One thing I neglected to mention about Doc Hastings:

Doc Hastings made an appearance on Fox News, the great disseminating tool for the Republican Party.  This clip was posted to his facebook page.  It is not a good performance; it is not a bad performance — save yourself the few minutes and don’t push “play”.  Hastings said nothing noteworthy, and the host lead him through the interview.

A minute and a half into the clip, the bullet-point pops up on Hastings.  He “Served 8 Years in WA State Legislature”, “Joined House of Reps in 1994”, and “Ran Family’s Small Business”.   And I guess the audience has now been briefed on who the heck this guy is.  The actual appearance on a national venue was novel enough that local press had to note:

It’s not exactly prime time, but Rep. Doc Hastings was ready when Fox News called this morning.  
Interesting enough:
Hastings, the Pasco Republican, has emerged as a leading critic of the Obama administration from his perch as ranking minority on the House Natural Resources Committee.

So.  Does his one appearance sometime in the afternoon on Fox News fore-tell increased visibility of Doc Hastings as a public voice of the Republican party?  (And remember,  his battle to bring down the  population of wild horses is attracting celebrity opposition.)

Sure.  Why not?  The Republicans need somebody to point out there.  As George Voinovich said of the current Republican party:

Sen. George Voinovich, the former governor of Ohio, made waves when he told The Columbus Dispatch “we got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns.”

“It’s the southerners,” he said. “They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr.’ People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'”

Hastings has, so far as I can tell, not gone on tv and gone “errr, errrr.”  Then again, until that blip of a Fox News interview, he hasn’t had the chance.  Another possibility:  Fox News needed to find a Republican to follow through that talking point kabuki dance, and went down the list.

In other  “will have the job so long as he wants it” entrenched Northwest Republican Congress-critter news, Greg Walden is railing against the “Fairness Doctrine”.  Seems a waste of time.  Noteworthy, one argument Hastings makes about (ahem) “Welfare for Wild Horses” act is that it’s out of place for our national priorities.  Which means he should be on the phone to Walden to nix his “Fairness Doctrine” cause.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Doc Hastings and the 4th Congressional District of Wash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.