The Seattle Times endorsed Rob McKenna. I’m not sure how much I can add to Eli Sanders and Joel Connelly‘s pieces. But it’s sort of my thing, so here goes.
WASHINGTON state is at a crossroads. The people’s selection of their next governor will set a direction toward prosperity and quality of life or constant crisis and decline. Washington will follow California — or set its own course.
The voters’ choice is clear.
It’s an important election. But California is in trouble largely because the initiative process made it near impossible to raise taxes. They’re the logical conclusion of the tax policies The Seattle Times supports. Also, seriously, what? California? Why are we talking about California? Also, too I know technically there are more than the two people, but why endorse at all now? It’s going to be Inslee and McKenna making it through to the general.
Rob McKenna, the Republican, is our state’s twice-elected attorney general. He grew up here; he went to high school and college here, and was elected student body president at the University of Washington. He knows our education system, what is good about it and what isn’t. He has spent his entire career in local and state government, having to work with Democrats as well as Republicans, and knows it inside and out.
First, what does “it” refer to in the last sentence? I think Rob McKenna’s entire career. That’s the only single noun that makes sense. If they meant “local and state government” wouldn’t The Seattle Times have said “them”? I think they’re saying we should vote for Rob McKenna because he knows Rob McKenna’s career.* Second, most of that litany is true of Jay Inslee. We should vote for someone who sent his kids to school here and grew up here as opposed to Inslee doesn’t make a lot of sense.
For the past seven years he has held the second-highest management position in the state.
Come on! The AG’s office is a perfectly reasonable stepping stone to governor. But read that sentence and tell me it doesn’t sound like resume padding. Seriously, how do you define a management position? I’d think people in the governor’s office would qualify. If it’s by order of succession, it’s a silly way to leapfrog over Lieutenant Governor. If it’s not by order of succession, there’s no reason to put it ahead of any other elected executive position. Is the AG’s office an inherently more managerish position than Treasurer or Commissioner of Public Instruction? None of the reasoning is explained as this is the rest of the paragraph:
He has a deep understanding of state issues. Ask him what should be done about state employee pension plans, environmental review of proposed coal ports, on and on, and he has a practical, detailed answer.
A practical, detailed, shit answer where the math doesn’t work.
Jay Inslee, the Democrat, is also a local product but chose a much different career. He went to Washington, D.C. For the past 13 years he has been a congressman, which is not a management position. He has the right positions on reforming the financial system, limiting the consolidation of media companies and opposing the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a stronger vision about fighting global warming than McKenna does.
Do you know of anyone in the delegation who doesn’t come back to this state just about every weekend? Who hasn’t met with countless constituents? Who hasn’t held town halls and the like? There’s more of this for a while and then.
State government’s overriding problem is not having enough money for all the things it is trying to do. The current administration has responded by cutting too much where it was politically easiest, in higher education, and too little where it was immediately painful, in employee head count and contracts with state employee unions. But this is short-term thinking. It sacrifices the future to the present. It is a strategy for Washington to slide back to the level of Mississippi.
Mississippi’s problem is that their unions are too strong? The fuck? Seriously, if you’re going to reference other states as cautionary tales, you have to know goddamn something about their problems.
The way out is education, and McKenna and Inslee both say they want to invest in it. They are right; Washington needs a world-class education system, including prekindergarten and higher education, so that the next generation can have the best possible chances in life. The question for voters is who can deliver.
They are both wrong, actually. I mean not that we need to invest in education, but that they don’t offer a way to do it. Inslee is better, but neither of them are going to raise the revenue necessary to solve these problems.
Part of the answer in the public schools is reform, including allowing more innovation. Note that McKenna supports charter schools and Inslee does not.
Neither have Washington voters whenever they’re given the chance. Charter schools could theoretically work, but in the real world they’ve failed. In the real world they’re just another way to corporate up our schools. Anyway, having asked for something that voters have regularly rejected, please demand we don’t do something the voters have regularly rejected:
Part of the answer is providing more money. Some suggest a state income tax is the answer, but that would remove one of the state’s competitive advantages, and scare away investment in technology companies. In any case, Washington’s voters have said no to an income tax.
You know what, there’s more, but I don’t have the strength.
* And yes, I’m perfectly aware that a round of Carl-makes-fun-of-your-pronoun-choice almost inevitably means there’s something worse from me in the same post. I don’t care.
Shorter ST:
Why Rob McKenna?
STFU! That’s why.
Just a guess here, but I’m betting the commissioner of public lands and the head of the DOT have more people working for them and bigger budgets. So if you’re looking management experience why not look there?
#1’s nailed it.
“He has spent his entire career in local and state government”
The Blethen Times is crowing that McKenna is a career politician; I thought Repub-“term limits”-licans were against that sort of thing?
@2 Lawyers typically are notoriously bad managers; see, e.g., the late law firms Bogle & Gates and Heller Ehrman …
I mean, really, how many U.S. Attorney Generals have gone on to become President? Only one got close, but he was shot first.
“The current administration has responded by cutting too much where it was politically easiest, in higher education, and too little where it was immediately painful, in employee head count and contracts with state employee unions.”
Ah, yes. Fire employees and tear up union contracts — you knew that was coming. Frank B.’s hatred of unions shines forth, like shafts of sunshine drilling through black storm clouds.
So my question for Frankie B. is, if we reduce state employee headcount, which state services do we give up? Services don’t deliver themselves, you know.
Fewer state troopers? Half as many snowplows on Snoqualmie Pass? Leave some of the guard towers at Walla Walla empty, or staff them only on weekdays? Cut child abuse caseworkers? Eliminate DNR’s firefighters and let state lands burn? Reduce the state supreme court from nine justices to five or even three? Fire all the liquor store clerks? — Oops, we already did that.
Betcha anything ST’s response will be to contract out more services to the private sector. Ignore the fact that saves no money and often costs more; see, e.g., post-state-liquor-store liquor prices. It’s the principle that matters.
No libertarian on the ballot. Probably have to vote for Inslee. Looks like he has had more work experience than the college student body president. Besides there is a 800 pound gorilla in the room no one is talking about. What happens to the Washington ports and economy when the newly enlarged Panama Canal opens? Anyone have an estimate of the economic impact as the east coast ports gear up to accept more freight?
@8 Probably depends on whether it’s more fuel efficient to run the container ships from China all the way through Panama to the East Coast, or to offload the containers on the West Coast and haul them the rest of the way by rail.
WOW! the crying has already begun!
Like I said before, the boo hoo’s by the HA(te) crowd will be EPIC when McKenna wins in November.
“over site”!, eh Carl!
re 10 — So will yours after 1 year of McKenna. But you’ll blame the poo-storm on the Democrat Party anyway.
@9, I once had the opportunity to ask the General Manager of Sealand when they were moving their operations from Seattle to Tacoma, if they thought about moving to the Port of Grays Harbor, it is a day shorter by sea. He said that they did, but it is a day longer by rail and truck and it is cheaper to ship by sea than rail or trucks.
So if it is still true, then cargo will be moved by ship through the canal than by rail to the east coast.
Probably why they bypass Astoria with their cargo ships and continue up the Columbia to Portland.
If being a middle manager at Microsoft is good enough experience to run for Congress, shouldn’t being AG be good enough experience to run for governor?
It seemed to be OK with the left when the AG running for governor was Gregoire, as I recall.
No one said it isn’t, bozo.
The issue is how the ST has spun his experience, and the arguments proceed from there.
Nice try, though, given your manifest limitations.
@ 15
No, but someone DID say that calling it management experience is ‘resume padding’.
@15
No, again.
Seattle Times:
Carl:
“Second-highest management position”
Like Borat’s sister, the fourth best prostitute in Kazakhstan.
“Second-highest management position”
Clawing, grasping, climbing is what that sounds like. The point of the criticism is that the ST seems to be striving to play up McKenna’s attributes, and in the process it sounds shrill and is likely inaccurate to boot.
Subtlety is not your strong suit, is it?
@ 16
Resume-padding would be, like,
oh………
Saying you were a Microsoft executive when in reality you had only risen to a point two or three levels below executive.
Saying you graduated with a degree in economics when you didn’t.
Stuff like that.
The AG has several offices, statewide. The AG is responsible for representing WA state’s legal interests on a federal level.
How many offices does the Lt. Governor have? Anyone recall the Lt. Governor stepping in and doing a whole bunch of tough shit when Gregoire was, say, in Paris selling WA as a business partner to the Europeans? I don’t.
Which executive has the tougher job:
Eric Holder, who runs all branches of the Justice Department?
Or Joe Biden, who runs his mouth but not much else?
It’s perfectly fine to criticize McKenna for what he says, or doesn’t say, about nearly any particular topic.
It’s idiotic to downplay his qualification to be governor based upon his tenure as AG.
@17 And just how well has McKenna done that job? He wasted the taxpayers’ money joining a law suit against the ACA on his own initiative, against the wishes of the governor, the legislature, and the people of this state, claiming an authority to do so that has no constitutional basis whatsoever. He also got into a pissing contest with another state official, Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark, because he refused to represent Goldmark in a legal case when he is obligated by the state constitution and the law to do so, just as Goldmark is obliged to use the attorney general as his sole legal counsel in his capacity as Lands Commissioner.
In this case, his tenure as AG is very relevant to his qualifications to be governor. Between those two actions, I see an ambitious, arrogant, power hungry man who has no respect for the law or the will of the people. Add to that the fact that the state has lost more law cases during his tenure as AG than in any other recent period, and I would say that he is also either a lousy lawyer, a lousy manager, or both.
And let’s not get started about his contempt for anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him or question him or criticize him in a public forum. There are limits to these things, but when you are a public official in a democracy, part of the job is accepting and dealing with criticism.
# 18: Yep, and he even mis-interprets the RCW provision prohibiting recording of private conversations to prohibit anyone from recording his statements before a roomfull of people where the public was allowed to attend. Since when is this a “private conversation” as contemplated in the first few words of the statute? What got me was his smug look of arrogance while he mis-intepreted the comments and then retreated to the cookie table.
I, also, would have been astounded if Blethan’s rag had not endorsed McKenna. Mckenna is a longtime Republican politician with a blue-blood Ivy-League predigree, coming from a large law firm representing big corporations before going into government work. To Blethen, McKenna is one more of his “peeps”.