Campaign 2012: It's the values, stupid
Thanks to Mitt Romney, values are creeping up with the economy as election issues. That could be big trouble for Rob McKenna and Republicans in state races.
Debra Sweet/Flickr
The conventional wisdom is that this election is about the economy, but in Washington a focus on "values" looks to be helping Democrats.
Democratic candidate for governor Jay Inslee started slow, and was trailing early, but he gained momentum moving into the primary where this week he out-polled his fall opponent, Republican Rob McKenna.
Inslee gained speed after the Supreme Court decision this summer about health care. McKenna was on the losing side of that court decision having joined a suit to challenge the legality of the insurance mandate. When Obamacare was upheld, he tried to salvage a defeat by declaring a partial victory in the court's reasoning on the commerce clause. Still, the loss at the court reminded voters that McKenna was on the wrong side of history on healthcare. Inslee has been telling voters that McKenna's attempt to claim even a small victory was like trying to claim Custer's Last Stand was a win for the cavalry. Obamacare lives, despite McKenna's efforts to undo it in court.
That has given new oomph to Inslee's stump speech, in which he draws on values to draw distinctions between himself and McKenna. Inslee says that electing McKenna would be akin to hiring a guy who tried to demolish your house to remodel it. Inslee is the guy who believes in implementing healthcare reform at the state level. Inslee says he is the candidate who doesn't believe in denying health insurance to breast cancer survivors. When you put it that way, the message resonates. This is not a legalistic issue of differences in policy, it's about values. It's about life and death. It's about who is on your side in the crunch.
Likewise McKenna has rearranged the Republican playbook in an interesting way. Instead of leading on the economy, or law and order, or an anti-government platform, McKenna instead has put education top on his priority list. He's played against the Tea Party type by putting out a plan whereby the state will put more money into education, especially higher education.
It's a far cry from former GOP gubernatorial standard bearer Ellen Craswell who in 1996 suggested selling off the state's universities. McKenna has seized an issue that conforms with long-standing state values — Washington puts education first in its constitution — and education is also an issue which unites voters, especially suburban swing voters. Could it be that Washington's true "education governor," a mantle claimed by many who have gone before, is a Republican?
Both have scrambled to allow little daylight between them on such issues. McKenna has said that if elected, he'll implement Obamacare, unlike some rebellious GOP governors. He's not eager to re-litigate the issue. Inslee has pushed his own higher-ed plan and tiptoed to the right on education reform issues like teacher and principal accountability. While both issues have economic impacts, the real debate is over who is the true believer in what.
At the national level, values are being argued too. Mitt Romney and his aides insist this election is a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy, but they are also having to appease the conservative-values voters on issues like guns and Planned Parenthood. Romney's spokesman claims his man will rule as a "pro-life" president, but that the election is really about jobs. Romney spokesperson Amanda Henneberg has said, "Middle-class families have struggled in the Obama economy, and Mitt Romney has a plan to strengthen the middle class and get our country back on the right track."
But the Democrats are beginning to reframe that economic focus as a values dodge: not only does Romney want to give the rich more money, he's making a war on our bodies.
The attack on Planned Parenthood and the threat to a woman's right to choose, are helping to motivate the Democratic base because it perceives a real threat. In his races for governor, Republican Dino Rossi tried to take his pro-life views off the table by suggesting that it wasn't a local issue in Washington anymore.
But when a presidential candidate vows, as Romney has, to overturn Roe v. Wade and "end" Planned Parenthood, in a progressive state like Washington it will only help Inslee and the down-ballot Democrats who are made stronger by an assault on local values. Even McKenna is more pro-choice than that, as are potential swing voters. Rossi tiptoed on abortion so as not to alarm the Dinocrats, but the Romney campaign is making that harder. Romney wants a re-set, but the values issues already highlighted during the dreadful GOP presidential primary season, which featured Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann as frontrunners, can't be dodged.
The legacy of that is hurting McKenna and might be a drag on GOP Attorney General candidate Reagan Dunn, who ran behind his Democratic opponent Bob Ferguson in the primary. The results suggest that it's possible that instead of the GOP expanding its hold on statewide offices, it could see a rollback in what was supposed to be a "Republican year."
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 4:59 a.m. Inappropriate
It's never going to be a "Republican Year" in Washington State, there are simply too many Democrats in the State. We can only hope that some of the brighter ones can realize that the current crop of Democrats is not moving the State forward. Higher taxes, no reforms, more illegal aliens. Jay Inslee offers nothing but a four year extention of the Gregoire administration. Sad.
Inslee would be best to continue to avoid any significant policy statements and debate as little as possible, while promoting his "D" status...it's all he has.
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 8:06 a.m. Inappropriate
Looking at the primary vote, McKenna seems to have already lost on the values question.
The results appear to place him in the same league as prior Republican shooting stars.
Rossi had more appeal on TV and in person than McKenna (and Inslee far more appeal than Gregoire).
Rob has become entrenched in Olympia after eight years and he shows it. He appears to have crafted a campaign to turn on voters in the state's most conservative counties in a Gorton/McGavick style strategy to divide the state.
More scrutiny of McKenna's plans to pay for higher education is needed. He says he'll grow funding for higher education, yet his ideas for finding the money (through cost savings) are not bankable.
The education of the state's youth is far too important to bank on dodgy promises with extremely long odds.
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 9:11 a.m. Inappropriate
That's an interesting way of looking at it, but the simple truth is that if the Supreme Court had upheld Obabacare under the commerce clause, the Congress would have been given free reign to legislate anything and everything they saw fit. Thanks to McKenna and the other AGs, we dodged that authoritarian bullet. The fact that we are still stuck with an unworkable and unaffordable dog's breakfast of a health care program, thanks to Roberts' decision to evoke the "switch in time that saved nine" may put opponents of this federal power grab on the wrong side of history, but history does not take sides based on merits, only on successfully wielded power.
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 11:49 a.m. Inappropriate
Can't single women just buck up and pay for their own women's health wish lists? That would be quite a "Values" statement. McKenna will probably win the married women's vote so it appears that the man in a single woman's life is 'big government'. Yuk.
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 2:49 p.m. Inappropriate
Knute, you missed the elephant in the room on health care, McKenna, and Inslee. Here on Crosscut, McKenna recently declared his opposition to implementing the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion to half a million uninsured Washingtonians. The Medicaid expansion is a major part of the ACA. Inslee fully supports the Medicaid expansion and the rest of the ACA. And if nearly everyone is not in the insurance pool, it's going to be very difficult to implement the ban on preexisting medical condition exclusions. So there's actually LOTS of daylight between the two candidates. And when you add in that McKenna wants to convert state employee health coverage to high-deductible, "consumer-directed" health plans, the daylight between the candidates becomes even more glaring.
http://crosscut.com/2012/07/31/op-ed/109793/medicaid-expansion-health-reform-mckenna-oped/
An optional Medicaid expansion may offer a path to greater coverage for some of Washington’s uninsured, but we cannot simply open the floodgates for another 500,000 enrollees.
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 3:57 p.m. Inappropriate
I haven't followed this campaign as closely as I should have but, on the surface at least isn't McKenna making a choice that would tend to favor the young and future generations as opposed to current recipients of public assistance? The young and future generations cannot vote of course which, to me, makes his choice seems more forward thinking than the conventional Democratic nostrums (that I tend to describe as vote buying on the installment plan).
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 9:04 p.m. Inappropriate
Hey Jan, please write back when Inslee has an idea or an original thought.
Posted Sat, Aug 11, 9:35 a.m. Inappropriate
From today's email from Obama campaign manager Jim Messina:
"Paul Ryan will be Mitt Romney's running mate.
What you need to know right now: This election is about values, and today Romney doubled down on his commitment to take our country back to the failed policies of the past."
Posted Sat, Aug 11, 10:10 a.m. Inappropriate
OK, the Republicans are officially in trouble in Washington state for the umpteenth straight year. The Mighty McKenna failed to deliver and is no longer the favorite in the Governor's race. Cantwell gets six more years. Heck and Kilmer should win easily. Reagan Dunn is done in the AG's race.
Washington is a blue state and the Republicans are always going to trip on the values issue. Always.
Posted Sat, Aug 11, 1:42 p.m. Inappropriate
Three point spread in a 32% turn out primary. You must be right, Inslee has it in the bag, no need to spend Millions of Dollar in Jay's Race DNC.
Meanwhile Dow Constantine call out Gov. Christie for not having Washington State values...just like his...cheating on his "life partner" of 18 years with a married woman and then breaking up over an E-mail after a "One afternoon Stand". Yeah I guess most folks can't have those kind of Washington State Democrat Values.
Posted Sat, Aug 11, 8:10 p.m. Inappropriate
The reason we elect Republicans is to act as a true "Governor" or limiting valve.
The fact that Romneycare won, and will be implemented, will make people even more wary about out of control spending, hence a Republican becomes an appealing candidate even to moderate Democrats.
This is the reason we create Republican legislatures even with a Democrat leader...to keep them in check.
So, McKenna clearly positioned himself as the person who would uphold the law, even if that law is Romneycare. Yet, he would do so with the greatest fiscal restraint possible.
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