I was disappointed to read 24th Legislative District candidate George Vrable’s statement that the League of Women Voters was equivalent to a racist, right-wing group [“Candidate Calls Group ‘Socialist’; Vrable Later Softens His Stand On League Of Women Voters,” PDN, Sept. 14].
Such a comment reflects an ill-informed and unknowledgeable person who prefers diatribe to dialog.
Perhaps Mr. Vrable is simply uneducated about the history of the LWV, which, according to the League of Women Voters website (www.lwv.org), fought to enact Social Security and the Food and Drug Act of the 1930s, confronted the junior senator from Wisconsin during the shameful days of McCarthyism, stood with the civil rights movement from the 1950s through the 1960s, supported the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and 1982, and sponsored an Emmy-award-winning televised presidential debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976 — only the second televised presidential debate in U.S. history at that time — and so much more.
Does Mr. Vrable honestly believe that speaking at a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters, or an LGBT organization, or the Sierra Club would then require him to attend a gathering of the Aryan Brotherhood or a meeting of Christian Neo-Nazis for Jesus or the Flat Earth Society for balance?
If elected to public office, Mr. Vrable would represent those who voted for him and those who did not.
That’s how democracy works.
Public forums seem like an excellent way for “we the people” to get to know candidates and their positions. Or not.
One last note, Mr. Vrable: “Socialist” is not pejorative; it is a protected right under our Constitution.
Just ask Sen. Bernie Sanders.
John Cory Elcock,
Port Angeles
