During their annual Cascade Conference, on a sunny day in Leavenworth, Mainstream Republicans of Washington broke so ex-Gov. Dan Evans could lead a walk in the nearby Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area.
Evans was pushing 90, on rebuilt knees, but could still troop the back country. He was pivotal in persuading President Gerald Ford to sign legislation protecting the “land of 600 lakes” between Stevens and Snoqualmie Passes. Tales of an Evans hike into the Enchantment Lakes and a picture book Evans brought along proved persuasive at an Oval Office meeting.
Evans could also win statewide elections, which today’s MAGA Republicans have yet to do. The “Drill, baby, Drill” party of Trump denies global warming and would despoil the land — not a winning formula in the Evergreen State.
As Mainstream Republicans meet in Yakima this weekend, its ranks have suffered losses. Departed are two mainstays, Evans and five-term Secretary of State Ralph Munro. They’re sorely missed. We’re seeing a hole in the middle of the state’s political spectrum, which happens to be where much of the electorate resides. Our choices nowadays are restricted to the extremes. The state, one renowned for split ticket voting, is now polarized.
Good-government Republicans used to provide a welcome alternative to what KING-TV pundit Don McGaffin memorably described as “the sleaze wing of the Democratic Party.” Evans championed preservation of public lands and pushed expansion of universities and community colleges to hold the Baby Boomers. He supported a partial legalization of abortion and pushed completion of the North Cascades Highway. He tried, but failed, to replace Washington’s inequitable revenue stream with a state income tax.
“A Blueprint for Progress” was Evans’ program. Alas, regress and resentment are on the GOP’s front burner today. The shrill voices of the far right put forward a program of bashing Seattle, spurning vaccines, and demonizing teenagers struggling with sexual identities.
The Main Street business-oriented Republicans are an endangered species, mocked as RINO’s. The GOP’s public voice is blowhard state chair Rep. Jim Walsh, rancid media personalities Jason Rantz and Brandi Kruse, attention-craving Tim Eyman — plus wealthy but tin-eared rich initiative sponsors.
The Trump Administration is hammering necessary federal projects in our state. The cuts are hitting the cleanup of radioactive waste at Hanford, the response to wildfires and even the Weather Service. Our two Republican congressmen, Reps. Dan Newhouse and Michael Baumgartner, allow their silence to give consent.
The Democrats have simply to run against Trump, but when Republican Dave Reichert tried to distance himself from “the Donald,” he was hit by a barrage of TV spots. State House GOP leader J.T. Wilcox recruited a slate of eight promising legislative candidates in 2022, but all lost.
Everybody loses if choices boil down to the bookends. Democrats have their own excesses, from identity politics and de-policing language to interest-group demands. Wilcox was spot on in critiquing ex-Gov. Jay Inslee’s ceaseless state of emergency. Rural, fiscally conservative Democrats, once contributors to our political ecology, have largely vanished from the Legislature.
Gov. Bob Ferguson and AG Nick Brown are right to push back against anti-environmental and anti-immigrant extremism of the Trump administration. Sens. Murray and Cantwell are fighting in the trenches to preserve Medicaid and medical research. The rich are already rich enough, without needing a tax cut.
But class warfare as practiced by some Seattle “activists” needs to be checked. The King County Democrats and Sierra Club’s local activists have endorsed some far-out candidates. The far left cries persecution just as loudly as the far right. Mocking the opposition, the basic diet of Fox News and talk radio, is also fed by The Stranger and The Urbanist.
The Republicans will spend a long time in the wilderness if they keep losing King County by margins of up to half a million votes, where even the GOP goal of 40 percent seems increasingly unreachable. Gov. Ferguson, after a bumpy start, shows signs of governing as a mainstream Democrat.
Here’s hoping Mainstream Republicans don’t tack to the right, and instead be the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dan Evans. And, may they tend to their own garden. They need to call out Trump, just as Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine delivered a “declaration of conscience” against Joe McCarthy and Republican Senate leaders told Richard Nixon his choice was San Clemente or San clemency.
An old joke has it that if you are drowning 50 feet offshore, a moderate Republican is someone who will throw you a 30-foot rope and claim to have gone more than halfway. That joke is cruel but not off base. It’s time for Mainstream Republicans to strap on their hiking boots and ascend Mt. Electorate.
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You had me believing you were going to urge Republicans to strap on their hiking boots and head 50 feet offshore, Joel.
Double thumbs up! Thank you.
The final sentence of piece, incorporating shorelines and hiking boots, is creation of my distinguished editor. I love exploring shorelines, but wear sandals and avoid rip tides.
Obviously, in order to win, the republicans are required to start with moderate candidates as you indicate. Failure to do so is failure to win.
They will be doomed in this state and others if they simply believe that following the Mussolini of Mar-a-Lago is the path and fear his retribution. I, as others, believe that insanity and meanness have won the say and I don’t believe that can continue.
The democrats could be looking at further losses if they legislate as being so open minded their brains fall out.
I prefer the democrats to win the house (senate could be too tough) but their again, the message and moderation appears to be key the key to governing all the while a felon sits at the top
I had to look up “Mainstream Republicans.”
It’s better than the Joe Kent branch of the party, and somewhere I’ve picked up a fairly good impression of Wilcox, but they’re going to need more. The support for Walsh, Herrera-Beutler, Newhouse, Reichert can possibly be chalked up to party loyalty, but they do not appear to set out the welcome mat for any Dan Evans. Or Spellman, the last R governor.
Ronald Reagan defined a direction for the Republican party, and in Washington state they’ll have to fundamentally break with that if they ever want to come back. I see no sign of it here.
Thanks, Joel. Another good column.
When I lived in Walla Walla,growing up in the 60s and 70s, it seemed like the Eastern Washington Democrats were more to the Right than the Western Washington Republicans.
As a Democrat, I was not always happy with Dan’s ideas of prison reform, which today would probably be considered a Democratic value.