I can’t help but notice the deafening silence regarding Congressman Reichert’s re-election in your “Our Corner” column (Courier-Herald, Nov. 10) or in election-related articles in your November 10 issue.
Can you please explain to me how he can be declared the winner at 8:20 p.m. election night when other issues on the same ballot drag on for three to four days? On a related note, the fire department annexation was going down by 58 percent on election night, but I digress.
I have no choice but to live with the election results, but I strongly believe that political mischief and chicanery were involved in Mr. Reichert’s re-election and that it is somehow related to the redistricting process. I know that this seems convoluted, but try to follow:
As a result of the 2010 census, Washington will gain a 10th Congressional district. District boundaries are drawn by a commission, member affiliation determined by party affiliation of members of Congress. A 5-4 split in favor of Democrats is the result of this election. Mr. Reichert’s records shows that he crosses party lines on many key issues, primarily of an environmental nature.
To his minor credit, he seemed to run his campaign as an Independent. I was amused to see him try to straddle both sides of health care. KING 5 news showed him at a Democratic Party precinct committee officers’ pancake breakfast meeting at about the time that Nancy Pelosi was visiting the Microsoft compound where Ms. DelBene works. I suspect that Mr. Reichert’s re-election was engineered on condition that he crosses party lines on upcoming issues in order that more mischievous resources could be employed in the 2nd District race, where more county election departments had to be coordinated in assuring the desired results.
We’re stuck with Mr. Reichert for the moment. The current 8th District has been in Republican hands since its creation following the 1990 census. I think we have to start lobbying to become part of the new 10th District, sending Mr. Reichert to the Bellevue-Mercer Island end of his current district, where he can either fly his true colors or be thrown out next time.
Chris Vance, former State GOP chairman and self professed political wise man, recommended Mr. Reichert, Doc Hastings or Cathy McMorris-Rogers as 2012 U.S. Senate candidates in a recent interview with Robert Mak of KING 5 News. All I can say at this point is “you’ve got to be kidding.” I think that this would only result in the loss of a Republican Congress seat. So much for conventional wisdom. I suggest either John Koster or Clint Didier to run against Cantwell. Sloganeers could have a ball with those names: “Koster her Senate seat” or you know what they could do to her with Didier.
Meanwhile, if your readers are owner/operators or day laborers or sole proprietors like me who rely on the milk, meat and manure, the dozer, drill and dynamite, or the log skidder and sawmill factions of the Republican Party for their livelihood, they’ll hound Mr. Reichert unmercifully to stay on his side of the aisle and lobby to become part of the new 10th District where we can elect an actual Republican.
Edward D. Neil
Enumclaw
