Local Politics - Senator (R)

Now the flip side. Just as the Dems had their anointed one and four minor challengers, so too does the GOP have its chosen fair-haired child and five folk fighting for attention. Here's their stories, from the Voter's Pamphlet:

On Mike McGavick there is much to say, and there will be the opportunity to say it, as like Cantwell, he's the one that has the support of his party's apparatus. He was sought out by his party heads, looking for someone to cross swords with the incumbent, who was only a first-termer and should be at her most vulnerable. But right now his campaign is dealing with the self-inflicted firestorm that came about when he decided to come clean on his sins (including a DUI arrest) but sort of shaded the details of said arrest, hoping that everyone would applaud his candor and not check out the facts of the matter (bad news - they did). But for the moment, let's take a look at his bit in the Voter's Guide.

McGavick has taken a novel approach in his profile - he's running against the Senate. Against the GOP-controlled Senate. It is bickering, gridlocked, do-nothing, glory-hogging, spending like there's no tomorrow, not doing enough to protect us from terrorists, and partisan. His solution? Add another Republican. Yeah, that will sort things out - in Bizarro World. I mean, most of these comments are intended, in a very civil way, to reflect on the Democratic incumbent, since she is part of the organization, but most of this bunch of do-nothings are GOP, and are still going to be there if you get in. You got a plan to deal with your fellow do-nothings once you get there, or are you planning on just getting rolled and voting the party line?

Yet, McGavick has the second-best profile of the lot. Compare him with the versatile Brad Klippert (minister, paramed, National Guard pilot, law enforcement officer) who starts off with evoking 1776 and ends up invoking 9/11, asking his supporters to "Like the five brave men on flight 93, join me now as I stand up and step forward to make a positive difference". Yep, it's time to charge the cockpit, metaphorically speaking. Between the two points he hits every conservative buzzphrase in a greatest-hits collection and even quotes Martin Luther King. Impressive, I tell you.

Scarier still is William Edward Chovil, who starts out with the admission that if you want to, you can vote for the Democratic Communists, and then works himself into a fine NWO-style rant. His tag line? "If you believe America can do better with more National and Global Communism and Socialism and less Americanism I can't help you." I'm surprised he doesn't just tell you to go pound sand. It has all the fresh pungency of a 1949 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.

Gorden Allen Pross, surprisingly, tops Chovil with an incoherent explanation of our tax system, using not on just pennies, but "redheaded Lincoln pennies" to make his point. I'm not sure what he's saying - it reads like Bill Boroughs in the depths of an ether binge, but I think the thrust of it is that the rich have too much money, so we should cut taxes on them.

In comparison, Warren E. Hanson shows a return to something that resembles coherency. He apparently is another long-term candidate, running on immigration issues (meaning: America for the Europeans), but also wandering into territories like lobbyist reform, term limits (I'm assuming for Senators), campaign expenditures and congressional franking. And he, like Mike the Mover, is angry at Victoria's lack of waste treatment. Maybe he and Mike would like to team up against Ted Stevens.

And finally, B. Barry Massoudi, who is . . . sane. No, I'm not kidding. A civil engineer and planning commissioner on Mercer island (here's his site). Massoudi is talking about actual conservative values, like fiscal responsibility and planning for the future. I'd like to say I have some snarky comment on his profile, but it has the combination of patriotism (appreciative, not rabid) and policy wonkiness that I can actually admire. He's a wonk. A genuine, intelligent, GOP wonk. I thought they went extinct in the 80s with John Anderson.

OK, no endorsements, but I will call it for McGavick, with the hope that Massoudi, like Tran, will garner enough of the vote to make the people running the party pay attention.

More later,