It’s campaign mailer season, and as usual, hilarity ensues! But I’m particularly amused by the Washington State Republican Party’s strategy this year of running against itself.
First there was the state Senate Republican Campaign Committee’s bizarrely unselfconscious mailer accusing Democratic challenger Matt Isenhower of being a closet Republican who is “willing to say anything to get elected. Just like his mentors: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.” I know—weird, right? And now there is this mailer lauding Republican Mark Miloscia for “[standing] up to the party bosses and the out-of-touch politicians”—a mailer entirely paid for by… wait for it… the Washington State Republican Party!
Of course, what the WSRP is really congratulating Miloscia for is standing up to the other party’s bosses by, you know, switching parties. But this overt attack on “party bosses” by (literally) party bosses, would be kinda like McDonald’s urging Burger King customers to avoid eating artery-clogging, salt-laden, E. coli-ridden burgers. Hard to imagine that’s good for business in the long term.
Again, the Republican Party appears to have a branding problem when its best campaign strategy is to run against itself.
<em<Again, the Republican Party appears to have a branding problem when its best campaign strategy is to run against itself.
Did anyone get any pics of Udall standing next to Obama when the Prez was in Denver a couple of weeks ago? In an election year that was a major photo-op, after all. Who wouldn’t want to be branded with their party’s leader?
I wrote in the name of an attorney friend of mine for King County Prosecutor. No Republican Party candidate will EVER get my vote of ANYTHING.
(I should have written in your name, Rabbit. You’d be a fine prosecutor!)
@2 Mrs. Rabbit wanted to do that, too, but I’m a capitalist now and don’t have to do useful work anymore.
Running as a Democrat and switching to the GOP after getting elected seems to be the GOP strategy now. Keep an eye on Chris Eggen in the 32nd District state senate race, who’s trying to knock out Sen. Maralyn Chase, a good progressive fighter. He might be another one of those trojan horses.
Rujax @ 2,
I wrote in Richard Pope.
Bill Finkbeiner sent the same flier after he switchcd parties.
Is it just me? Or does this story sound like Mad Cow Disease?
Miloscia’s campaign for State Auditor two years ago included a proposal to make all state agencies compete for the Baldridge Award, a program which he is personally involved with, but his opponents detracted as being an exercise without value. Bloated? check. Untested? check.
I really have to wonder what Miloscia’s new puppeteers — and party base — would think about his old statewide living wage proposal, or his sin tax on pornography, or his proposal to put everyone’s DNA in a government database, or his proclamation that “the only way to rebuild the middle class is to bring back the unions.” He claims he is going to vote “the same way I would have voted before” on everything. Wonder how the TPers keeping his new party afloat would think of that in light of his actual votes and proposed bills.