Stoner Mistake

When you’re running a campaign for U.S. Senate in which you spend a lot of time attacking “out of touch” D.C. politicians, it’s a no-brainer not to mimic one yourself. Yet that’s exactly what Republican Dino Rossi ended up doing on August 12 when he carbon-copied an ill-founded attack on “wasteful” federal stimulus dollars that D.C. Republicans have been using for months. Rossi’s target: a psychology professor at Washington State University who received $148,438 in stimulus money to do research related to cannabinoids—that is, the psychoactive compounds found in marijuana.

That WSU professor, Michael Morgan, had heard it all before.

Back in December 2009—eight months ago—he’d gamely agreed to go on a Fox News segment titled “Seriously?” and spent several minutes explaining to skeptical interrogators that yes, he’d received $148,438 in federal stimulus funds for what you might call “marijuana research,” but no, there is not actually any marijuana involved in the research (it’s all synthetic cannabinoids that approximate the drug’s effect); no, humans are not smoking away Uncle Sam’s money in the name of science (the subjects in this study are all rats); yes, this stimulus expenditure is creating jobs (for three researchers, including Morgan, who are all working on the project); and yes, there is an important objective (figuring out better ways to treat chronic pain, which costs the U.S. some $80 billion a year in sick days and lost productivity).

That December 2009 Fox interview grew directly out of a long-running media campaign that D.C. Republicans have been orchestrating in an attempt to paint the Obama stimulus plan as a taxpayer-funded “boondoggle.” After the interview aired, Morgan said, “I had people from all over the country calling me and saying: ‘Please, don’t stop this work.'”

In other words, not the greatest Republican attack ever.

For some reason, though, Rossi thought it would be a brilliant idea to dust off this failed talking point and give it another try. “It’s 5:00 Somewhere, But It’s 4:20 At Washington State University,” read the subject line of the e-mail his campaign sent out on August 12 alerting local reporters.

“This is one of those boondoggle projects that forces you to set aside the serious economic consequences of this so-called stimulus for a moment and just laugh at how out of touch Washington, D.C., really is,” Rossi continued. “Washington State taxpayers are tired of their money going up in smoke. This bill isn’t going to stimulate anything other than sales of Cheetos.”

And with that, he set himself up for several days of getting schooled by the Washington State media and Professor Morgan, who, in a typical statement, told The Stranger: “The bottom line is that Rossi is wrong about everything in his press release… Rossi should praise us for bringing funding and jobs to the state, but you’d have to get the facts first and I realize that is not Rossi’s goal.”

The ironies were hard to miss. In addition to acting just like the cut-and-paste D.C. types he criticizes, Rossi had fallen on his face while criticizing a well-meaning WSU professor’s research because, quite simply, Rossi had failed to do his own basic research.

“The thing that is frustrating is the misinformation,” Morgan said. “They make no effort to get the facts. They didn’t contact me and they didn’t try to find out more about my research… How can he represent the state if he can’t even get any facts?”

Moreover, Rossi’s flawed attack was seeking to undermine an effort that has nothing to do with Cheetos and everything to do with alleviating pain and suffering. (You’d think someone in his campaign could figure out that the number of voters who want to alleviate pain and suffering is, uh, rather large.)

In other words, a total political disaster.

Compounding the problem, Rossi isn’t backing down. On August 16, at a press event at a nameplate-making company in Seattle, Rossi was asked about his attack on the WSU researcher (one dumb press release is now a four-day-long story). Instead of apologizing, he got defensive.

“The point of that was that it wasn’t going to create jobs,” Rossi said of his attack on the WSU research. “That was really the point.”

Except, as outlined above, the federally funded research at WSU did create jobs while also seeking to help stem the $80 billion a year drain on the economy that is chronic pain.

What happened next should be no surprise: Rossi ducked follow-up questions, ended the press conference, and quickly left the building.

Stranger intern Galen Weber contributed reporting.