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Friday, November 13, 2009

Politics Cindi Laws

Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 10:05 AM

We didn't have room in this week's issue to name another one of the biggest losers in the 2009 election. So here she is:

Victoria Renard
Cindi Laws

In the world of campaign managers, there are winners, and there are cougars. Oh, and also cougars who lose elections. For example, Cindi Laws, the veteran campaigner in Seattle wore a leopard-print blouse on election night to the party for her losing candidate, Tom Carr. She’d also managed the campaign for mayoral candidate James Donaldson, who came in fourth place in the primary. Donaldson, a business-minded conservative by Seattle standards, never had a chance with Laws by his side—because she wasn’t even by his side. At a summer meeting of the 34th District Democrats, Donaldson was seeking the group’s endorsement. But when it was time for someone to second Donaldson’s nomination, Laws was gone. Apparently in the hallway having a little chat.

Laws has become increasingly erratic in recent years. In her bid for monorail board in 2005, she blamed Jewish people for opposing the monorail in an endorsement meeting with the King County Labor Council—an endorsement she lost, obviously. This year, Laws left her post as the manager of Pete Holmes's campaign for city attorney (which won big) to work for Carr (who lost with a bang). She campaigned for Carr by attacking Holmes for—allegedly—failing to be a practicing attorney. The accusation prompted the state bar association to issue a document showing that Holmes was indeed a practicing attorney in Washington—and had been for 24 years—thereby erasing doubts about his qualifications, but raising serious concerns about Laws’s grip on reality.

The rest of the losers—and the triumphant winners—are over HERE.

Comments (17) RSS

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C'mon Dominic -- that's excessively harsh. And your last few sentences -- the part about practicing law -- undermines your credibility. Carr's campaign had a good point about whether Holmes was "practicing law" as required. They never suggested he wasn't a actively registered as a member of the bar and the WSBA's confirmation that he is a current member did nothing to undermine Carr's point or--as you harshly say--"raise serious concerns about Law's grip on reality." I'd say your reporting lost its grip on reality.

Posted by Holmes Fan on November 13, 2009 at 10:37 AM

@1: You can't lose something you never had in the first place.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on November 13, 2009 at 10:49 AM

@ 2) I'd say someone's still feeling a little cranky about my NRA analogy a while back. You used to be so sweet; now you've got a trigger finger on that comment button.

Posted by Dominic Holden on November 13, 2009 at 10:57 AM

Yeah, funny how that works, isn't it?

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on November 13, 2009 at 11:12 AM

Glad to confirm your months of ad hominem criticisms are grounded in a irrelevant detail of an unrelated story.

Posted by Dominic Holden on November 13, 2009 at 11:49 AM

Am I the only one who initially thought that photo was of a radical breastfeeding mom whose kid had an unusually round head?

Posted by TVDinner

on November 13, 2009 at 11:57 AM

@6: Yep.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on November 13, 2009 at 12:05 PM

Such a petty article.

zzzzz, shit, who cares.

Dom, if you are going to run for office, don't hire her.

No story here.

Posted by Lady in Blue on November 13, 2009 at 12:05 PM

While I wholeheartedly agree with this commentary (and then some), I think that you are missing one more politico in this assessment:

Cathi Allen and The Connections Group.

I like Cathi, I do. But let's see how her year went - Jessie Israel? Nope. David Doud? Trounced in the primary. Larry Phillips? A boatload of cash, but ran the campaign as if we were all poll voters. In fact, her only win of the year was Tom Albro, and that may have been more because there wasn't the tint of the Connections Group work on his campaign (and those pesky Stranger and Times endorsements).

As for winners (I'm overly obsessed with campaign managers, it's true) - Kathy Nyland, Andrew Lewis, Sara Nelson and John Brumbach. Sure it helped that they had good to great candidates, but their work cannot go overlooked.

Posted by michaelp on November 13, 2009 at 12:07 PM

What I don't understand is how she keeps getting jobs... she destroys all the campaigns she touches, and her slash and burn tactics alienate her candidates from the very people that want to support them.

Posted by isitfriday on November 13, 2009 at 12:24 PM

She looks like the kind of chick who would either be giving you tips on diet and nutrition or sobbing.

Posted by baconpussy on November 13, 2009 at 1:02 PM

@9 for the glaringly obvious win.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on November 13, 2009 at 2:29 PM

Awfully personal attack, don't you think, Dominic?

Posted by Mickymse on November 13, 2009 at 2:45 PM

Up until now I wasn't sure if the word "couger" was a patriarchal way of demeaning older women who like to have sex, and/or are trying to appear attractive, but now I'm sure that it is.

At first, the word couger seemed to be used in a campy way to describe older women who liked younger men, but this use of it to demean an older woman seems to have been triggered by the mere wearing of a leopard print shirt.

Now, I don't like leopard print, and I don't give a crap about Cindi Laws's political sins, but I am annoyed that aging women are considered fair game for young men like Dominic to ridicule if they appear to be trying to look attractive.

I wonder if people like Dominic would be happier if older women like Cindy Laws would just accept that they're gross, stop trying, and then he wouldn't feel like he needed to put us in our place. On the other hand, older women who don't look like they're trying to take care of their appearance are also often targets for criticism. It's lose-lose either way for women.

The only answer, really, is for women to call bullshit on being ridiculed for aging, and for not conforming to what other people think we should look like.

The other criticisms of Cindy Laws would be more compelling without the age/gender slur.

Posted by Diana on November 13, 2009 at 3:59 PM

The couger comment was really dumb and sexist. But if we are going to go down that road perhaps we should come up with a name that suits the dated Seattle dudes who still think they are cool; something simple and regional that makes sense for the bloated unshaven aging teen look that also captures their oblivious arrogance, perhaps Bono.

Posted by curtisp on November 13, 2009 at 5:05 PM