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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Bush may campaign in Spokane

President George W. Bush is expected to make a campaign stop in Spokane next Thursday, starting the summer campaign season with a bang for Washington state’s U.S. Senate race.

Bush is tentatively scheduled to speak at a $1,000-per-plate campaign dinner for U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt, a Spokane Republican looking to challenge incumbent Sen. Patty Murray in the fall election.

The Nethercutt campaign has sent out invitations to a campaign dinner and private reception, but was referring all requests to the White House, where a press spokesman declined to comment until sometime today.

“We’ve made no announcements about the president’s travel schedule for next week,” said Ken Lisaius of the White House media affairs office.

But Republicans and Democrats were both stepping up the rhetoric as they prepared for a presidential campaign stop. If it did occur, it would be the first presidential campaign stop for a Senate challenger this year, said Alex Conant, a Nethercutt spokesman, who added that would be “a huge deal.”

Alex Glass, a Murray spokeswoman, characterized the visit as Bush “pulling out all the stops” to help elect a “rubber stamp.”

“I don’t think that it’s surprising (for Bush) to come out to campaign with someone who’s been in lock-step with him,” Glass said.

Nethercutt, who has been in the House for 10 years, will run against two-term incumbent Murray in November if he wins the Sept. 14 primary. He faces a challenge from former King County Republican chairman Reed Davis, but has the support of state GOP Chairman Chris Vance and the party hierarchy.

The Nethercutt campaign has scheduled a fund-raising dinner Thursday evening at the Ag Trade Center in downtown Spokane, and lists Bush as a possible speaker. The campaign also has a private reception with the president at $4,000 per person, or $8,000 per couple.

Bush’s visit would be the first presidential visit to Spokane since his father flew into the city airport in 1992 on the way to a campaign stop in Colville. Before that, the first President Bush was in Spokane in September 1989, when he ate dinner at Patsy Clark’s with then-Speaker Tom Foley, spent the night at a downtown hotel, went jogging on the Centennial Trail and attended a rally for the environment in Riverfront Park. Bush and Foley planted an American elm sapling from the White House grounds in the park.

It was Foley that Nethercutt beat in 1994 to win his seat in Congress. Last year, at the urging of the White House, Nethercutt announced he would challenge Murray rather than seek re-election to Eastern Washington’s Fifth District seat.

Bush’s visit is likely to be designed to give a boost to the president’s efforts to win the state in November, as well. A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t carried Washington state since Ronald Reagan’s re-election landslide in 1984, but the state is on both parties’ list of “swing” states because Democrat Al Gore won by only 6 percent in 2000.

Although the visit can’t be confirmed or denied until today, local transportation officials on Thursday were already sweating the possible effects Bush’s motorcade would have next week.

“I just want to say everybody better tighten their belts,” said Jerry Lenzi, administrator for the Washington State Department of Transportation’s eastern region.

Parts of Interstate 90 could be shut down during the afternoon rush hour to make way for the president’s motorcade and related Secret Service security sweeps, Lenzi said. The complete route between Spokane and the airport has yet to be determined, he added.