Nasty politics doesn’t belong here

Published 3:33 pm Thursday, October 28, 2010

I recently completed a month long, cross-country bicycle trip and came home to a desk piled with campaign mailings for the upcoming elections. Having represented the 48th Legislative District for 24 years, I know a little about campaigns.

Some of the campaign tactics represented on my desk looked more like what you would receive in the nasty western Virginia or eastern Kentucky-styled campaigns, areas that I had just ridden through, rather than the King County’s Eastside.

The worst was from incumbent state Rep. Ross Hunter’s own campaign organization. His mail piece had challenger Diane Tebelius morphing into talk show host Rush Limbaugh. There was no explanation, but the message was clear – Diane and Rush think exactly alike. That made me wonder what Rep. Hunter would think if Diane’s campaign targeted Vietnam Veterans like me with a picture of Hunter and another entertainer like say, Jane Fonda?

Hunter also said that anything in the Washington State Republican Party platform in 2006 represented Diane’s views. Never mind the fact that Diane as party chairwoman that year didn’t select the delegates to the state convention, didn’t preside over the convention, and didn’t vote on the platform.

This would be the same as holding Governor Gregoire responsible for every resolution adopted by the 2010 Legislature.

East Kentucky and western Virginia are beautiful places to bike through, but let’s keep their kind of nasty politics out of the Washington state. Ross Hunter should be ashamed.

Dan McDonald, former state Senator, 48th District