McMorris enlists Craig’s help in tight race

Attempting to shore up support in what she describes as a surprisingly close race, freshman Rep. Cathy McMorris held a phone-in “town hall meeting” Tuesday morning and enlisted a Senate ally to defend her actions on veterans’ issues.

Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark is “hitting very hard” on veterans budget votes she’s taken, and on recent cuts in veterans services, McMorris told Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. She asked Craig to emphasize the increase in total veterans funding.

“It’s a closer race than I first imagined,” McMorris said before the two were put on live with a telephone audience of about 192 veterans around Eastern Washington’s 5th Congressional District. The McMorris campaign had contacted nearly 20,000 people earlier in the week and invited them to participate in the campaign’s first ever “tele-town hall.”

Craig, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, was happy to comply. Over the next half hour he repeatedly emphasized that record amounts are being spent on VA programs and described those government hospitals as some of the best in the country.

“It clearly shows the kind of priority you’ve put into it as a congresswoman,” Craig said of the 14 percent increase in the Veterans Affairs budget in the last two years. “What we are doing is literally unprecedented. We are not going to turn our backs on veterans.”

In commercials and at debates, Goldmark has criticized certain McMorris votes against proposals to spend even more on veterans programs. He’s also pointed out that just last month, an 83-year-old veteran who arrived at the Spokane VA hospital a few minutes after its urgent care center closed had to be sent by ambulance to Deaconess Medical Center. The veteran died.

The case of Clinton “Foxx” Fuller, which was raised in a debate later in the day, didn’t come up in questions during the morning teleconference. But when one caller asked about using vouchers so a veteran could be reimbursed for going to other medical facilities, McMorris mentioned it herself.

Veterans can be reimbursed for going to emergency rooms, because the VA hospital in Spokane has an “urgent care” clinic, but not an emergency room, she said.

“I think it has not been clearly communicated that this is not an emergency center,” she said. The VA staff “has been very poor about communicating to vets in the community where they should go.”

Some have also had trouble being reimbursed for emergency room care, she said. And although there is a waiting list for veterans seeking care at the Spokane VA hospital, “we have made it a priority” to eliminate the list by the end of the year, she said.

Craig said veterans in sparsely populated areas also may have to become accustomed to getting some of their care at VA clinics rather than hospitals, or even in space rented at rural hospitals rather than a free-standing VA facility.

Before talking to callers, McMorris told Craig the change in voters between 2004, when she first won the seat, and this year is “pretty dramatic.” Strong Republicans and Democrats are sticking to their candidates, her polling shows, but the moderates and independents remain undecided.

Into this mix, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Thursday began a $323,000 television campaign to help Goldmark and hurt McMorris. The group’s first commercial criticizes her votes on Social Security.

Craig told McMorris she’s not alone, and he believes voters around the country are “feeling a malaise.”

“The new numbers are just devastating,” he said.

Craig, who is not up for election this year, told McMorris it could be important to shore up efforts to “get out the vote” on Election Day, and she said her campaign is targeting Republicans who might need extra motivation to mail in their ballots.

In talking to callers, Craig took the opportunity to underscore that point for McMorris, telling one caller who complained about “the liberal media” that it was important that she vote and “tell all your friends to get to the polls.”