Who will be voted in, if ‘bums’ are thrown out?
RECRUITING IS A tough sell when trying to line up candidates for political office.
News reports, letters to the editor, political cartoons and online communications are rife with talk of voting out all the incumbents.
But the only way to “throw the bums out” is to elect different people.
A stampede of potential candidates hasn’t yet materialized, except for the half-dozen-plus Republicans lining up to take a shot at Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, who’s up for re-election this fall.
In even-year elections, all seats in the House of Representatives — both state and national — are on the ballot.
In districts that include Clallam and Jefferson counties, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, and state Reps. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, and Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, are expected to defend their seats once more.
(State Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, won’t face the voters this year — no matter how arrogant or courageous his constituents may think he is.)
Most county offices will also be on the ballot, including District 3 county commissioners. Most incumbents are expected to seek re-election.
Jefferson County Commissioner John Austin, a first-term Democrat, has announced he will run again. Republican Jim Boyer launched his campaign last year to unseat Austin.
Clallam County Commissioner Mike Doherty, D-Port Angeles, habitually holds off on announcing his intentions until late in the filing period, but political observers will be stunned if he doesn’t run again.
Other positions open in both counties include auditors, assessors, sheriffs, treasurers, prosecuting attorneys and District Court judges, plus one of the Public Utility District commissioners.
Jefferson County voters also will elect or re-elect their county clerk and Superior Court judge.
In Clallam County, the director of community development is elected and up for a vote this year.
Twice, voters have insisted on being the only county in the nation to elect its development director, but incumbent John Miller ran unopposed four years ago after his predecessor bizarrely withdrew after the filing period closed.
Each political party will also seek to elect a full complement of precinct committee officers.
As with most elections, there’s no dearth of opportunities, but there is often a dearth of candidates. Many incumbents run unopposed.
Having multiple challengers for Murray is good for the democratic system, observed Dick Pilling, chair of the Clallam County Republican Central Committee.
Last month, all of Murray’s challengers were invited to a dinner forum in Sequim to give local Republicans a chance to meet them and make informed choices about whom to support.
“The opposing party does a good recruiting job for us,” said Pilling, who remains hopeful that strong candidates will emerge for all other races.
However, his personal efforts to recruit conservative candidates have produced limited success.
“Most people are unable to jump on the firing line, for reasonable and good reasons,” he said.
Because running for office makes a person a target for sometimes uncivil attacks, he said, “they have to either be ego-less or have so strong an ego that the barbs bounce off.”
Strong credible candidates — regardless of partisan or nonpartisan affiliations — are well-informed, involved, active, vocal participants in civic affairs prior to jumping into the fray.
Many people fit that criteria — as demonstrated by the lack of shortages when it comes to nominating candidates for awards such as Citizen of the Year — but few are ever willing to run.
A generation ago, business leaders considered it to be their civic duty to take a turn at serving in public office, the late Sam Haguewood, a former mayor of Port Angeles, told me 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, it appears that Haguewood wasn’t able to pass that sense of civic duty on to the next generation, or we might have seen the names of his very credible sons, Jim and Jeff, on a ballot by now.
Undoubtedly, they, too, have had reasonable and good reasons for declining.
In Washington state, the candidate filing period is June 7-11–which means the opportunity to run will pretty much close 15 weeks from today.
Strong, credible candidates who will give voters an intelligent choice are urgently needed.
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Martha Ireland was a Clallam County commissioner from 1996 through 1999 and is the secretary of the Republican Women of Clallam County. She and her husband, Dale, live on a Carlsborg-area farm.
Her column appears Fridays.
E-mail her at irelands@olypen.com.
