Updates: 34th Democrats – McDermott kickoff; Stone endorsed

| 34th District State House 2 | King Co. Council District 8 | West Seattle news | West Seattle politics

(video highlights added to the end of this story early Thursday)
Right now at The Hall at Fauntleroy, our area’s biggest political group, the 34th District Democrats, have just started their regular meeting, after a special event – campaign kickoff for State Sen. Joe McDermott‘s King County Council run; he thanked the crowd for their support. He and his fellow 34th District legislators, Reps. Eileen Cody and Sharon Nelson, are scheduled to provide a legislative update during the meeting; the 34th DDs also are scheduled to make one or more endorsements from among the three Democrats running for Rep. Nelson’s seat (she’s running, unopposed so far, for McDermott’s Senate seat). We’ll provide in-progress updates as news happens.

7:25 PM UPDATE: News just happened. One of the three candidates, Mike Heavey, has just withdrawn ~~from the race.~~ The room was clearly shocked – our reporter there says there was an audible gasp. 7:42 PM UPDATE: We talked to Heavey for clarification. He is **NOT** dropping out of the race – but is withdrawing from the endorsement process that’s under way at the meeting right now.

(Photo by Dina Johnson, added Wednesday)
7:47 PM UPDATE: Results of the endorsement vote – Marcee Stone (above) gets the 34th DDs’ members’ endorsement, with 65% of the 120+ votes cast, double what Joe Fitzgibbon received. PCOs are taking a separate vote. 9:04 PM: The meeting’s over. Stone also won the PCO vote, which translates to the party’s official nomination. We’ll add a bit more about the meeting later, including video highlights. 1:37 AM THURSDAY: Those highlights are here, in video shot/edited for WSB by Edgar Riebe of Captive Eye Media:

The 34th Dems made other endorsements Wednesday night, and they are all listed on the group’s home page.

CurlyQ May 12, 2010 (9:25 pm)

Yay for Marcee!

Geoffrey Mac McElroy May 12, 2010 (10:10 pm)

Congratulations to Marcee on her endorsement from the 34th District Democrats this evening. This promises to be a great race, and I am proud to have her running against me.

I wish her good luck on her campaign.

Regards,
Mac McElroy

Jody Rodgers May 12, 2010 (10:50 pm)

Congrats to Marcee Stone! I firmly believe she will do a wonderful job representing our district. We need someone with her conviction to stand up against the lobbyists in Olympia. Go Marcee!

LAintheJunction May 12, 2010 (11:34 pm)

Congratulations Marcee! She’ll be a great voice for the 34th and I’m glad she secured both the member endorsement and the official 34th DD nomination. She has a firm grasp of the issues, strong community backing, and now the support of the political establishment in the district. Go Marcee Go!

Tim Nuse May 13, 2010 (9:15 am)

Very big and well deserved congratulations to Marcee Stone. The effort put in to her campaign is very good indication of the Legislator she will be.

Change May 13, 2010 (9:16 am)

Bill Hoffman for Congress!

Tamsen Spengler May 13, 2010 (9:27 am)

Congratualations to Marcee she has demonstrated she is the most qualified candidate for this postion by staying true to her words. Actions speak louder than words. I’m proud of our district for supporting her.

Another34thPCO May 13, 2010 (9:34 am)

Big Congrats to Marcee Stone for getting the endorsement!

The 34th is lucky to have both her and Joe Fitzgibbon in this race. They’re both hard-working candidates who do a lot of good work for and in the 34th.

foy boy May 13, 2010 (9:57 am)

I’m glad that everybody is happy about the democrats that run this state. We need to keep things just the way they are, raising taxes,job losses county workers maintaining there jobs and greatbenifits, corrupt ferry system. I guess this is the norm for this state. Knowbody should complain about what is happening around here. After all we are all democrats and this is what we vote for. We must like it because we never vote to change the the statis quote.

Tim Nuse May 13, 2010 (10:05 am)

@foy boy
Please don’t confuse support for some of the best Democrats in this state with satisfaction and support for the status quo. The reason Marcee, and Joe, and Eileen, and Sharon, and Dow and other Democrats have our enthusiastic support is that they are the ones on the front lines fighting to create new jobs, improve our future by investing in education, making our communities better, safer places to live and returning the strength of our democracy to the people rather than the dollars from corporations.
And I understand your frustrations and hope you are one of those anonymous bloggers that is also out there working your tail off to make the improvements.

Change May 13, 2010 (10:14 am)

What really happened at the event?
Read here:

http://www.westseattleherald.com/2010/05/12/news/update-34th-district-dems-choose-marcee-stone-chew-out-hoffman

foy boy May 13, 2010 (5:39 pm)

Tim Nuse I guess your happy with the fact that Dow wants to raise our taxes right off the bat. It is typical to threten us with cuts in police and fire. And yet he refuses to make cuts to 17,ooo uion county workers. After all he can count on there votes. Dow won’t even consider county works to maybe pay alittle for thier health care but rather raise our taxes. And mayor mic mumbles gets 20 mil from the feds, and rather then help with the schools or fire and safty he putting in bike lanes. Brillant.

Mickymse May 14, 2010 (10:15 am)

Well, “Change,” what REALLY happened at the event is that Bill was given the same two speeches of two minutes each on behalf of a candidate nominated for endorsement as anyone else gets under the rules — including the other candidates mentioned above.
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Bill just seems to think he deserves more. Even though he doesn’t attend regular meetings of the largest Democratic organization in the legislative district he lives in, and couldn’t even do the homework to understand the Endorsement rules we use.
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Plenty of folks may support a Democrat challenging Jim McDermott. But Bill’s not off to a good start if he complains about being mistreated by the 34th District Democrats.
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Jim McDermott actually never spoke in favor of his endorsement, and no time was taken by his supporters either. And Jim McDermott didn’t chew out the Chair of our organization by e-mail beforehand, either.
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Bill should be thankful that we have rules and processes in place which allowed him to speak at all, and to be given a fair chance to earn a dual endorsement.

KBear May 14, 2010 (11:56 am)

If Bill Hoffman can’t even navigate the rules and procedures of a 34th District Democrats meeting, one must wonder how effective he would be in Congress.

Change May 14, 2010 (1:22 pm)

Micky Mouse, it’s obvious that your agenda is to throw mud on Bill Hoffman. Who’s sending you? What if it’s not that Bill Hoffman can’t navigate the rules, but that the rules were misrepresented, ambiguous and unclear, maybe deliberately? Someone appears to be really shocked that Bill Hoffman dared to present himself as a candidate to the 34th District Democrats, even though he is a Democrat, he lives in West Seattle, he grew up in West Seattle, he attended elementary and high school in West Seattle. Someone feels that, despite all of the above, Bill Hoffman is challenging “the establishment”? But this should be a democracy, right? Isn’t everyone allowed to join the political system? Creating ambiguous and unclear rules is a great way to keep people out, right?

One More 34th LD PCO May 14, 2010 (2:34 pm)

Tamsen, I am not following your reasoning. Are you suggesting that the other two candidates are not qualified because they are not true to their words? If so, what evidence do you have that they aren’t?

ivan May 15, 2010 (7:35 am)

During my four years as chairman of the 34th District Democrats, I had to deal with several candidates who challenged our incumbents. None of them had any trouble fitting into our format, until Bill Hoffman came along.
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Hoffman’s problem is that he thinks he can make up his own rules as he goes along. Our rules are neither ambiguous nor unclear. Hoffman didn’t do his homework and is attempting to shift the blame. He showed no respect for us or for our process, yet he demands that we give him a forum, on his terms. We were here first. That is just the fact.
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We’re not “trying to keep him out.” That’s ridiculous. He’s keeping himself out. He’s acting as if he is entitled to walk in off the street and tell us how to run our organization. Even the LaRouchies behave better than this.
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And this is a person who’s asking for our vote so that he might serve us? He should support search and rescue — and get lost.

Chris Porter May 16, 2010 (9:11 am)

I found that part of our meeting to be very disturbing. Not because of the demand for time or the name calling, but defending a longtime resident of West Seattle that has no clue about the political structure yet wants ton run for office. I have lived in West Seattle for over four years. In that time:
1. Figured out where the democratic meetings where being held
2. Run as a national delegate and was elected
3. Run as a PCO and was elected
4. Ran to represent to legislative district at the state level and won.
Mr. Hoffman has lived in West Seattle all of his life and could not figure out where the meetings are held that might lead to his endorsement to seek a congressional seat and now the process is unfair or biased. Perhaps I had special treatment or an inside line to help me, or did I take the time to learn the people and the process so I could get involved. I encourage Mr. Hoffman to follow suit.
Chris (Richard ) Porter

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