Jay Inslee

It is two o’clock on an unusually mild December afternoon here in suburban Seattle, and I’m sitting on my back porch smoking marijuana.Passively smoking, I should add, lest I shock any reader by this lapse, but smoking nonetheless. Since 2012, when the voters of Washington State chose to decriminalize it, my part of town has been especially fragrant with the acrid smell of pot. A thick haze of the stuff lingers long in the air these quiet lockdown days.

SeattleWhen the time comes to consider the question of America’s worst governors, it seems we’re somewhat spoilt for choice. From the swivel-eyed Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan to New York’s ubiquitous Andrew Cuomo and his never-ending victory lap for having overseen just 33,000 deaths — a reported 6,692 of them in his state’s nursing homes — media posturing would seem to be the rule, and sustained periods of selfless public duty the exception. But for sheer myopic self-regard, it would be hard to top 69-year-old Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington since 2013, who barring a political earthquake is almost certain to be reelected in next month’s election.

SeattleAh, Seattle, that environmentally obsessed city where all is decorous, the sidewalks immaculately swept, the parks rigorously trimmed, proverbial for its snow-capped mountains and sparkling lakes, and now, too, for its riotous Capitol Hill residential neighborhood where free spirits roam with their feral dogs and semi-automatic weapons. Their little community survives — even flourishes — by handing out free stuff like gas masks from the back of trucks, eating lentils cooked over an open fire, and sustaining each other’s morale by peak-decibel showings of the racially-themed movie 13th. Apparently they’re in it for the long haul.

Andrew Cuomo is having the time of his life. His approval ratings are through the roof and he’s being talked about as a replacement for Joe Biden should Joe wander off somewhere without his Visiting Angel, never to be found again. Hipster merchandise featuring his face is exploding on Etsy and he’s getting a nightly hour with his own brother on CNN to chat about oh, this and that, and whatever is happening in his day at the given moment. It’s quite the arrangement!

Eric Swalwell, we hardly knew ye. And we might add that what we did know did not leave us pining for more. Swalwell, a fourth-term congressman from California, became the first candidate to drop out of the Democratic primary last month, citing his poll numbers, which were hovering around zero percent. He’ll be remembered mostly for the armory of rakes that he upended into his own face, from his Twitter push poll on banning ‘assault weapons’ that’s still recording a sizable pro-gun majority to the awkward silence that greeted his ‘I’ll be bold without the bull!’ campaign motto to his informing CNN that they might have to leave Georgia over the state’s new abortion law.