Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Monday, August 18, 2008

WA 9th Legislative District: Republican Candidate Joe Schmick Answers Your Questions


Thanks to Rep. Schmick for taking time to answer questions during peak harvest time. Schmick's opponent, Democrat Tyana Kelley did not respond to my request to answer questions.

Scott from Garfield asks: Do you support a vehicle tax based on engine size?

No. Absolutely not. SB6900 is the bill that would tax cars and trucks
based on engine size. Although it did not make it out of committee, we have
been told that it will be back in this coming session. This would hurt
every working family in the 9th District and not good public policy.

5 comments:

Satanic Mechanic said...

You know, that is pretty sad when a candidate will not answer questions from people in her own district she is running in. Mrs. McMorris-Rogers and Mr. Mays answered our questions and they are running for a federal office. Joe answered our questions but Tyana won't even reply?
She will go on KQQQ but not a local blog read by many people in the 9th district? I bet $10 that Mr.Winters, the Green Candidate for this district would be more open to answer questions than Tyana.

Unknown said...

In retrospect, I should have contacted Mr. Winter.

The Mays campaign was warned by our local Democrats that I would "re-write" his answers and "editorialize." Of course, I would never do any such thing. I may not vote for Mr. Mays, but he is certainly a class act.

Yes, I am an unapologetic partisan, but I respect open, honest and meaningful debate. I have disagreed vehemently with Ms. Kelley's positions, and will do so again in the future. But I would have accorded her due respect as a candidate in this forum. These questions were meant as a genuine public service to local voters, not some "gotcha" ambush, and I hope to be able to do something similar before the general election.

Satanic Mechanic said...

You are doing a fine job delivering both sides Tom.
I don't know if the candidates noticed that we regulars did not rip into them for their replies to our questions. Sure I wanted to counter some of Mr.Mays comments but I held my tongue like the rest of the bloggers here. The candidates respected us by answering our questions and we in turn gave our respect by not "ambushing" them.

Unknown said...

I always find it amusing that our local liberals act so (faux) outraged about what goes on here. Believe me, Palousitics is quite milquetoast compared to most of the liberal political blogs in this state.

For example, Crosscut recently ran a series of articles on the Washington political blogosphere. Here's a quote from one about David Goldstein's HorsesAss.org:

Unadulterated is right. Goldstein once penned a post about the state Republican Party chairman titled, "Luke Esser fucks pigs." It's hilarious. It's disgusting. And it's classic Goldstein satire. As anyone would imagine, many people aren't too keen about "Goldy" and his fellow bloggers' liberal use of profanity. Four-letter posts on Horse's Ass range from referrals to the 2004 election recount ("WA voters deserve a hand job") to calling a Seattle P-I story about Dino Rossi's green campaign "Un-Fucking-Believable." But Goldstein's response to his critics, as always, is unequivocal:

"Fuck them. Really."

"One of the comments I occasionally get is something along the lines that profanity is a last resort of people who are otherwise incapable of expressing themselves ... which is, of course, a load of shit," Goldstein said. "In fact, this critique itself is nothing more than a crutch for those who can't refute me — they're essentially saying, 'Look see ... Goldy curses ... so you can dismiss everything he said.' That's just lazy rhetoric on their part. These are words. Powerful words. And like all my words, I choose them very carefully. I'm a writer."


Goldstein. by the way, has been invited to the Democratic National Convention to act as the official Washington blogger. He also is a key fundraiser and supporter of Democrat Darcy Burner's campaign for Congress in WA-08.

Do you think we'll see any letters to the editor from Matthew Root demanding that the DNCC and Burner apologize and distance themselves from Goldstein? Heck no.

Look, I understand as much as anyone that politics is a game and that you play to win. But the whining we have seen about this blog lately is just embarrassingly juvenile. How about some snappy comebacks instead of running and crying to Mama?

Paul E. Zimmerman said...

Tom: "How about some snappy comebacks instead of running and crying to Mama?"

Because it's hard to constantly hold out the victim card when you show some semblance of a spine? :)