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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Race To Unseat Senn Turning Hostile Sniping Among Four Gop Candidates Forces Party Chairman To Intervene

The four Republicans sparring to take on state Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn are getting so hostile with each other the state party is trying to referee the brawl.

Each candidate angrily refutes charges that he is a puppet of the insurance industry. Two accuse each other of violating party protocol.

One has even been nicknamed “the Unabomber.”

Anthony Lowe filed a complaint earlier this month, accusing Brian McCulloch of breaking Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment - “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”

Lowe objected to McCulloch’s characterization of him as the “worst of all possible choices for this important office.”

When McCulloch learned Lowe filed a formal complaint, he fired back with a complaint of his own.

“He has attacked me personally with a malicious lie,” McCulloch said of Lowe, in a letter to Republican Party Chairman Ken Eikenberry.

McCulloch accused Lowe of tarring him and the other Republican rivals as industry front men, but took the most umbrage at Lowe’s comment that McCulloch was once a Democrat precinct chairman.

“Anthony Lowe slandered me by calling me a Democrat P.C.O.,” charged McCulloch, who has never been a Democrat precinct officer, but ran for the insurance commissioner job as an independent in 1992.

Eikenberry can fine either candidate up to $5,000 for violating the 11th Commandment.

While the party sorts through the allegations of Lowe and McCulloch, it’s also hearing from the other two Republican hopefuls - Dave Walker and Steve Skipper - about Lowe.

Skipper complains the state party gave Lowe preferential campaign treatment by giving him access to state party resources.

Walker calls Lowe hypocritical to accuse him of being beholden to the insurance industry when he’s courting campaign donors himself.

“If Anthony’s going to accept insurance agents’ money, then don’t say we’re tied to the industry,” Walker said.

Lowe, a King County deputy prosecutor, has the most political endorsements and the best financial backing for a primary campaign that ends Sept. 17.

Todd Myers, a state Republican Party spokesman, said the race is getting unusually testy because “there is a real urgent necessity to beat Deborah Senn.”

He indicated Eikenberry will decide how to handle the complaints before the primary.

Eikenberry takes the unsportsmanlike charges more seriously than his predecessors because he feels infighting foiled his 1992 bid for governor.

The spat continues.

In an interview, McCulloch summed up Lowe this way: “Mr. Lowe doesn’t have original ideas. He doesn’t have enough knowledge of the industry to come up with his own stuff.”

Lowe’s response: “I think my ideas are far more original than anything he’s come up with. This job is not to sell insurance,” Lowe said, noting he is the “only candidate whose livelihood isn’t attached to the industry.”

Walker has worked as an agent, an instructor and as a regulator, having served 16 years in the state insurance commissioner’s office. Skipper and McCulloch are insurance instructors with backgrounds in the industry.

“When you’re behind you attack the frontrunner,” Lowe said, explaining why he is getting criticized.

McCulloch said that isn’t the case. He said the Republican candidates are still in a tight pack, scrapping for name recognition.

Nansen Pihlaja, Walker’s campaign manager, said the McCulloch-Lowe feud is an entertaining sideshow.

“It adds life to a … dull campaign,” she said, laughing. “Let’s be honest.”

She also indicated McCulloch was the instigator.

“I fondly call Brian (McCulloch) the Unabomber. He’s very smart and he writes these big letters. We all open our mail carefully around here.”

, DataTimes