The main political message this year seems to be “Washington is the most wicked place on Earth since Gomorrah, so will you please send me to that hellhole?”
As to the evil nature of Washington, consider this recent statement from Rep. Mark Souder, yet another values-touting Republican caught with his pants down. One factor, he said, was “the poisonous atmosphere of Washington, D.C.”
Perhaps this toxic exposure will inspire more Republican support for clean-air legislation, but let us move on.
The corollary message to the Evil Washington theme is that “I am so pure that I am not even within a day’s ride of being a malevolent ‘Washington Insider,’ so I’ll do a better job of representing you than my well-connected, sleazeball opponent.”
It is a good year to be running against Washington. Look what happened to three-term U.S. Sen. Robert Bennett in Utah.
He had a lifetime rating of 84 (100 is perfect) from the American Conservative Union, as well as the endorsement of the National Rifle Association. But he was too much of a “Washington compromiser” to suit Utah Republicans, who denied him a place on the primary ballot at their May 8 convention.
One of the GOP primary contenders, businessman Tim Bridgewater, said he was “running to represent Utah, not the Washington establishment.” The other, attorney Mike Lee, is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito; nonetheless, he’s running as an outsider.
That tack seems to appeal to our own Sen. Michael Bennet. His TV ad told us that “Washington is broken,” casting him as an outsider perhaps connected to Colorado’s rural Washington County.
But Washington, D.C., is where Bennet grew up, attending the St. Albans School there.
One of his potential rivals for the Senate seat is also casting herself as a beleaguered outsider. Jane Norton was Colorado’s lieutenant governor from 2003 to 2007. She was co-chair of John McCain’s Colorado campaign in 2008.
Her sister, Judy Black, is “policy director” at the Washington office of a political powerhouse law firm, and Judy’s husband, Charlie, is a major-league lobbyist. The Blacks have thrown Washington fundraisers on Norton’s behalf.
In other words, she’s extremely well-connected in Washington; in theory, anyway, that should enable her to do a better job of representing us.
But during those occasions when Norton deigns to speak herself, rather than summoning Cinamon Watson or Josh Penry, she is careful to point out that “I am not the Washington insider in this race.” That would be her Republican primary opponent, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, who “has a Washington insider 527 running over $1 million of ads on his behalf.”
Thus she’s less of an insider than Buck, and she wants us think that would maker her a better senator.
How well such arguments work boils down to how we define “representative.” If it’s in the sense of “representative sample,” as in someone more or less like us, then presenting oneself as an outsider should work, since most of us aren’t insiders.
But if it’s in the sense of engaging an attorney to “represent” you, then you want someone who’s well-connected and knows the system intimately.
There’s one consolation with these “outsider” candidates — we know they aren’t padding their resumes. Instead, they’re minimizing them.
Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
