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She
staged a Senate field hearing in Walla
Walla last month at which hundreds
turned out to oppose a pending shutdown
of the Jonathan M. Wainwright Veterans
Medical Center. The Department of
Veterans Affairs announced last week
that the highly regarded hospital will
stay open.
"If you
sit and gripe, nothing gets done: The
people over there made a difference,"
said Murray, choosing not to strut in
victory.
At
this point, a reverse argument should
apply: George Nethercutt should never,
ever be "misunderestimated."
He
is a skilled politician who learned his
craft as an aide to veteran Alaska Sen.
Ted Stevens.
Nethercutt has eschewed Stevens' fiery
temper. He was tapped to take on Foley
by GOP leaders who were seeking a more
electable candidate than two previous
nominees who hoped for another shot at
Big Tom. A knuckle-dragger wouldn't do.
Nethercutt came on easy, using his civic
work on juvenile diabetes -- a disease
from which his daughter Meredith suffers
-- to make himself known to Inland
Empire voters. The nasty work against
Foley was done by outside groups such as
the National Rifle Association.
In
Congress he has been co-chairman of the
Congressional Diabetes Caucus. Meredith
Nethercutt has touted her father's work
in the first TV ad buy of his Senate
campaign.
Nethercutt can be very conservative. As
a freshman congressman, he voted to pull
the United States out of the United
Nations, and against a landmark
compromise raising the minimum wage. He
voted for an amendment that would have
withdrawn enforcement authority from the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
He
is, however, an outspoken free trader
who has helped lead a House effort to
end the embargo on food and drug exports
to Cuba.
Nethercutt has toughed out one major
controversy. In his 2000 re-election
race, Nethercutt broke a centerpiece
pledge of his race against Foley that he
would serve no more than three terms in
the House.
He
has also become a bring-home-the-bacon
congressman as a member of the House
Appropriations Committee. In this stand,
he is a polar opposite from GOP Senate
primary foe Reed Davis. Davis, a former
King County Republican chairman, is
running as an enemy of federal pork.
Murray voted against final passage of
Congress' 2002 resolution authorizing
war with Iraq. Nethercutt remains a
down-the-line supporter of President
Bush and staying the course in Iraq.
"I
don't believe we can lose this fight,"
he said yesterday. "Ultimately we are
going to prevail in this effort and
bring freedom to the Iraqi people."
Nethercutt has taken an apartment in
Bellevue for the campaign, and is
learning a Western Washington issue --
conservation.
Former Gov. Dan Evans recently took him
for a walk in the proposed Wild Sky
Wilderness in the Cascades east of
Everett.
"This has to be preserved," Nethercutt
said yesterday. Talking his walk,
Nethercutt has conferred twice with
House Resources Committee Chairman
Richard Pombo. Pombo is a property
rights champion from California who, in
a letter released yesterday, has set
rigid restrictions on consideration of
areas for wilderness designation.
"He
(Pombo) understands my feelings. I want
a Wild Sky bill and I am going to get a
bill," Nethercutt said yesterday.
It'll be a test. After all, Murray and
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have twice
persuaded the Senate to unanimously pass
Wild Sky Wilderness legislation.
Conservation groups are sure to growl if
Nethercutt cuts low elevation forests
out of the Senate-passed bill. Nor have
they warmed up to the challenger.
"If
George Nethercutt becomes a threat to
Patty Murray, we will shift a huge
amount of attention here," said Carl
Pope, executive director of the Sierra
Club.
Hold
onto your seat belts. It's going to be a
bumpy political year. |
