We may not have any hot local races in Edmonds this year, but we have some Edmonds people making political news.
Mayor Dave Earling (a Republican but filling a non-partisan post) on Friday issued an invitation via his Facebook page for friends to join him in a rally for GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna at 11 a.m. Sunday at Marina Beach. “Join me at the park to help Rob with his final push before the primary,” Earling said. “He is a great leader that our state needs now.” McKenna is running against Jay Inslee, who used to represent Edmonds in Congress.
And our online news partner The Seattle Times reports that a King County Elections public service ad made by Edmonds travel guru Rick Steves has drawn the wrath of State Republican Party Chairman Kirby Wilbur. According to The Times, Wilbur complained that Steves — who recorded a public service announcement telling voters in part of the 1st Congressional District they have to vote two times for Congress this year — is too political to be doing such ads. For example, Steves often supports Democratic candidates and gave money to the marijuana measure, Initiative 502.
Folks at the King County Elections office point out that other local celebs like restaurateur Tom Douglas, KING TV’s Jean Enersen and members of The Seattle Storm have appeared in the public service ads, The Times noted.
— Teresa Wippel
Rob McKenna is an anti-choice candidate. He does not believe that women should have the right to have control over their bodies. I could never support a candidate who has so little regard for women.
Thats OK Priya.. We can elect him without your support !
I fully support Rob McKenna. And that word choice – I think there are plenty of choices women have that can be made BEFORE that baby is conceived, and I also think that abortion removes any choices that baby has – a very primary right – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Rob McKenna is on record as being pro-choice.
If you don’t want to vote for him then don’t but hopefully your decision will be based on fact and not misinformation.
Ron B made some good points about spending our money wisely. I will comment at the end about what I think is the most important issue facing our state, education.
When I look at the issues and which level of govt can impact them it is clear we have issues which are national, state, and local. For example managing dogs and cats seem to be a local issue. But reproductive health for humans seem to be a national issue. When it comes to interest groups, they seem to pick what ever level of govt they can use to make a point. Then we get the constant level of bickering and legal fights and all that to see if it is constitutional. Saddly we use a lot of time and energy to try to find new way to bring up social issue like reproductive health, immigration, and who we live with. It would be nice if we could settle some of these issues at least for a time period and ageee to bring it up for discussion again in x years and let it sit for a while but we don’t, so we are constantly bombarded with pro and con all a lot of social issues and in my opinion these issues consume too much of our collective time and when we need to spend time on other issues like making a better education system and how we pay for it.
In our state the courts have said we do not fund education correctly and are asking our state leaders to fix it. The studies I have seen show we need to add about $2b to K-12 funding to properly fund basic education. This esitmate does not include needed funding for post HS education. When I look at the funding process for K-12 education, most of it comes from the state. When I have talked with legislators and candidates few have answers on how they plan to find money to add to education. Some dance around the issue and say new revenue is needed. That means new taxes. When it comes to the governers race, both say we need money and Rob McKenna has advanced a plan to actually add money to K-12 and college funding without raising taxes. At the heart of his plan is that when revenues begin to grow again as the economy grows, more of that money will go to education and less will go to other programs. Over time it will change the percent of state budget going to education from something like 44% to just under 50%. I personally like this approach because takes added revenue and dedicated a greater protion to education than to other programs rather than adding taxes and growing all programs.
Women’s rights are a relevant issue, but surely getting people back to work and funding education as required by our state’s constitution are much more important issues at this time.
I am the chair of WA NARAL. I assure you that McKenna is not pro-choice.
Ron;
McKenna’s words are carefully chosen here. He says that voters have firmly established the “basic right to choose. In fact, he never indicates what his stand is on it. Both NARAL and Planned Parenthood sent out questionaires asking candidates their stand on pro=-choice issues. McKenna did not even return his questionnaires back. If he truly is a pro-chioce candidate, then he should back it up with a signature.
The economy is of interest to me too. My job depends on a booming economy. However, civil liberties are also important. Assuming, arguendo, that McKenna is the strong on the economy, shall we look at that and shove all civil rights aside? Let’s not forget history. Look what happened to Germany when civil rights were pushed aside in violation of minority civil rights. No thanks!