McCranium.org

New Blog On “The Other Side” Gets Press

Imagine you are looking at a 6000 foot tall Donkey living in Central Washington peering over the Cascade Curtain.  Well… I imagine that every day.  But now a new blog called ”The Other Side” joins me as the more left leaning progressive online presence grows for us here on the proverbial ”other side”.  And they get press too!  The Yakima Herald’s Leah Beth Ward took notice.

A donkey peers east across the Cascades on the blog’s home page, an apparent reference to what Democrats hope will be a rising tide of activism on this side of the mountains. It’s no secret that while Democrats may have ruled in these parts back in the days of FDR, Republicans now have a pretty solid grip on the electorate.

But donkeys never say die.

“Deflate the talk radio wind bags. Denounce the war. Zing the right wing spin. Ask politically incorrect questions,” proclaims a news release announcing the blog from Paul George, longtime activist and chairman of the Yakima County Democratic Central Committee.

This is good news for what has been an up and down ride for blogs on the east side of the Cascades.  We have had some promising starts and some disappointing finishes for blogs in these parts but this one looks like it has some steam behind it.  And getting press this early in the game doesn’t hurt and another sign that progressive politics, with the deep roots it has east of the Cascades, will again take hold.  And their most recent post shows they aren’t about to pull any punches.

Rep. Mary Skinner (R-Yakima) passed a bill (HB 1279) out of the House this week that would require the state to pay a poet $30,000 each year.

Could you imagine if the Democrats did that? We will remember this bill when the GOP gets angry about all the “frivolous spending” by the Democrats on things like making sure kids have health care or improving our public schools….

You see, the progressive left is not just for the so called latte sipping urbanite neighbors to the west, and who are so frequently villainized by east side republicans.  This was made clear when the underfunded, no-name candidate in Washington’s 4th CD, Richard Wright, put up better numbers than a much better funded candidate in 04.  There is a change taking place and in some strange sense, bloggers east of the cascade range may very well be the catalyst.