Here's the ad everybody's talking about:

Taking the Seattle Times at its word that this is an experiment to prove that political newspaper ads work, my only reaction is: Wow, that one's not going to.

Rather than providing an example of how campaigns should spend their money, I'd say this slap-dash ad is a lesson in how not to spend your money.

The Times' report with the Public Disclosure Commission does not list an expenditure for a design consultant; the PDC tells me the Times did it in-house.

Get a consultant next time.

Sorry you have to squint your eyes to read the copy in the photo. The ad cheers McKenna for being bipartisan by getting 45 "bipartisan" bills through the legislature.

The Seattle Times should do a Truth Needle column (we're looking into it ourselves) to check A) that McKenna, indeed, successfully brokered 45 bills; B) detail the substance of the bills and C) identify the co-sponsors. 

More importantly, "bipartisan" is a slippery phrase. And we're happy to "Truth Needle" that.

Our PubliCola Fizz-O-Meter on the Seattle Times' claim that McKenna will cut partisan gridlock: Flat.

By McKenna's own definition of bipartisan ... maybe. Remember, McKenna's office praised the hostile Republican budget coup as a bipartisan deal. (It was, indeed, a badass move—I applauded the moxie of it at the time myself. And it was certainly more "bipartisan" than the competing Democratic propsal, which had zero Republican votes.)

But calling it bipartisan is a stretch; two conservative Democrats (one a former Republican) along with one Democrat (who always votes with the Republicans) gave Republican budget writer Sen. Joe Zarelli's (R-18) the numbers to override the committee process. 

One of McKenna's most recent pushes (it did come with one Democratic co-sponsor—hyper-conservative Rep. Chris Hurst—in Olympia was a failed anti-gang bill that Democrats killed becuase of civil liberties concerns.

Calling McKenna bipartisan is a questionable claim: He took up a Tea Party cause and sued the Obama administration to throw out Obamacare without consulting the Democratic leadership in Olympia, including Governor Chris Gregoire; his stump speech includes a call for more cuts in unemployment insurance even though the legislature already passed major bipartisan legislation that rejected demands from Republicans to push further; he wants to open up our state-run workers' comp system to private insurers, a right-wing agenda item that went down in flames at the polls in 2010.

More? In 2010, McKenna threw his support behind Steve O'Ban—the lawyer who's suing to overturn the state rule mandating that pharmacies provide emergency contraception—in a run for the state house. He was dismissed from the Sound Transit Board for trying to stop light rail. He's against gay marriage. And he wants to "harmonize" state environmental laws with federal laws, which would result in scaling back our state's environmental protections.

Our PubliCola Fizz-O-Meter on the Seattle Times' claim that McKenna will cut partisanship: Flat.