Our Voice: The (unintentional) enemy within
Boosting rural voter turnout is the Washington Republican Party’s top message in 2016.
According to state Republican party chairwoman Susan Hutchison, Washington voters are evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, with a slight advantage to Republicans. She says the state leans Democrat in elections because Democrats vote in greater numbers.
“Voter turnout in our red counties is substantially lower than in our blue counties. That’s what we have to fix,” she told a Herald reporter. “We’re the most flippable state in the country.”
Rural Eastern Washington is distinctly more conservative than the Puget-Sound dominated western part where roughly two-thirds of the state’s population reside.
With an economy based in agriculture our values and perspective on government differ from our western counterparts where rent for high-priced high-rise condo complexes is paid for by salaries from high-tech companies the likes of Microsoft.
Former Republican state Sen. Bob Morton characterized the difference well in a 2013 Time interview. “We talk about a boat in eastern Washington, we’re talking about a row boat with a set of oars on it that we take fishing on the little lakes,” Morton said. “If you talk about a boat in Western Washington, you’re talking about a yacht.”
The dominance of the liberal-West in-state and national politics has long been a sore spot for eastern conservatives and there’s no doubt the interests of Eastern Washington have been under-represented for decades.
Frustrated with the situation, Morton went so far as to sponsor legislation to split our state in half.
To many voters, even to many frustrated Republicans, the idea of secession borders on ridiculous. But yet we still send Republicans to Olympia, purportedly representing our interests, who continue to sponsor similar legislation. Some say they are making a statement while others remain convinced it is what their constituents really want.
And therein lies one of the challenges, or perhaps one of the solutions, to the party’s inability to get out the vote.
It’s challenging to motivate moderate Republicans, let alone Independents, to rally around candidates they feel represent only the extreme right wing of the party. It’s even more challenging when they feel embarrassed by their representative’s actions or words.
Monday, Republican state Rep. Mary Dye asked a group of high school girls, participating in Planned Parenthood’s annual Teen Lobby Day, whether or not they were virgins and even suggested one was not.
Dye later apologized, kind of, for asking the question.
“In hindsight, a few of the thoughts I shared, while well-intended, may have come across as more motherly than what they would expect from their state representative,” Dye said. “If anything I said offended them or made them feel uncomfortable, I apologize.”
Dye said she told the group she didn’t support the issues they were advocating for and that she talked about the empowerment of women and making good choices. That’s something we should expect from a representative with strongly held beliefs. But how a state senator could possibly think that asking teenage girls about their virginity in a public setting is appropriate defies explanation.
If the Republican party wants voters to climb on its bus, it is going to have to start offering candidates that moderate Republicans and independents are willing to sit next to. And if moderate Republicans and Independents want representatives who can move the needle on issues they need to get out and vote for those more reasonable candidates.
This story was originally published January 21, 2016 at 5:37 AM with the headline "Our Voice: The (unintentional) enemy within."