It may be where I'm located. Seattle. Eastern Washington is pretty conservative and there are a few small pockets of rabid Republicans east of Lake Washington (parts of Woodinville and Redmond), but most of Western Washington where I live is pretty liberal/progressive. After all, we elected Jim McDermott to the House of Representatives by about 85% of the vote (he's a long-time royal pain in the ass to the Bush administration) and went whole-hog for Senator Patty Murray, whose opposition to the Iraq war got her dubbed "Taliban Patty" by the Republicans. Senator Maria Cantwell got a rocky start in her first term, but has recently got her act together. Powerful advocate of energy independence and protecting the environment. And Representative Jay Inslee of the 1st Congressional District (check "Legislative Issues" on left) is no slouch either. All four are Democrats. I don't think anyone who voted for Bush would have voted for any of these folks. In fact, Washington is a "blue" state (predominantly Democratic).

Yeah, about 50%, (plus or minus a razor-thin margin of questionable [suspicious] votes) of the American electorate is to blame for the snake's nest in Washington, D.C., but it's not really fair to blame the entire electorate for that, considering the vociferousness of the opposition.

Don Firth