Campaign May Have Cost Votes

Independent campaigns can sometimes backfire, hurting the candidate they intend to help.

That may have been the effect of Citizens Against a Third Runway, a committee set up last fall by United for Washington, the state’s largest pro-business group, and the Building Industry Association of Washington.

The two business groups used the committee to spend $4,700 to support Republican Jim McCune in suburban Seattle’s 33rd Legislative District.

The groups mailed voters a brochure attacking Democrat Rep. Karen Keiser, who is also a spokeswoman for the Washington State Labor Council. The unions “supported and lobbied for the opening of a third runway at Sea-Tac Airport,” the ad said.

The brochure and the committee’s name pressed one of the district’s hot buttons, the airport’s expansion plans.

But both candidates were on record as opposing the expansion.

Keiser called the brochure “a smear and a lie” and called the independent campaign a front for business.

McCune defended the brochure during the campaign. But many voters considered the ad phony and it may have cost him votes by generating sympathy for Keiser, he said.

“They would have been better off giving me the money.”

State records show, however, that the building industry and several large donors to United for Washington had already given McCune the maximum allowed by law. Their only option was to mount the independent campaign. He lost by 1,700 votes.

, DataTimes