The Primary is Coming! The Primary is Coming!

In about three weeks, on August 19th, it will be primary election day here in Washington State. After the Governor the position with the most potential to impact us is Superintendent of Public Instruction, so I thought I'd pass along some resources that I've found that can help as you study the candidates!

The six candidates are, along with their campaign websites:

• Terry Bergeson, the incumbent running for her fourth term. Her official OSPI biography can be found here.
  
• Randy Dorn, recently Executive Director of the Public School Employees Union and a former state legislator.
  
• David Blomstrom, a fan of Hugo Chavez and past candidate for the office. His website is NSFW.
  
• Enid Duncan, a city council member and small business owner from Edgewood with experience advocating for special needs students.
  
• Donald Hansler, a former teacher and writer who once put forth an initiative that would have required lawmakers to pass the WASL in order to hold office.
  
• John Patterson Blair, a supporter of school vouchers. He finished third in the race in 2004.

Richard Roesler of the Spokesman-Review did an overview of the candidates on his blog in May; there was also an article with a bit more exposition in it, here.

Over at Politicker WA you can find out information about all the candidates by clicking on their name to see what stories they've done.

TV Washington has put together a Video Voter's Guide which gives you a chance to hear from the candidates themselves; if you follow the link to "View All", you can also download the interviews as an MP3. This goes along with the state's printed voter's guide, which should be in your mailbox soon if you haven't received it already.

The OSPI race could well be decided here in the primary; if anyone gets over 50% of the vote, they win. Make your vote count!