Lenin Statue Looms Over 9Th District Cox Campaign Attempts To Link Connelly With Marxist Dictator’S Brand Of Politics

A mention of Vladimir Lenin usually would be as rare in a 9th Legislative District race as a slew of vandalized campaign yard signs.

Yet both were part of the increasingly intense campaign Tuesday between Republican Rep. Don Cox and Democratic challenger Mike Connelly.

Some Cox supporters awoke to find their signs spray-painted with insults such as “liar” and “cheat.”

“It’s disgusting,” said Janis Beymer, a Colfax, Wash., resident and Cox supporter who said she is turned off by negative campaigning from both parties. “It’s just the same as on the national level - a bunch of mudslinging.”

The Soviet Union’s first Marxist dictator suddenly matters because two of Cox’s GOP allies, House seatmate Mark Schoesler and Sen. Larry Sheahan, hint that Lenin’s brand of politics is what the Legislature faces if Connelly wins and the Democrats take control of the House.

“Take a look at who would control the Legislature if we don’t bring Don back,” they wrote in a letter the Cox campaign mailed to 9th District voters. “The next speaker of the House would be a representative who previously ran the Fremont Association in Seattle, where they erected a statue to a communist icon, V.I. Lenin.”

The person in question is Frank Chopp, the Democratic co-speaker, who represents the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle.

Spokane County Democratic Chairman Ken Pelo called the link between Chopp and the Lenin statue “a bunch of balderdash.”

Not so, said Schoesler and Sheahan, who in separate interviews contend they were just trying to drive home the contrast in leaders if Connelly’s win ends the current 49-49 split.

“The point is he’s the speaker, that’s his community,” Sheahan said. “If we had a statue of Lenin in downtown Rosalia, I would expect people to be upset about that.”

“The point is that the next speaker of the House is far more liberal than anybody in the 9th District,” Schoesler said of Chopp. “(The statue) went up under his watch.”

No, said Suzie Burke, a longtime Fremont civic activist and businesswoman who describes herself as a conservative Republican. She wants to see Cox win, but the letter is wrong, Burke said.

The Fremont Public Association, where Chopp works, had nothing to do with the 18-foot bronze statue, Burke said. It was put up by the Arts Council and the Fremont Chamber of Commerce in an attempt to help the family of artist Lewis Carpenter.

Carpenter bought the toppled statue in Slovakia after communism crumbled in that country, had it cut up and shipped to Seattle. But he died before it could be reassembled, and his family was stuck with a dismembered statue in their back yard.

The Arts Council put up the statue in a small business plaza for the most capitalistic of reasons: It’s for sale. But with a price tag of $150,000, it hasn’t had any firm offers.

“It’s awesome, but it’s not a nice statue,” Burke said. “It wouldn’t be honest to say Frank Chopp put up the Lenin statue as a sign of his political leanings.”

Cox campaign manager Mike Burgess called the Lenin link “no more of a stretch than it is to say Don Cox chooses partisanship over education,” a reference to a line in television commercials the Democrats are running to criticize Cox’s vote against the House budget.

The biennial budget passed on nearly partisan lines, with only a few Republicans breaking ranks to support it. Connelly and Gov. Gary Locke were on the Washington State University campus last week criticizing Cox’s vote against the budget and talking about lower tuition.

Hypocritical, Schoesler said. “Mike Connelly says he wants to lower tuition, but the budget he brags on - and condemns Don Cox for voting against - increased students’ tuition faster than the rate of inflation.”

He also believes some Connelly supporters “aren’t above” the recent spate of sign vandalism.

But Burgess doubts that.

“There’s no way they would do this. It’s some yahoo out there,” he said. “It’s ugliness that nobody wants to have happen here.”

FACT CHECK Letter for Cox a `gimmick,’ Democrats say The ad: A one-page letter mailed to 9th Legislative District voters by the Committee to Re- tain Don Cox, signed by Republican state Sen. Larry Sheahan and Rep. Mark Schoesler. It warns of the consequences of Cox’s defeat, which would give Democrats a one-vote majority in the House, and criticizes the potential speaker and chairmen of powerful committees. The letter ties potential House Speaker Frank Chopp to a statue of Vladimir Lenin in the Fremont district of Seattle and criticizes Capital Budget co-Chairman Ed Murray of Seattle for spending state money on “the Seattle Symphony, Chinese Gardens and a new UW Law School rather than replacing crowded and outdated elementary schools.” Opponent’s reaction: Spokane County Democratic Chairman Ken Pelo calls the letter a “a last-minute political gimmick” that bends the truth. Campaign response: Cox campaign manager Mike Burgess calls the letter accurate and no more of a stretch than some Democratic ads for challenger Mike Connelly. Analysis: It’s an unusually hard-hitting ad for the normally genteel Palouse district. It tries to exploit the state’s east-west animosity, and even raises the specter of communism. The attempt to link Chopp to the statue of Lenin, which is merely in his home district, is a reach. The capital budget did have money for the symphony and the gardens, but it had far more for the Cheney Cowles Museum in Spokane, which isn’t mentioned. As Murray noted, Cox and Schoesler both voted for the capital budget when it passed the House unanimously. Jim Camden