East Sider Kicks Off Campaign Conservative Republican From East Wenatchee Runs For Governor

Geography, as well as politics, was on Dale Foreman’s mind Thursday as he jumped into the crowded race for Washington governor.

No one from east of the Cascade Range has been elected chief executive since Democrat Clarence Martin of Cheney pulled it off during the Great Depression.

Conservative Republican Foreman, the state House majority leader, told hundreds of hometown fans at his kickoff event that he intends to make his Eastern Washington address an asset.

“It’s a long way from being a country lawyer and orchardist to running for governor … of 5.3 million people, most of whom live on the I-5 corridor,” he said. “Some people ask me if it is even possible for someone from Eastern Washington to be elected. You bet it is.”

He said his relative inexperience in government - he is in only his third year in the Legislature - and his connection to the land and to ordinary people’s anger toward runaway government will help him combat Democratic Gov. Mike Lowry and “those Seattle liberals.”

“We need a governor who has lived in the private sphere longer than he’s been at the public trough,” he said in a slap at Lowry and most of his GOP competitors as well.

Foreman included a few anti-Seattle gibes, primarily aimed at the liberals who dominate politics in the state’s largest city.

But, he said, “I’m from Seattle. I’m not hostile to Seattle.”

Foreman grew up on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill, where his father, Mel, and uncle, Ken, were on the faculty at Seattle Pacific University.

“I spent my first 20 years in Western Washington (before leaving to attend Harvard University), and Gail (Foreman’s wife) and I have lived the past 20 years in Eastern Washington,” he told about 600 people at his campaign kickoff. “I am the only candidate who knows firsthand the problems and the incredible potential of both sides of this state.”

Foreman will have to forgo re-election to the House and his powerful leadership position to file for governor. He said he is going to campaign full time for the primary that still is a year away.

After the airport campaign kickoff in his hometown, he left for events in Yakima, Spokane and Seattle. He plans announcement events in Vancouver, Longview and Centralia today.

Foreman said Democrats cater to Seattle liberals and raise taxes to “finance their ever-increasing need to spend on social services, socialized medicine and more government bureaucrats who can write and enforce more regulations on the people. …”

He pledged to cut state government payrolls by 10,000, to overhaul the welfare system, to crack down on juvenile crime and to improve public schools. Without spelling out specifics, he pledged to fight for property tax cuts and business tax incentives for companies that create new jobs.

Lowry, handicapped by poor poll standings and fallout from a sexual harassment accusation he settled out of court, said Sunday he won’t announce his plans until after the next legislative session. No other Democrat has stepped forward to challenge the incumbent governor.

But the Republicans, sensing Lowry’s vulnerability, already have fielded six candidates, and more may enter.