Opinion
Rob McKenna is Not Who the Democrats Say He Is
The Democrats—or, more accurately. the independent expenditure campaign being funded by the Democratic Governors Association, the teachers' union, and environmental groups—has put out its latest attack ad
against Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna.
The ad hits the theme Democrats and the Jay Inslee camp have been repeating all year: McKenna is not who he says he is. In other words, he's not the moderate he plays on TV.
And while there's a case to be made that McKenna is more Paul Ryan than Arnold Schwarzenegger (see his plan to add a privatization option to workers' comp) the TV spot is unfair.
The ad connects McKenna to the national Romney-Ryan agenda to cut education. What a lazy assertion.
McKenna has (loudly) made increasing education funding his central issue for more than a year. He has talked ad nauseam for over a year about how K-12 funding has dropped from 50 percent of the budget to 41, and he's issued a concrete plan to cap non-education spending and increase education spending by $1.7 billion in the next biennium. (The plan, Democrats point out, would slash social services such as senior care.)
Democrats in blue Washington are smart to paint McKenna as "one of those Republicans" (particularly on women's health, the focus of the ad). While McKenna's position on choice is problematic for pro-choice voters, describing McKenna as a generic Republican (Republican legislators in Washington did in fact try to cut eduction funding) does a disservice to the actual debate that McKenna has fostered during this race.
Moreover, on other education issues—charters, teachers' evaluations, taking over failing schools—McKenna is in line with some Democrats, including Barack Obama.
The ad hits the theme Democrats and the Jay Inslee camp have been repeating all year: McKenna is not who he says he is. In other words, he's not the moderate he plays on TV.
And while there's a case to be made that McKenna is more Paul Ryan than Arnold Schwarzenegger (see his plan to add a privatization option to workers' comp) the TV spot is unfair.
The ad connects McKenna to the national Romney-Ryan agenda to cut education. What a lazy assertion.
McKenna has (loudly) made increasing education funding his central issue for more than a year. He has talked ad nauseam for over a year about how K-12 funding has dropped from 50 percent of the budget to 41, and he's issued a concrete plan to cap non-education spending and increase education spending by $1.7 billion in the next biennium. (The plan, Democrats point out, would slash social services such as senior care.)
Democrats in blue Washington are smart to paint McKenna as "one of those Republicans" (particularly on women's health, the focus of the ad). While McKenna's position on choice is problematic for pro-choice voters, describing McKenna as a generic Republican (Republican legislators in Washington did in fact try to cut eduction funding) does a disservice to the actual debate that McKenna has fostered during this race.
Moreover, on other education issues—charters, teachers' evaluations, taking over failing schools—McKenna is in line with some Democrats, including Barack Obama.
