Lessons from the McKenna/Boldt debacle.

Both RINO Rob McKenna and Marc Boldt's political careers suffered an untimely demise at 8:06 pm on November 6 when the first results of this most recent election were published.

The question here is "what's it all mean?"

Ever since it became clear that RINO Rob was, in fact, RINO Rob, I have refused to support him.

Choosing between two democrats is, as so many thousand democrats illustrated with their refusal to vote in the Boldt-Madore race between 2 Republicans, very difficult.

The calculus appeared to be to head as far left as politically possible to horn in on Inslee's leftist turf.  Even though McKenna raised almost $1.5 million more than Inslee, he was such a weak candidate that he barely won Clark County... and when you see how badly democrats like Boldt and Tanner got crushed... how can that be?

The result?  We've elected a moron as governor by all accounts, but a moron who didn't risk his base by getting utterly and completely stupid about what his principles actually were.

Political epiphanies like that suffered by RINO Reagan Dunn and his election-year flip to gay-marriage supporter, for example.  That kind of thing is the antithesis of integrity.

I refuse to vote for anyone, regardless of party, who I believe lack that fundamental tenet of governance.

Locally, Tom Mielke's results have re-enforced this fact: had Marc Boldt voted like a Republican and shared Tom Mielke's positions on the CRC scam, he likely would have been re-elected easily, because it's also likely that David Madore would not have felt compelled to run against him.

For several years, Marc had been fooling us... fooling me, most of all.

I spent over a decade defending Marc.  The snarky comments by those like Joe King, who apparently called Marc "too stupid to be a legislator" early on in his 10 year career... all the way to faux ally Babbling Brancaccio who wrote:

On the I.Q. front Madore also has the advantage. Boldt is no dummy and has done very well at learning the issues. But if you're looking for the most likely candidate to win "Jeopardy," it's Madore.

Damning by faint praise comes to mind.  But Boldt's former political opponents hold him in such contempt that even when they supported him in the last election, they had to cast aspersions on his intelligence.

That said, Marc Boldt defeated himself when he betrayed us all.

The democrats and their organs... including our local daily newspaper, have fought the will of the people on the CRC, literally, for years.

The most fringe-left elected official in the northwest, Jim "My middle name is Hussein" Moeller, endorsed Marc; to Marc's apparent shame.  That is the ilk of those who would arrogantly sue not only their own constituents but all the people of this state in an effort to remove the restrictions on his ability to shaft us all with more unneeded tax and fee increases, so important to him, will of the people be damned.

The slimiest elected official in the Northwest also supported Marc's election: Mayor of Vancouver, Tim Leave-it, whose election campaign of repeated lies is the stuff of political legends.

Close to every living democrat from the democrat former Speaker of the House, Joe King, down to former democrat commissioners and every leftist mayor in this burg endorsed Boldt.

And what did they all have in common?

The desire to shaft the people of this county by ramming the CRC down our throats while denying us another vote.

Marc's rabid support of a huge waste of billions project, combined with his own efforts to cut out 60 to 100 thousand voters outside the bogus CRC tax scam lines; his moronic and democrat-inspired robocall asking us for an unneeded tax increase that would not have passed had it been voted on county-wide... a deliberate effort of Marc to exclude tens of thousands of us from the vote, but not from paying his tax.

There's nothing inclusive in all of this.  Nothing at all.

The discovery of the memo that outlines how public involvement in this project is to be minimized to the maximum possible extent combined with the Oregon Supreme Court ruling that the entirety of this project is a scam to get light rail's nose under Vancouver's tent flap.

Marc's foolish decision to take county money and use it to meet payroll for a county contractor where his wife worked, an obvious violation of this state's ethics laws, didn't help... no matter how much the county's lawyer and the rag covered for Boldt.

But what nailed him politically was his support of a process so unalterably stupid that we've wasted $150 million to get a bogus bridge design that the Coast Guard wouldn't even provide a permit for because it was 40 feet or so too close to the water.

The splatter took out democrat Joe Tanner, who's muted opposition to this program simply didn't match the ferocious intensity of Tom Mielke who put up with a continuous mountain of abuse from the newspaper and other democrats... including Marc Boldt.

And that's the irony of this situation: Marc's failure to pull the trigger and switch parties cost him as much as 24,000 votes so far... the difference in undervotes and write-ins between the Madore-Boldt race and the Mielke-Tanner race.

So, what's it all mean?

1.  If you're going to be a Republican, be a Republican.

2.  If you're masquerading as a Republican, stop and just switch parties.

3.  If you SHOULD switch parties, then do everyone a favor and stop claiming a false, non-existent, nonsensical connection with a party where, like Marc, you haven't even bothered to read the party platform.

4.  No matter your party, don't you dare be afraid of the will of the people just because you, personally, may happen to disagree with that will.

5.  When you're confronted with a divisive project of any size, be it the ballpark scam of Steve Stuart and Tim Leave-it, or a gargantuan project like the CRC rip off....

.... man (or woman) up AND PUT IT TO A VOTE.

Given the history of this county, there is one reason and one reason only that they've done all they can to avoid allowing us to have any say: they realize there is no way.... NO WAY... that the people would vote for this.

If you're a Marc Boldt, you should have taken a stand on principle: even if this is the project that would save the western world from the Mongol hordes....

....put it to a vote.

Even if Marc had supported the wrong side on a vote, he would have been respected for allowing us to make the decision, and his flexibility on that issue might have saved his job.

As it was...