There are reasons that Carlson didn't win re-election. Some he admitted to... others he must have known but refused to acknowledge.
Firstly, he was shafted by the WEA. The teacher's union, a wholly-owned democrat subsidiary, dropped him like a bad habit when they smelled the possibility that the loss of his senate seat would reverse Republican control of the senate.
Never mind that he had carried their water like Gunga Din for the entirety of his tenure. Never mind that he was a retired teacher. The opportunity for the WEA to shaft him in return for democrat control of the senate proved irresistible.
Carlson bizarrely seems to think that had he supported the WEA's misfeasance when they ditched their classrooms and their children so they could run their misspelled protest signs around the Capitol building, they would have stuck with him.
Fat chance. That he actually believes that nonsense is a symptom of how out of touch Carlson was with political reality.
Under the guise of "conscience," Carlson shafted his caucus and the people of Washington State by voting with the democrats on the 1999 budget, a betrayal I knew about 3 weeks in advance... his "I made the decision 2 days before the vote" proclamations notwithstanding... a betrayal that cost us $300 MILLION dollars. Oddly, the Columbian neglects to mention that.
His support of "No Choice Royce" and the city council's decision to sue the voters to silence them, his choice of a Kerry supporter as his campaign manager in his last election, his ultra-leftist efforts to provide in-state tuition costs to illegal alien children, a move that is costing the taxpayers millions every year in this state... these moves and others like them had him pegged as a RINO: a Republican in Name Only.
You can only get so far with those kinds of credentials... a reality the Columbian "fails" to mention.
It was a poor choice for Carlson, who was willing to routinely sell out Republican principles in order to remain in office. And in the end, he was betrayed by those he worked for the hardest... just like he betrayed his fellow Republicans and the taxpayers of this state... all in the name of his "conscience."
The Left used him like an old t-shirt. And then they saw a better opportunity to get more use out of someone else, they discarded him like, well.... an old t-shirt.
Carlson only ran as a Republican because there was a democrat incumbent. We all would have been better off if he had waited and ran as a democrat. After all, he acted like one, voted like one, was used like one and trashed like one.
You can just BET that when Republican stalwarts like Benton, Boldt, Mielke and the like finally leave the political realm, if the Columbian focuses on them at all it will be to savage their record and sully their service to the people of this county one final time.
Good bye and good riddance.
In Our View: Carlson Served Well
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Columbian editorial writers
Scholar. Statesman. Longtime legislator. Moderate Republican. A person who followed his conscience more than his political partisanship.
That capsule description fits Don Carlson, who is leaving Clark County this week to move to Olympia to be closer to other members of his family.
His imprint on Clark County during 43 years here has been substantial and constructive.
He taught and coached at Hudson's Bay and Columbia River high schools. For 12 total years, he served in the Legislature, first as a state representative, then a state senator from the Democratically-inclined 49th district. A close victory by Craig Pridemore last November put him out of office.
Carlson was a forceful voice for education, especially higher education. He served as chairman of the Senate's Higher Education Committee, and chairman in 2004 of the 14-state Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. He was outspoken and determined to do the right thing, and that sometimes landed him in hot water. For example, in 1999, as a state representative, he voted to support a Democratic Senate budget over a Republican House version. "It was a better budget for higher education, senior citizens, developmentally disabled, and for Southwest Washington," he said. "It was the right thing to do."
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