one of those career decisions all politicians have to make, to either go for the next rung of the ladder or decide your time is past. (Psst, Dino, your time is long past.) But Dow's path required him to make a bid for the county executive at a time when that job was going to be utterly thankless, and even I have strong disagreements that Rossi didn't negotiate hard enough for salary and vendor concessions before giving in and trying to raise taxes.

There were others there, including our legislators from our district, Tina Orwall and Dave Upthegrove. All in all, it was a pretty ordinary kickeff event for a state-level politician. It's surprising how small these are compared to, say, county executive level positions. You wouldn't think those mattered as much, but apparently executive battles are positively ferocious compared to legislator positions.

The food was adequate, but given these were Democrats there were a lot of veggie-burgers.

The wife is cool too, especially when she totally pwns someone talking out of his sphincter about her industry.

Geez, sweetheart, his response to you completely, utterly missed your point.