Last night I learned two things at the one and only debate between Democrat Kim Schrier and anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-immigrant Republican Dino Rossi. 1.) Central Washington University’s campus in Ellensburg is really lovely in the fall! 2.) Schrier can handle her own onstage against an arguably slick politician who has lost three elections, and who might lose his fourth in less than three weeks.
I only have a few cursory interviews with attendees and basic crowd reading skills, but it’s safe to say that a majority of the live audience for the debate favored Schrier. For people who are just tuning into this race, or who genuinely don’t know which candidate they want to pick, here’s a rundown of Rossi’s and Schrier’s strengths and weaknesses in the debate.
Good Things Schrier Did
• She went on the attack without being weird about it. In her opening statement, Schrier took about 15 seconds to explain that she’s a pediatrician-mom who was spurred to run for office after a congressman ignored her. She then immediately went on the attack, framing Dino Rossi as a Trump-loving career politician beholden to special interests. Since this debate was the first and only widely televised confrontation in the district—Schrier asked for more debates, but Rossi only agreed to one—she was smart to use Rossi’s name recognition against him. They might know his name, but they don’t know what he’s done. Meanwhile, Rossi told the story about how his grandfather chain-migrated to Washington to work in the Black Diamond mines. Now he’s running for Congress in that very district. It’s a sweet story, but it’s weird because Rossi doesn’t support policies that would make it easier for others to follow his grandfather’s path.
• On a similar tip, Schrier stood strong for abortion rights, inserting the issue into her responses on a number of topics. Because he’s a robot, Rossi always responds to this question by saying he’s “never run on the issue,” which should sound like bullshit even to Republicans and “centrists.” This is a good line for Schrier, as 60 percent of Washingtonians think abortion should be legal “in all cases.”
• Schrier also defended herself well. Rossi kept trying to attack her as a member of the Indivisible #resistance antifa bike lane squad movement, but Schrier’s response to this lands well: “I don’t think there’s anything radical about wanting people in this country to have health care, and to want to have a government that really works on behalf of the people and not just on behalf of special interests.” When Rossi tried to attack her attack ads, she told a legitimately funny joke. When asked if she stood by her ads, she said: “I stand by my ad. I’m Kim Schrier and I approve that message.” The crowd was not supposed to clap and cheer, but they did after she said that line.
• She got fired up about the right stuff. She got convincingly heated on environmental issues, health care issues, gun safety—all of which rank highly among the district’s concerns. She also spoke passionately about importance of a free press, which ranks highly among my concerns.
Bad Things Schrier Did
• In an effort to show that she agreed with Dino on something, Schrier said she wanted to increase the number of cops in schools. More cops in schools is bad news for students of color. It’s also costly, and it doesn’t address one of the causes of school shootings, which is that guns are too easy to buy.
• She kept saying “of course” and “thank you” at times when those words did not seem to be necessary. But, whatever, we all have our word whiskers.
Good Things Rossi Did
• When asked about health care, he convincingly performed the anger of someone who is mad about their insurance premiums going up. The problem is that he’s filthy rich, and it’s difficult to believe a multimillionaire when he complains about the cost of his family’s insurance.
• Rossi did a great job of covering up his ultra-conservative positions with falsehoods and misleading statements. At one point he said that everything Schrier attacks him for in the ONE budget he helped write was cosigned by Democratic governor Gary Locke and Democratic state house leader Frank Chopp. Not true. They didn’t sign off on Rossi’s proposal to kick 46,000 kids off Medicaid, and he can’t keep running from that decision, especially not when Sen. Mitch McConnell is out here saying the Republicans want to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to pay for their tax cut for the wealthiest people. Rossi will likely happily back that plan. Rossi also said he opposed Trump’s family separation policy “right up front.” He didn’t. He waited over a week to say anything at all. He dissembled and dodged throughout the debate, and it got exhausting trying to keep up.
• In a recent attack ad, Schrier nailed Rossi for his work with a fraudulent developer named Michael Mastro, and for failing to disclose a $50,000 loan he took from Mastro during his first run for governor. The Seattle Times wrote a piece on it, quoting the attorney who went after Mastero, James Rigby, calling the attacks a “low-life smear.” During the debate Rossi pointed to the Times piece as a way of absolving himself from the situation, but he failed to mention that Rigby donated $500 to his gubernatorial campaign in 2008. According to the Times, he also recently asked a reporter not to mention the fact that a contractor he’d hired to manage an apartment complex he owns wasn’t paying subcontractors hired to renovate the building. It’s as if Dino demonstrates a pattern of failing to disclose information that would make him look bad. Hm.
Bad Things Dino Did
• He didn’t stress the “u” in “hamburger,” which made him say “ham booger” instead of “hamburger.”
• Rossi literally said “government takeover of health care will destroy Medicare as we know it.” The “takeover” he’s talking about is called Medicare for All, which I guess will destroy “Medicare as we know it” by giving it to everyone. Moreover, Medicare IS government health care. This is just Rossi unwittingly parroting the “keep you government hands off my Medicare” line, and it makes me not want to live on earth anymore.
• The thing that made me “madder than a hornet” is when Rossi used phrases like “madder than a hornet” during his pissy uncle rants in order to project a folksy attitude. Rossi is a multimillionaire with lake house in Sammamish. He is not folks.
• On a similar note: Dino Rossi is doing such a bad job with the talking point he stole from The Stranger. He constantly stumbles when he tries to frame Schrier as a “resistance Indivisible” protest candidate. He doesn’t know what Indivisible is. But, to be fair, I have no idea what that #walkaway shit is from the Republicans. Walk away? From what?
• He turned his response to a question about his campaign’s use of negative ads into a negative attack ad on Schrier, calling her a member of the “resistance” who yells all the time, an aspect of Schrier’s personality we all have yet to see.
• He took a weird line on Saudi Arabia and the president’s line on Russia. He suggested that Saudi Arabia needed to punish itself for allegedly killing Washington Post journalist Kashoggi, and then said it’s “not just Russia” who’s trying to influence American elections.
• He got sleepy!! Rossi flagged at the end, while Schrier amped up her energy.
All told, both Rossi and Schrier more or less did the thing they had to do to project competence to their bases. Schrier did more than just not fuck up, so I’m calling that a win for her. The people I spoke with after the event seemed to agree.
Payton Swinford, a member of the Central Washington University Young Democrats, said “Kim nailed it. Rossi dodging the abortion question, saying it’s not an issue he’s running on shows what he thinks of women’s health in this district.”
Jenell from Issaquah says she was leaning Schrier going into the debate, but was trying to stay open-minded in her analysis. But after the event, she thinks Schrier was “the clear winner,” saying she thought the Democrat held herself well and seemed well-informed on the issues. “For someone who has been in politics for a long time, I don’t think [Rossi] held himself well at all.”
Chris Petzold, an organizer with Indivisible Washington 8, said she was excited for her “one opportunity” to see Rossi in person. “I’m not surprised he wouldn’t answer many of the questions he was asked, especially about women’s health. It’s too bad too many of his potential constituents care about something he won’t run on.”
