Incumbent faces primary test

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ conservative credentials are under attack this summer from three primary challengers trying to out-flank her on the right.

The two-term Republican House member has plenty of campaign money – slightly under a half-million left, out of more than $1 million raised through the end of July – and such perks of office as free mailings throughout the district and visits from a high-ranking member of her caucus to discuss transportation. She’s got television commercials in which she pumps gas and talks about high energy costs, while the most her main Democratic opponent Mark Mays can muster at this point are radio ads.

Mays is trying to paint her as a nice person with the bad judgment to be marching in lock-step with George Bush. Meanwhile, three other primary candidates – Libertarian John Beck, Constitutionalist Randall Yearout and Ron Paul-style Republican Kurt Erickson – want to move the country further and more quickly to the right than McMorris Rodgers has been able to do in the last four years.

All three are running low-budget campaigns that seem to spend most of their meager funds on yard signs planted along arterials and at busy intersections.

At a candidate forum last month sponsored by the Ron Paul wing of the local Republican Party, that trio tried to chip away at McMorris Rodgers’ conservative support, offering an eclectic array of ideas that might not be on the radar screen for most voters or candidates.

Erickson, a Clarkston real estate and precious metals investor, called for abolishing the Federal Reserve, blaming it for the loss in the dollar’s value since it was formed in 1913.

Yearout, an Otis Orchards operating engineer who described himself as “a husband and dad in work boots,” suggested repealing the 17th Amendment, which is the one that allows senators to be chosen by popular vote, rather than being appointed by state legislators.

Beck, a Gonzaga University economics professor, complained about the growth of government, from the Department of Education to the Food and Drug Administration. A person should be free to take whatever drug he or she chooses, whether or not it has FDA approval, he said.

Members of the audience asked McMorris Rodgers to defend votes on such things as spending money for troops fighting in Iraq, supporting National Identification Card standards and endorsing U.S. Sen. John McCain while Paul was still in the race.

Congress voted to give Bush authority to go to war in Iraq before she got there, McMorris Rodgers noted, but she defended her support for war budgets. “It’s in our best interest to have a stable Middle East,” she said. “It’s very important that we have success in Iraq.”

Her trio of rivals was generally against the war, saying it was never declared by Congress as required by the Constitution.

The neoconservatives in the Bush administration were trying to create a model Arab democracy for the Middle East, Beck said. The United States shouldn’t have invaded without a declaration of war, he added, although in a war on terror, “I don’t know who you declare war on.”

It would be better for Congress to issue a letter of marquee and reprisal – essentially paying private contractors to fight al-Qaida – which is mentioned in the Constitution, Yearout said. “Pay whatever mercenaries will go after them,” he added.

Or let Iraq shoulder the burden, suggested Erickson.

“They can hire out Blackwater,” he added, a reference to one of the largest private contractors in Iraq.

While the trio criticized such things as tougher standards for driver’s licenses as big government’s interference in private lives, McMorris Rodgers defended her vote on the rules as a way to improve security for licenses, which can be a key to accessing government programs.

She backed McCain just before the state’s precinct caucuses, she added, when it became clear he was going to win and he was planning a campaign stop in Spokane.

But McMorris Rodgers issued an apology of sorts for Congress, and the Republicans who controlled it when she was first elected in 2004 but lost the majority when she won re-election in 2006. They need to get back to their roots of limiting government, reducing spending and cutting taxes, she said.

“We, in my opinion, lost our way,” she said. “For too many Republicans it became about keeping power.”

Spokane County Republican Chairman Curt Fackler, who attended the forum, gave McMorris Rodgers points for appearing at an event she could have skipped and owning up to mistakes the GOP made in Congress.

“She’s honest about it,” Fackler said.

In a primary with six candidates – perennial candidate Barbara Lampert is also running as a Democrat – the incumbent should be secure if she collects more than 50 percent of the votes, Fackler said.

“If she’s between 45 percent and 50 percent, I wouldn’t be too concerned. If she’s below 45 percent, that would concern me.”