Yes, I was too damned cynical in assessing Doc Hastings’s opponents’ motives.

Jan Smith.  I thought Mary Baechler sold the Baby Jogger Company in 2004. How could she be doing this for a promotional attempt. This just shows how in tune Doc Hastings is in the 4th District.

I think I was musing over the remarks by a billionaire Republican Senate candidate running a campaign against an entrenched Democratic Incumbent who made remarks that running to promote your company is a good reason to run.  It doesn’t even matter if you lose.
This apparently isn’t  Mary Baechler’s reason.  Her company’s out of her hands.  But a while ago a sad “Dump Doc Hastings” blog had the entry noting the Democrats had failed to recruit its candidate.  A good reason to run is “stepping in the breach” — the void, even in a jungle primary of a heavily Republican district — the Democrat would still likely be the second candidate — that would otherwise fall to a Gordon Allen Pross type.

So… that cleared away… I guess it’s time for me to survey the latest on Congressman Hastings.

We see Hastings at the hustles…. Well then.

Doc shared that we got the same Paul Ryan as VP candidate that he has known and worked with for the last 14 years. He said Ryan is the “real deal”.

And a hyped up Pat Murray in the district (bringing up vote tally for Jay Inslee’s state-wide contest and beyond) , talking at the same time Hastings was… and I guess the answer from the Republican point of view It just does.

EDITOR’S NOTE — How exactly does holding middle-class tax cuts hostage to extending tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% address “the crushing burden of debt”?

In terms of big Legislative attempts… it looks like Hastings was defeated by Dennis Kucinich… who I guess has the luxury of offending Washington State by virtue of not jumping in to carpet-bag in the newly redrawn 10th district in the Seattle Suburbs.

In a vote that came up in the House of Representatives on September 20 during a “suspension of the rules,” the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act (HR 5987) won a majority vote of 237/180, or 55% to 42%, but failed because the bill required a two-thirds majority to pass.

The suspension of the rules is typically used to pass non-controversial bills quickly with only 40 minutes of debate, but in this case, the bipartisan-sponsored bill turned out to be more controversial than anticipated. One hundred twelve Republicans voted against it, as did 68 Democrats.

In particular, a statement on Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s (D-OH) website gives him credit for leading “a bipartisan coalition of 180 Members of Congress to stand for veterans, for fiscal responsibility and friendship with the Japanese people” to defeat this bill.

“The technology which created the bomb cannot be separated from the horror the bomb created,” Kucinich’s statement continues. “We should not celebrate the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians or the destruction of two major Japanese cities no matter how proud we are of our ability to innovate.”

I’m neutral on this matter, but I don’t quite get Kucinich’s logic.  Also I very much  But … I gather commemoration seems in order, doesn’t it Kucinich?  And I very much doubt this is the reason for the no votes, especially amongst the 112 Republicans — who would be more along the lines of the “fiscal responsibility” card that would likely have Doc Hastings opposing the bill if it weren’t in his backyard.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2012 at 9:46 am and is filed under Doc Hastings and the 4th Congressional District of Wash, Uncategorized. 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.