Comments

1
You're still being figurative. There was never a vote.
2
The Green River Killer killled, what, 98 people?

Dave Reichert was ready to kill thousands by voting for this POS legislation?

Hey Dave. You're scum.
3
@1: there was a vote in committee. Reichert did vote for this POS bill.
4
When it comes to his constituents, Reichert needs to answer this question:
Whatcha you gonna do, whacha you gonna do
When they come for you?
5
Reichert has held on to power for a remarkably long time, considering the blue collar union population present in his constituency. Perhaps he's ready to retire. Maybe he just figures that he's gotten away with far worse for much longer, and therefore has no reason to suspect any real threat to his continuation.

Then again, he represents Enumclaw, a place Charles knows all too well.If his film's depiction of the local goings-on are at all accurate, it sort of makes sense that they would vote for a horse's ass. Even if it kills them.
6
I was going to say something I'm sure was great, but Wandering Stars wins this one.
8
It's time to haul Dave Reichert's and Doug Ericksen's POS asses out in industrial size garbage bags--NOW.
@5 Wandering Stars: Sad to think that the people of Enumclaw would ecstatically choose a horse's ass repeatedly over an honest, hard working representative who would actually support their voting district's beliefs, concerns, and constituent needs. The idiots in Whatcom County's 42nd District are no better---or smarter---in choosing their state senator.
9
@8 - the problem is that the Democrats have run crappy candidates against Reichert in every one of his elections. I keep posting this on every Reichert thread here -- identify and cultivate a strong candidate to run against him NOW, not a year from now. That's how you beat him. Thus far, no one seems to have their act together.
10
@9,

Democrats used to enjoy success among rural voters. I'm thinking of the New Deal coalition that successfully elected a President to four terms- a feat that has never otherwise been possible.

That coalition included Labor and farmers. You can see remnants of it in Minnesota's Democratic Party- which still calls itself the Minnesota Farm-Laborer Democratic Party. That was the key to Democratic victory. Labor mobilized the cities, and a solid agricultural policy that favored small family owned farmers over huge corporate behemoths won support in rural areas.

Thats all gone now. The Democratic Party has been taken over by the upper-middle class, the middle managers, the soccer moms and the smaller shareholders. These folks are naturally going to look after their own interests primarily. That means lowering costs of production, such as keeping the minimum wage as low as possible, discouraging union membership and encouraging disgruntled workers to settle directly with HR, and funneling federal dollars into programs that keep the marginalized at a level where they can survive uncomfortably, so so to motivate them to take whatever employment they can get as soon as it becomes available, and discourage them from leaving any position they manage to get into. It also means maximizing the rate of profit, by forbidding student loan bankruptcies while doing nothing to cap the cost of education, mandating the purchase of insurance policies without a public option, not prosecuting white collar crime while heavily punishing sectors of the economy which threaten the safety of those white collar criminals who dwell in gated communities and thus are the upper middle class I speak of.

Small time farmers have no friends. The Democrats are deaf to their concerns. Every Congressional cycle, a bill called the Fram Bill comes up for a vote. It confers federal dollars on a per-acre basis to farmers across America. The intent is to lower the cost of food. The effect is that those farms with a lot of acreage get more money than those with less acres. Corporations see this and start buying up adjacent family plots, combining them into a single massive farm, and billing the federal government for massive subsidies. Small time farmers have to compete against these huge corporate operations. Companies like Monsanto license their products rather than selling them outright. You can't buy a bag of seed and own the actual seeds- just a license to use those seeds which must be renewed every year. Those seeds also have a 'suicide gene' in them which only allow them to produce plants which can reproduce for a few generations before producing nonviable plants which have no seeds in them. The corporate farms strike deals with Monsanto to get these seeds for cheap, and small farmers have to pay the marked up rate. Democrats won't do anything about it, because they own stock in Monsanto and in the corporations that own the larger farms. Why would you vote to limit Monsanto's profitability when your pension fund or 401K has stock in Monsanto?

So they vote GOP whenever the GOP shows up promising to stick it to the Democrats. Theres a little variation here. Reichert not only represents Enumclaw's farming communities, but also Auburn's suburban community. The people of Auburn are more like Seattle in terms of social policy than the people of Enumclaw. So, Reichert modifies his approach, selling himself as benign on gay rights to win votes in Auburn, and as a middle finger to the Democrats in Enumclaw, which wins votes there.

Whatcom's like that too. Lots of small time farmers with no friends and a large, progressive college town near the Canadian border. Perfect for this kind of Republican.

Now, Obamacare is more than just health insurance reform. Its a gimme to the insurance companies. The federal government has decided that you are compelled to buy a product from one of a handful of companies. Companies it would be very wise to invest in, if you're a middle manager trying to figure out what to do with your retirement fund. There are no public options. The only thing like a public option is only available if you're at the very margin of American society, the Medicaid expansion. If you own and run a farm, you're a small business owner, you're ineligible for the Medicaid expansion. You are thus compelled to purchase a product from a corporation. That doesn't sit well with people who are one bad harvest away from financial ruin. They're tightening belts as far as they can as it is. Attacking the federal mandate will not cost a politician the small farmer vote, because the federal mandate screws small farmers.

The obvious solution is a public option, which could give these small farmers something cheap they could get and might even drive down costs from the corporate plans that have to compete with the public option. But that ship sailed when Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus (Democrats) said they wouldn't vote for Obamacare with a public option in the bill.

Then they hear you and Griselda and the others saying the reason why they hare Obamacare is because theyre stupid. Theyre not, they are actually acting in their own best interest. You could win their support by taking their needs into account, like FDR did. Modify the farm bill by excluding corporations from the federal subsidy, so it can only go to small farms. Add a public option to the ACA. Then you give them a reason to vote Democratic.
11
@9 Bax: That's what I mean---Reichert's district needs a strong Democrat running against his sorry ass NOW to beat him and get him ousted, just as Doug Ericksen needs not only a strong Democratic opponent, but the idiots in the 42nd District who support Doug and Trumpzilla need to wake up, and
@10: YES, Wandering Stars---the people in North Whatcom County re-electing Doug Ericksen, Trumpzilla's self-appointed and aggrandized cock sucker who IGNORES the needs and regional economic, environmental, and healthcare concerns of his own constituents--yet the overwhelming majority of 42nd District voters ecstatically have hate rallies and Trump campaign fests--are IDIOTS. The very ones needing ACA the most and will likely get the most butt-hurt by their woefully ignorant actions---are indeed IDIOTS. Try reasoning with them like I have. They're the ones in Tonka toy trucks roaring through Bellingham, threatening to run over pedestrians and shut down Planned Parenthood clinics, stabbing people in the streets and causing riots all under the bullshit claim of "Making Rapist America Great Again". There IS no reasoning with these idiots. Fascists know they have the vote of the easily swayed and terminally stupid.
12
@10 Wandering Stars: You do make one good point, however. Thank you for mentioning FDR's New Deal approach and how, largely by Fireside Chats. 32rd President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reached out quite effectively to those in rural parts of the United States and progress through the Great Depression, WWII, and beyond was made.
If only such a positive approach could actually work currently in the 42nd District. How do you reason with the unreasonable? A shocking number of Thuggie and Trumpzilla backers are blindsided by racism and hatred pushed by both, and will be hurt the most be their own willfully destructive undoing.
13
@10 Wandering Stars, again: I like your subsidy bill idea to help small farms and exclude big corporations. That sounds like a good incentive in a rural region to vote Democrat. But again, how many people, not just in Washington State, but nationwide bought Trumpzilla's bullshit and keep voting red--or were goaded into voting red--only to consistently get screwed by the GOP later after the election? And the Repigs keep laughing all the way their banks.
A lot of people need to be unconditioned from blindly voting GOP--the party most likely to snuff out the small farm via Big Ag and Monsato than actually help it. Repigs have a repeated tendency to outsource jobs overseas for corporate tax cuts, cut wages to below poverty level, and kill unions, too. I really fail to see the attraction the GOP has on rural communities when they are the regions with the most to lose.
14
@10 Wandering Stars Part IV: So what if Democrats "won't do anything" and piss off Auburn and Enumclaw voters with 401k stock in Monsato? Let's see these same GOP voters get good health coverage when their water supplies get irretrievably poisoned and the air quality goes south permanently from factories, mills, and plants, and many get diagnosed with cancer from antibiotics, toxic artificial additives and pesticides in their food supplies only to get denied coverage due to a "pre-existing condition".
And yet you still support the GOP? WHY??
15
@11,

"cock sucker"? You do realize I and many of the commenters here (as well as most of the Stranger staff) are gay men, right?

You really should calm down. You sound rabid. And, apparently, homophobic.
16
@10 - let me simplify that for you. The Dems used to win rural voters before the Dems were perceived by rural voters to be the party of minorities. Once the Dems became the party representing minorities, rural areas no longer supported them. The end.
17
All but 4 republicans voted to let ryan use the 'martial law' procedure to put new verisons of the republican healthcare bill up for vote on less than one day notice.
18
Once again, The Strangler is showing its liberul, e-leet bias against stupid Asshole AmeriKKKans like Reichert.

ASSHOLE LIBEL!!1!!
19
Bravo, @14.

Youve boiled down hundreds of years of American political history into 20 words! I suppose this means we can close down the political science department at every major university, since you've now rendered everything to a simplistic argument that could have been written by a third grader.

Amazing. And to think, I spent all that effort suggesting that we try to see things through the eyes of the people we're trying to convince to vote for us. I should have seen all along what youve have so plainly stated. There's no point in trying to win an election for a Democrat running against Reichert, because, as you say, all his constituents are simply too stupid to vote for us. By your reasoning, we should just throw in the towel, and let Reichert stay in power until he dies of old age.

It would be far more complicated to think to how we could win them over. Thats not as easy as casually dismissing them. Good job in losing that district forever! Thansk to you, the GOP will hold onto it until the Republic ceases to be!

Thank you so very much for guaranteeing we lose every election for the rest of time. Brilliant!

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