Dear Group,
Ballots are due just three weeks from tomorrow, November 6. We’re on the home stretch. McMorris Rodgers is already back in eastern Washington, desperate to keep her seat in Congress. She’ll be here for the duration, no time for relaxation in sunny San Diego.
She will use every trick in the book. She will flash her standard smile to mask her anger at pointed questions. She will trot out as character witnesses people her staff has individually helped with the 1.3 million of our tax dollars she receives each year and uses for the purpose (read Members Representational Allowance). She will use the “deference to the incumbent” (that the Spokesman says is proper and traditional) to get first billing in everything they publish and free coverage that touts small meetings as examples of supposed constituent engagement.
McMorris Rodgers has already used her leverage as the incumbent to specify favorable ground for the”debates.” She carefully sidestepped invitations to debates on college campuses and even the League of Women Voters, the traditional sponsors. Instead, consider the turf she approved: turf with a business lean. Greater Spokane, Inc. (GSI) is the sponsor of this Wednesday’s debate. “Greater Spokane” sounds really upbeat and inclusive. GSI does some great things for some Spokanites, but it is not exactly neutral ground. GSI formed in 2007 when the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce merged with the Spokane Area Economic Development Council. It was a timely rebranding. “Greater Spokane” is warm and fuzzy. “Chamber of Commerce” sounds a little too much like business, the audience of the Powell Memorandum I wrote about last Friday.
Like GSI, The Rotary Club of Spokane #21, the sponsor of the Thursday, October 18, noon debate, does some laudable community work, but it also is hardly neutral ground. The Rotary debate will be held in the Georgian Room of the Spokane Club. It is a “private event by invitation only.”. Questions are submitted in advance and only by Rotary 21 members. In Walla Walla next week Wednesday, October 24, the slant is front and center: the Walla Walla Chamber of Commerce is the sponsor.
That McMorris Rodgers deigns to debate four times in the lead up to the election shows more courage than usual, but her refusal to debate in front of the League of Women Voters, on college campuses, and groups representing people of color speaks volumes about her constituency and her fears.
McMorris Rodgers, with her excitement over the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is committed to “trickle down” economics, enrich the rich and some will slide through the cracks to the commoners. With her selective acceptance of debate turf she also subscribes to “trickle down” politics, speak to business interests and the benefits somehow will dribble down to the worker bees.
Watch for a slew of attack ads nearer the time ballots are mailed, October 19th, attack ads bankrolled by her corporate sponsors, ads carefully constructed by Republican word-meisters to light up negative mind-frames among the brainwashed, attack ads injecting doubt and fear.
Discouragement with voting is a Republican weapon. “Polls” will be released suggesting there is no point in voting, the result is a foregone conclusion in favor of the incumbent. “We are the Borg, resistance is futile.”
There will be exhortations to vote from evangelical pulpits in the last weeks, while many mainline Christian pastors will shy away from exhortation for fear of losing their non-profit status or offending some of their parishioners.
McMorris Rodgers lacks one thing: an army of dedicated, unpaid, intelligent volunteers willing to go out, knock on doors and sincerely discuss with discouraged and disconnected voters why this election is important, to explain why McMorris Rodgers sounds so desperate, how she has drunk gallons of the Republican/Libertarian Kool-Aid and lost touch with needs of her constituents, to explain after fourteen years of Cathy “Ignores-us” Rodgers it is time to apply the electoral term limit CMR herself says she endorses (as better than statutory term limits).
Join the volunteer army of door-knockers. Major change does not happen by accident. We have lived with fourteen years of non-representation by a Republican/Libertarian ideologue who rode into office on the coattails of a man (George Nethercutt) who won by only 4000 votes (out of more than two hundred thousand cast) in 1994. It is high time to flip the dynasty of incumbency those 4000 votes created. This will only happen if we put our shoulders to the wheel…
Join the volunteer army, Don’t wake up November 7 wishing you had done more. Go to Lisa’s Events Page or check out wa-democrats.org. Adopt a candidate. Get involved.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. Right after I wrote this one of my predictions was verified. A Republican operative was on KPBX, suggesting the election was a done deal. On what did he base his prediction? “She [CMR] won the primaries by 8% even with an historic primary turnout of Democrats.” He did NOT add that less than half of registered voters cast a ballot in the primaries, a convenient…and glaring…omission. This is right out of the Republican playbook of discouragement. “Don’t bother to vote. The result is fore-ordained. Resistance is futile.” I hope to rub his nose in his prediction after the election. To be fair, the broadcast began with a different suggestion from another talking head: “The election will be so close it may involve a recount.” The truth? We will only know some time after November 6th.