Red Washington Podcast #1: Dino Rossi Interview
To help us kick off the site with a proper flourish, Dino Rossi graciously agreed to an interview, providing his thoughts on how to elect Republicans in Washington. Listen to it now!
In the interview, Dino explains his recent endorsements–Fredi Simpson for State Party Chair and Mike McGavick for Senate–details his grave concerns regarding the spendthrift ways of the Democrat-controlled state government, and speaks directly to those conservatives who feel disheartened by the behavior of some in the Party. There’s that and much more in the first Operation: Red Washington podcast!
Before you listen, though, I should apologize for two things. This was the first podcast, so not everything went as smoothly as it might have. First, I use the term “uh huh” roughly two billion times. I apologize, and shall refrain from doing so in the future. Second, the audio quality is less good than I would like. That will hopefully be improved upon in the future.
More will be coming in the future, so don’t forget to subscribe to the Red Washington Podcast feed.
January 18th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
[…] You’ve read the posts, now visit the website–Operation: Red Washington is now a blog, hosted by yours truly and Nathan Azinger of Pajama Jihad. We’re kicking off the site with a bang–specifically, with a podcast interview with Dino Rossi. More is coming, so come back early and often. […]
January 18th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
What would be nice is if there could be some discourse with republican party officials or at least an acknowledgement that they review the comments here.
Can you comment on that?
January 18th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
I know at least a few party officials of various types read my other blog, and hopefully even more will do the same here. I know a few will. Nathan & I will certainly try to make sure that the quality is sufficient that they’ll keep coming back!
Another way this site can interact with officials is through the interviews we do. In the future, I’ll do a post asking for question suggestions before I do an interview, and we’ll see how it goes.
January 18th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Thank you for this site, Tim! This is a great resource in our effort to take back Washington!
January 18th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Like Tim said, I know that there are Republican party officials who read my own blog, and I’m sure many will read this one as well. I’d be thrilled to see them interact with us, and to some extent they’ve already begun doing so through interviews and the occasional comment.
Tim already mentioned the podcast with Dino, but in addition to that I’ve been doing a series of email interviews with Republican candidates on my own blog, and I’ll be cross-posting those here. Perhaps later we can branch out to Party officials and prominent activists as well.
Of course those people are more then welcome to take away whatever ideas they find helpful and discard the rest. Despite what we may believe, Tim and I don’t have a lock on being right. Our opinions are no more or less valid than anyone else’s, we just happen to be pretty good at articulating them.
At the end of the day, what I really hope this place will be is a clearing house for positive, constructive ideas. The application of those ideas is in your hands as much as ours. We’ll do our best to show you how you can get involved, but to quote a preachy, environmentalist cartoon from the 90’s, “The power is yours!”
January 18th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Despite what we may believe, Tim and I don’t have a lock on being right.
Yes, but you didn’t have to tell them!
January 19th, 2006 at 12:41 am
I’ll be glad when we can hold up our end of a fight.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Ok, here goes.
My greatest concern with the state and national republican party of late is that they don’t seem to understand the strength of the conservative movement in america today.
I would site the Alito nomination as proof that the conservative agenda (nomination of conservative judges) is not unpopular. This message (that conservative ideas are inflamatory) are promulgated by the MSM and certain interest groups to try to prevent republicans from acting boldly.
The above example, I hope, will finally extinguish this misconception that continually circulates in the republican leadership; that we cannot be too bold and upfront with the conservative agenda for fear that we will turn middle america against us.
The Washington State Republican Party has experimented for the last few years with the idea of moving to the left to gain support. It is my belief that this will have the exact opposite effect and further marginalize the party. Bill Finkbeiner is one example of that strategy. I still find it hard to believe that he could have been elected to lead republicans in The Senate. I say this given his overall record, not just his recent decision to support gay rights legislation.
The biggest problem that I see with The Washington State Republican Party is no vision for the state. Over the years I have heard many times about what they oppose but little in the way of positive changes for the future.
I do not believe that the party need to pander to the religious right (I am one) to get their support. The current gay rights bill is not a religious right issue, it’s an overregulation and control issue.
The repeal of the gas tax was popular with washingtonians because it represented a protest against unaccountable and wasteful spending in this state. It represented a growing dissatisfaction with “big brother liberal” constantly trying to force us to live our lives the way THEY think we should.
So what did The Washington State Republican Leadership do?
Well, Bill Finkbeiner sided with the control freak liberals. Do I need to say anymore?
January 19th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Jaybo, I don’t know that you’re right on the gas tax. The State Party did endorse 912, and worked for it, which turned out to be a mistake. 912 lost despite Republican efforts, and the GOP got burned. There are a lot of reasons why it lost, but I don’t think you can blame the GOP for it.
One of the reasons it lost was the effectiveness of the other side in asserting that it was about “fixing roads,” particularly the viaduct (which could fall down ANY MINUTE!), and covering over the social engineering aspects of the plan. The 912 campaign never even tried to harness that “growing dissatisfaction” you mentioned by rebutting their opposition.
Finkbeiner, I should note, is no longer in leadership.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Tim,
Why did the gas tax get support from republicans in the congress?
Why don’t republicans present a “sane” proposal for the improvement of our transportation system?
I have been hearing from some sources that the current “viaduct tunnel” for the “Alaska Way” viaduct contains many hidden costs that would result from problems like how to deal with all of the buried utilities and other services that will be hard to deal with. It will turn into a huge financial drain on our transportation resources if allowed to go ahead.
Fiscal responsibility is a sleeper issue that republicans just do not take advantage of.
January 19th, 2006 at 10:03 am
As I understand it, some Republicans supported it because they had extracted what they thought were some good concessions from the Democrats, particularly a robust performance audit provision, and because a lot of the projects were actually necessary. Also, “user fees” such as the Gas Tax are always the prefered Republican method of taxation.
As for a sane proposal, you’re right, I’d love to see one, and that’s something we’ll be dicussing here.
Agreed: Tunnel=bad. (See also, Big Dig, the)
As for fiscal responsibility, have you listened to the Podcast? Dino agrees with you–and so does Republican leadership in the legislature. And so do I, for that matter. We’ll have LOTS more on that in the future.
January 19th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Jaybo -
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying with one caveat. There is a difference between bold and foolish. If we’re talking about Ronald Reagan and Dino Rossi’s type of bold I’m all for it, if it’s Ellen Craswell or John Carlson’s type of bold then I’m not sold on it. I think you’re arguing for the former, but I also think some conservatives don’t realize that just because the candidate is saying what they want to hear doesn’t mean that candidate has all the ingredients for electoral success.
That last point is particularly relevant in this state. Nationally, it is easier to form a winning electoral strategy around a conservative candidate than it is in Washington state. As such, while the idea of being bold holds true, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact boldness alone won’t get the job done. Which as Timothy noted to some degree, is evident in the defeat of 912. It was bold, but it didn’t sell very well for a lot of reasons. Many of which are related to my point about some conservatives getting fired up because they like the issue, rather than thinking through what it takes to win in a state where there is not a decisive, conservative-leaning majority as exists nationally.
January 19th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Eric,
I am not totally convinced that I 912 failed because of a lack of support from washingtonians.
When I looked over the voter turn-out for King County, it appeared that there was not much interest (as seen in low turn-out) in certain King County districts. If you remember, David Irons even came out against I 912. This along with no real push by republican politicians, doused enthusiasm and kept voters at home.
You are right about the fact that republicans did little to counter the spend crazy ideas that are the basis of the current gas tax. I do not mean squishy, generalizations; I’m talking about specific proposals that the business community and the public would approve of.
To date I still have seen nothing. Washingtonians are not interested in platitudes, they want specific ideas and proposals.
January 19th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Why not frame the debate in terms of the growing trend towards “Big Brother Lefty”? It is also important to continually promote the belief that there will be a “tipping point” that will prevent a reversal that would change the current trend towards a “Liberal Culture” that I see today.
It’s important to define the opposition in terms that the general public will support.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Jaybo -
The trick is that any transportation plan requires new money. Talk to even the most conservative Republican who has delved in the issue of backlog of projects (mostly roads) versus available funding and they admit new taxes are required…especially in the Puget Sound area. It’s just a question of what it gets spent on. And, since we live in a state where King County/Democrats have a lot of impact on transportation issues (for understandable, though not always enjoyable reasons), it’s almost impossible for Republicans to fashion a proposal that has a prayer of passing the Legislature (or a popular vote statewide) without seriously ticking off the base, which at this point is reflexively anti-tax, especially on transporation.
I’ve in the past been very critical of the Republican legislature for not tackling this issue in the 90’s when a fair amount of our transportation problems could have been addressed at a much cheaper cost. But they didn’t, and here we are.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Eric,
I am not against spending money.
I am for a fiscally responsible plan that does not try to control the way we use the transportation system. Rather, that provides solutions that improve transportation and is common sense in its approach.
The first item should be removal of the “carpool lane” restriction. This has to be an educational process in order to alert the public to the foolishness of continuing to promote it as a viable remedy for our transportation problems.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Jaybo -
I know many conservatives would like to dispose of HOV lanes. But, that isn’t going to happen for two reasons. One, it wipes out the effectiveness of a lot of commuter bus service, which is not something you want to do to have any hope of the minimum support you need in King County to pass a plan, either at the polls or in the Legislature. More importantly, I believe it results in a serious loss of federal funding for transportation specifically targeted for roads. That’s not palatable at all, though we do retain the option of HOT lanes, modified hours for HOV lanes, etc.
I think we need to recognize that our ideas as conservatives that we might view as “common sense” on transporation are necessarily not those shared my a majority of the electorate…especially in the Puget Sound area, which will be next to vote on a significant transporation plan and taxes, just for King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties.
Our best bet is to fight for important road projects and a high bar for accountability provisions. And deal with the fact transit is here to stay in the Puget Sound area, and candidly with the GMA has some real value if done reasonably, and with proper accountability.
I think all that gets back to your point earlier that fiscal responsiblity and accountability in government remain strong issues for Republicans to exploit.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
I also think it is time to expose liberals here for the hypocrites that they are. Here is one example.
I will bet you money that certain wealthy liberals consistantly stand in the way of expanding the 520 floating bridge through use of “transportation studies” and redirecting focus to public transportation as an alternative.
Republicans seem afraid to confront them on this issue. It is important that Washington Republicans differentiate themselves through legislative proposals even if they don’t get passed. Then continue to point to them as the liberal enactments fail.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
That’s a fair point. Republicans do too often assume people see the facts of the issue in totality, when in reality proper communication of those facts is essential to convey the message you want and achieve the desired electoral outcome.
On a side note, keep in mind with 520, one of the bigger issues with expansion, that becomes a serious engineering and cost issue, is that traffic flowing off of 520, south on to I-5, is already creates a serious congestion problem. The expansion of a couple lanes on the bridge actually creates a bigger problem once you consider that expanded bridge capacity would flow right into an already congested bottleneck that has little prayer of expansion.
February 13th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
[…] Actually, my first podcast was a few weeks ago over at Operation: Red Washington, but I hadn’t actually listened to many podcasts until my recent purchase of an MP3 player, which has opened up a whole new world to me–kinda. I was surprised to discover that the subjects which interest me in blogs don’t hold the same interest for me in podcasts. Thus, I haven’t listened to many of the political podcasts that you might expect (as I noted a while ago, though, interviews such as, say, this one, do hold my interest quite well.) […]