Six Times Dave Reichert Sounded Like the Seattle City Council
Except This Time The Media Understands These Are Republican Policies
Dave Reichert, you may have heard, is the Republican candidate running for Governor in Washington State. I watched a recent debate between Reichert and Bob Ferguson–the centrist Democrat and frontrunner. I was awestruck by how similar Reichert sounded to my opponent and the other conservatives from the Seattle City Council debates from last year.
Calling a Spade a Spade (This Time)
But the media coverage was different.
This time--instead of everyone playing along in a game where mainstream ideas like modest progressive taxation, basic behavioral health funding and accountable law enforcement are somehow super progressive, leftist, or socialist notions, everyone seemed to understand these are garden variety Democratic Party policy priorities.
And instead of pretending that bloviation about overspending, “plans” peddled to fix police shortages by mending the hurt feelings of officers, or hyperventilation about danger in everything, everywhere all at once are somehow “moderate” or “centrist” Democratic policy–everyone seemed to understand these lines were taken straight from the Republican script.
Rather refreshing, really.
Rondezvous’ First Rendezvous With Listicles
Just for fun, here are six times that Dave Reichert’s rhetoric was indistinguishable from Tanya Woo, Sara Nelson, Rob Saka, Maritza Rivera, and Bob Kettle.
“I am the only public safety candidate in this race. . . This is an issue about trust for cops."
"The homelessness crisis is a drugs, substance abuse crisis...it's also a mental illness crisis." (Ferguson correctly acknowledges drugs and affordability interact around homelessness).
Asked about housing affordability Reichert pivots immediately to crime, homelessness and drugs, and speaks with contempt about wasted people "living in the doorways of our businesses." (Ferguson notes the problem is the housing shortage and says we need 1M homes)
On the budget--the candidates are asked about more taxes or cuts for declining revenue projections.
Reichert pivots to saying we've lost police officers (again) for some reason and starts serving up a familiar sounding word salad:
"The problems we can address are crime, hold people accountable, there has to be consequences . . .when we start holding people accountable if you are a drug addict...you are waiting for grocery stores to open...(causing, among other things) homelessness."
(More on crime, crime, crime--still no budget clarity)(Pressed by the moderator: Would you consider a revenue source?)
"We've been taxed to the hilt...we have the money within our budget. One of the problems is that money is being misspent on programs that just don't work and we're going to find out which programs work . . . which ones don't we're going to shift monies . . . 11 of the major uh organizations here companies in Washington State spent $780 million on homelessness and told me total waste of money."
(Re: problems with our transportation system)
"The problem is that we have totally ignored our road systems here in Washington State. We're just now getting around to repairing some of the bridges and roadways here in Washington. . . there's not been an effort to prioritize the major projects that we need to accomplish here in Washington State. So, one of the first things we need to do is to look at the systems across the state. What are our priorities? What do we need to fix? First?
"We have the money to do this. We just need to re prioritize and re-shift our resources."