Excuse the sarcasm.  We all knew it would happen. The Tri-City Herald’s endorsement follows the print media’s legacy of endorsing incumbents.  Funny… Goldy recently wrote,

I was chatting with a long-time local politico over the weekend, bitching about the P-I endorsement of Reichert, and the old-timer sarcastically responded “Big deal.”  Both the Times and P-I endorsements were “soft,” and besides, newspapers “almost always endorse the incumbent.”

Huh.  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that little gem of conventional wisdom, and anecdotally it appeared to be true, but I thought I’d start compiling a spreadsheet of newspaper endorsements this season to see how strongly that trend holds up.  So far I’ve compiled results from the Times, the P-I and the Olympian, for all non-open, statewide, congressional, and legislative endorsements… and so far the incumbents are leading by a margin of 41 to 1, the lone exception being the P-I’s endorsement of Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark in the race for Commissioner of Public Lands.

 

41 to 1, if that’s what it still is and-my-god-who-is-counting, is phenomenal, yet… no surprise.  Anyway, enough of that… it was just to put things into perspective.  On with the show!

Pasco attorney George Fearing is running an aggressive campaign in the 4th Congressional District.

We’re glad to see it.

Voters are shortchanged when incumbents skate to the finish line without having to defend their records. Vigorous challengers strengthen the democratic process.

But on key issues, Fearing is simply on the wrong side. Incumbent Republican Doc Hastings is better suited by experience and political leanings to serve the district.

We’re particularly alarmed by Fearing’s positions on immigration and free trade. His stands on those two issues put him at odds with the best interests of Eastern Washington.

On immigration, Fearing favors securing our borders — who doesn’t? — but opposes a guest-worker program to fill the resulting gap in the district’s agricultural work force.

 

First of all, creating the myth that Hastings is better suited by experience and political leanings of the 4th leans to a conventional wisdom that is being overthrown across the nation.  And basing that on immigration and free trade as “putting him (George Fearing) at odds” with the best interests of Eastern Washington makes me wonder if the Herald has been even paying attention at all.

Hastings himself has decried free trade agreements with Peru over asparagus imports that have devastated a portion of Eastern Washington’s economy.  As recent as last evening, we heard the reality during the presidential debates about CAFTA where Obama noted that Columbia’s corruption threatens the very lives of labor leaders in our primary free trade partner countries.  It’s become clear that free trade has a larger price. Hastings supports those trade agreements.

And as the Tri-City Herald will at some point lament on how sophisticated voters are, they continue to take us all as dupes as to what Hastings and the republican party’s version of a “Guest Worker Program” will be.  Simply put, Latinos by large, a large part of Hastings constituency view a guest worker program as a form of republican based indentured servitude. True or not, the Herald should be called out to the fact that there is a very good reason consensus has been so hard to reach on a guest worker program. There is only a vague understanding of what a “guest worker” program would actually consist of.  Generalizing the issue doesn’t serve readers very well and not the stuff of an educated editorial piece. But then how often do editorial endorsements cross that threshold?  I don’t know, but this endorsement shows a disturbing lack of knowledge amongst an editorial board, that includes a Publisher, an African American, Rufus Friday, of the underlying issues that voters should actually might want to consider.

The Herald goes on…

 

More importantly, partisanship hasn’t kept Hastings from working with Democrats when it’s important to the 4th District.

He’s joined Democrats to ensure Washington residents get to deduct state sales tax when they calculate their federal income taxes.

He’s worked across the aisle to help secure cleanup money for Hanford, create the Ice Age Flood Trail and stop sea lions turning fish ladders at Columbia River dams into all-you-can-eat salmon buffets.

He worked with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray to save the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center from an ill-conceived ban on doctor-owned hospitals. When the New York Times trashed Murray for her efforts, Hastings defended her with a speech on the House floor.

Partisanship has been the hallmark of Hastings career in politics.  Sure, the state sales tax deduction and Hanford cleanup (ask Hanford Workers about those benefits that Hastings is fighting for) are naturals but did his unflinching support of the Iraq war and support of republican policies that led this country to the current economic crisis never cross the boards mind?  This simply ignores the larger discussion, pro and con, that is taking place nationally.

 

But those things aren’t what gets me off the rails the most.  It is particularly the notion that Hastings earns credit for bi-partisan action.  In brief:

When he’s needed to, Hastings hasn’t hesitated to oppose the Bush administration. He’s worked with the rest of the delegation to thwart Bush and protect the Bonneville Power Administration as a source of low-cost electricity for the Northwest.

Attempts to paint Hastings as an ideologue who puts party over interests of his district just don’t wash. Sure, he mostly votes with his caucus but so does everyone else in Congress.

This year, the economic crisis looms over every congressional race and may swing some support to Fearing.

But we’re taking the parochial view, and focusing on what Hastings has done for the Mid-Columbia.

We’re not always happy with his performance. His penchant for the technical details of the legislative process and a tendency to stay behind the scenes have sometimes limited his influence over events.

 

Never, amongst the most important legislation brought upon us in the last eight years of the Bush Administration has Hastings bucked party lines on anything more than local issues. And the issues that got attention, although deservadly they did, were never singularly championed in a bi-partisan fashion by Hastings.  In every case, it was Washington’s Democratic representation that was able to move those issues forward.  From the Wenatchee Valley Medical clinic (Murray and Cantwell), to Hanford funding and cleanup (former AG and now Governor Chris Gregoire), democrats have gotten the job done.

Sure, he mostly votes with his caucus but so does everyone else in Congress.

Is the Herald saying “so what”? Man, if there ever was a reason that newpapers are in a major decline this almost singularly defines why.  With a nation eager for change and a desire to flip “business as usual” on its head, an editorial board that perpetuates the status quo deserves what it gets.

 

Ultimately, the Herald’s endorsement of Hastings isn’t my problem.  I expected that.  It’s the complete ignorance of that endorsement, the all-to-familiar stupidity that is passed off of what is supposed to be a logical, factual discussion is instead empty headed simplicity being passed to voters as reasonable political discussion. That freaks me out.

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As a side note, I had a little camp-fire poll last night with some friends.  The point of it was to see if there would be a down ballot effect with the presidential election.  But something surprised the living heck out of me.  When going around the fire I asked folks who they were voting for in the major elections.  Keep in mind this was a very republican crowd.  Obama overwhelmingly was chosen over McCain, Gregoire was well behind Rossi (it is Eastern Washington after all), but George Fearing was selected over Doc Hastings by a wide margin.  Obviously there was no science behind this poll, but this was a conservative group that has voted for Hastings in the past and wasn’t planning on doing so this election.