Posted on 07/25/2003 1:32:47 PM PDT by Amish
In The Northwest: Nethercutt warms up for race against Murray
By JOEL CONNELLY SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
After dancing for months around a prospective challenge to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Republican Rep. George Nethercutt of Spokane appears to be lacing up his running shoes.
Nethercutt has enjoyed past flirtations with statewide races, including a Senate run in 1998, always to pull back.
In recent days, however, he has begun to quietly call Republican leaders with word that he wants to go against Murray, according to well-placed Washington, D.C., sources.
The five-term congressman from Eastern Washington -- who once promised to serve only three terms -- has been under intense Bush administration pressure to block Murray's bid for a third term and give a badly needed shot in the arm to the GOP state ticket in the 2004 election.
"The White House wants him, he's the party's choice, and he's well connected in the capital to get money needed to run against a well-financed incumbent like Murray," said John Carlson, KVI talk host and the GOP's 2000 gubernatorial nominee.
A one-time aide to Alaska's tantrum-prone Sen. Ted Stevens, Nethercutt has by contrast combined an unyielding partisan conservatism with a disarming, aw-shucks style.
The lack of stridency was a key asset in his 1994 House race against 30-year Democratic incumbent Tom Foley. Nethercutt became the first challenger since 1860 to unseat a sitting speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Nethercutt ran in '94 pledging to serve only three terms. He broke his promise six years later.
A group called U.S. Term Limits bombarded Eastern Washington with ads. The "Doonesbury" comic strip labeled Nethercutt "the weasel king." A man dressed in a weasel costume dogged Nethercutt at a Spokane Club fund-raiser with House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Nethercutt won a fourth term with 57 percent of the vote, stressing his ability to bring home federal dollars as a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
Republicans are absolutely confident they can hold his House seat from Washington's 5th District if Nethercutt seeks to move up. Still, a pair of high-profile Democrats -- state Sen. Lisa Brown and Spokane County Commissioner (and famed mountain climber) John Roskelley -- could give Eastern Washington its most exciting race for Congress in a decade.
Nethercutt has not been frequently visible in Western Washington, where 75 percent of the state's voters reside.
He tiptoed into a key Puget Sound-area issue yesterday, as the House Appropriations Committee in Washington, D.C., took up a $15 million appropriation for Sound Transit's light rail project.
Nethercutt told colleagues he has "severe skepticism" about the project, and that there is "not consensus" on light rail in the region. He mentioned "other solutions" to Puget Sound-area gridlock such as bus lanes "and double-decking the freeway."
Given the opportunity to propose an amendment deleting the $15 million, however, Nethercutt demurred. The Sound Transit money was approved.
Murray is an outspoken supporter of Sound Transit's light rail project. So, however, is former Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, who has effectively lobbied to break loose federal funding.
A senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Murray has repeatedly dueled with the Bush administration -- often emerging victorious. She championed extended unemployment benefits for laid-off aerospace workers, against initial White House opposition.
Recently, by holding up Senate confirmation of a top Bush budget office appointee, Murray forced the Department of Homeland Security to release $14 million for security measures to the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma.
A Murray-Nethercutt race would strike sparks on foreign policy.
Murray voted against last year's resolution in Congress authorizing military action against Iraq.
She stirred controversy last winter, telling Vancouver, Wash., high school students that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had lured in followers by building schools, clinics and day care centers in impoverished South Asian nations.
"How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go into Afghanistan?" she asked.
Nethercutt termed the senator's remarks "bizarre" and "uninformed," claiming that Murray takes a "very strange view of America and the world."
In the House, however, Nethercutt raised eyebrows with a 1998 vote to pull the United States out of the United Nations.
"I supported an amendment ... which would have required the United States to end its membership in the U.N., cease paying dues to the U.N., and cease participation in U.N. peacekeeping missions," says Nethercutt's Web site.
The amendment failed on a 54-369 vote, but Nethercutt claimed it carried a "strong message" for the international organization to shape up.
Geography and money would clearly favor Murray in any Senate contest.
The Democratic incumbent has raised $3.8 million for her third-term bid, although Nethercutt did collect $400,000 in the second quarter of 2003.
No U.S. senator has been elected from Eastern Washington since C.C. Dill, a populist Democrat, public power champion and "father of Grand Coulee Dam," retired from Congress' upper chamber in 1934.
Nethercutt is aware of history. Agonizing about whether to take on Murray, he recently told the Clarkston Rotary: "Oh my God, it's a hard choice for me. And I don't mean to be melodramatic.
"It's one thing for me to jump off a cliff, but another to look back and see there's no one coming with me."
Replace Dean with Kerry, and I think it's possible.
Murray is so weak. The best she could do is come up with $14 million in pork for the Port of Seattle. This is chump change for most members of the senate. This woman is such a light weight. Too bad Dunn wasn't interested in getting into this race. Nethercutt will be her most formidable challenger, but the women in this state will blindly pull the lever for Ossama Bin Murray.
If he beats Murray, he will have knocked off a sitting Speaker of House and a two term senator. That's a pretty good record for a politician.
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