THE NEW REPUBLICANS | The Stranger

[Ediacara]

THE NEW REPUBLICANS
After Years of Getting Trounced, Washington State Republicans Develop Smart Game Plan

by Sandeep Kaushik

The Washington State economy is in the toilet. The incumbent Democratic governor isn't running for reelection, and the gaggle of circling Democratic wannabes appear to be headed into a brutal primary battle. Polling shows that the state's senior Democratic senator, Patty Murray, may be vulnerable in 2004. The current Republican president is broadly popular. For these reasons, the Mayberry Machiavellis in the vaunted White House political operation smell blood and are targeting Washington State for big Republican electoral gains.

And that's not the good news, crows Republican Party state chair Chris Vance. The good news, he says during an interview in the party's suburban Southcenter offices, is that the Washington Republicans, after a long string of statewide campaigns in which they got their asses handed to them on a plate, finally have their act together.

The 41-year-old Vance is a paid partisan and a master of political spin. He may well be the most quotable guy in Washington State politics. After a recent area appearance by Democratic presiden- tial candidate John Edwards, Vance dissed the North Carolina senator as "a phony, a hypocrite, and a political flash in the pan." Still, Vance's vision of a kinder, gentler Washington Republican Party--one that is disciplined, organized, and unified behind candidates with potential salability to centrist suburban voters, particularly women--may finally be coming to fruition.

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Vance, as usual, is just making it up as he goes along. Methinks that the Washington Republicans will, once again, get their collective ass handed to them on a plate.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

1. Rove will be involved - it is going to be a really tough fight

with no holds barred.

They are going to stop at nothing. Corruption, accusations, dirty tricks.

[gottaB]

2. Methinks youthinks right

I saw some smear against Murray basically alleging that she was a terrorist and traitor because of some statement she made to school kids about the need to understand anti-Americanism in the Middle East. The political potency of this kind of hateful speech was already wearing itself out. Now, as Iraq sinks into quagmire, and we're no more secure than we were two years ago, this kind of smear sounds worse than ugly--it's just stupid. It's patently stupid and bad for the nation.

If the Republicans knew what was good for them, they'd run away from this kind of idiocy as fast as their pachyderm legs could carry them. Of course they won't. As the election heats up, they'll go negative with everything they've got, and look like fools. Those centrist suburban women will not like that one bit, and the kinder, gentler, compassionater, eh, more comapassionately conservativelyism will be exposed for the fraud that it is.

It won't matter if their nominee isn't a kook. They can't turn off the kooks, and it doesn't take an Einstein to connect the dots.

On edit: Typo

[whirlygigspin]

3. that would be terrible

get people there organised

[ThorsteinVeblen]

4. I say we accuse Nethercutt of child molestation in a push poll

And let him deal with that.

Pre emptive strike - No one can never say I didn't learn from the Bush administration.

[gottaB]

7. lol

:D

[jiacinto]

5. Murray won in 1998 with 58% of the vote

Unless she finds herself in a major scandal I don't see her losing.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

6. Murray was up against Linda Smith

who was a radical wacko. The Republicans are not going to make the same mistake twice.

Nethercutt is going to have the Rove machine behind it.

[goobergunch]

8. In many ways IMHO Nethercutt is to Smith's right (n/t)