All expectations point to 17th Legislative District Senator Don Benton retaining his lead over challenger Tim Probst to keep his seat in the state senate. It’s been a very close and contentious campaign with Democrats throwing everything they could at Don to unseat him, including spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in bogus mud-slinging attack ads, painting Senator Benton as evil and uncaring as any human could possibly be.
In spite of coming very close to succeeding, Benton appears to be holding on to the win. Even though by a slim margin, a win is a win. Clark County Elections Supervisor Tim Likness states that even though the final results will not be certified until next week, it is not expected to change the outcome.
Although Senator Benton is labeled as one of the most partisan people in Olympia, his retaining the Senate seat is expected to finally bring about a more centrist oriented legislature with two moderate Democrats, Tim Sheldon and Rodney Tom indicating their desire to be more bipartisan and work more with Republicans that hard line Democrats in a “power-sharing” arrangement.
Sheldon and Tom are part of the trio of Moderate Democrats who abandoned the hard-line partisan Democrat leaders earlier this year to aid Republicans in the “9th Order” to stop a very bad budget from being quickly passed and forcing a more bipartisan budget to be written. The third member of the trio, Jim Kastama is no longer in the Senate, having given up his seat to run for Secretary of State, losing to Republican Kim Wyman.
Democrats have held a stranglehold on Olympia for over a decade with a ‘my way or the highway’ attitude, accepting no blame for the poor condition of the state economy.
Voters have been calling for a more centrist government for several years, not wanting either the left or the right holding sole power, but working together to improve the condition of the state.
Benton’s reelection and the announcement of Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon appears we will finally see that happening and hard line Democrats are not pleased.
We now see two who were most responsible for ignoring the $1.5 Billion budget gap earlier this year in order to ram homosexual marriage through being the most vocal in opposition to the bipartisan working together we have called for so long.
In an editorial appearing in the Columbian, in what is maybe the nicest article I have ever seen them publish concerning Senator Benton, we read,
“it is rather refreshing to see the state Senate apparently drifting toward some kind of bipartisan power-sharing,” and “Democrats, of course, are terrified.”
Arrogant open homosexual Democrat caucus leader Ed Murray is quoted,
“At what point do you become ineffective because you’ve entered into some sort of convoluted governing arrangement that doesn’t allow you to accomplish what you came down here for? I’m more concerned about the Senate functioning than with being majority leader.”
Even more disconcerting is the comment left by open homosexual, megalomaniac 49th Legislative District Representative Jim Moeller, fresh off another win as he states,
“The Columbian Editorial Board gets all goose-bumpy with the possibility of a ‘bi-partisan power arrangement’ in the senate. It really only shows their ignorance in the how governing works. The quest for a ‘philosophical center’ is a recipe for disaster. It is best the one party or another (we are a two party system after all) have the majority and the other operate as the ‘loyal opposition’. Although the R’s in the Senate would like to believe they will determine what will happen. In the end, the Democrats will hold the cards and will either be blamed and/or praised for the result.”
As we see already, Democrats never accept blame for anything, but grab all of the credit.
But as you can clearly see from both Murray and Moeller, neither have any interest whatsoever in seeking or working in any “middle ground.” They show what I have said many times, Democrats see any “middle ground” as Republicans caving and giving in, letting Democrats do as they please and once the results fall apart, blame those who signed on from the Republican Party.
Moeller sees “working together” as a “disaster,” only wanting to promote his special interests first and foremost.
“Loyal opposition” to him means that you either join him or shut the hell up, get out of the way and abandon your values for his.
Moeller is correct in that we do have a “two-party system,” but does that mean that the other party must be silenced and demanded to just go along? That he and his fellow Democrats have all of the answers and nothing from the other side is even worth discussing?
After the budget deal we saw this year, Jim Kastama gave us a revealing look into the goings on in Olympia in a speech he gave and said,
“I had grown to trust Joe [Zarelli] over the last 10 years or so. I had seen him offer perfectly good amendments to the bills on the Senate floor, only to have them defeated by my colleagues. The moderates would often stand in the back of the chamber and ask ‘what’s wrong with that amendment? It seems like a good idea,’ only to be told it wouldn’t pass in the House or it wasn’t our idea.”
As Kastama indicates, if it doesn’t come from the Democrats, it is not even considered, just thrown away with no consideration.
That is not “two-party rule,” but one party running rough-shod over everybody, calling all of the shots and ignoring half of the states citizens who seek something different than Democrats force on us.
It is tyranny, what both Murray and Moeller advocate and our state is much worse off because of it as we face yet another estimated $2 Billion budget gap in the weeks ahead.
The disaster is if the likes of Jim Moeller and Ed Murray continue turning a blind eye and closing their minds to the citizens of the state in order to promote their small special interest groups desires.
It’s time both were cut back down to size by fellow legislators who seek fair governance over tyranny.
