Sunday, July 15, 2012

Nobody Has Noticed?

In my home district, Washington's 5th congressional district, we have Cathy McMorris Rodgers hoping to get elected to another term and Rich Cowan as her latest contender. A little over a week ago I thought I'd check out their campaign web sites (the links are on their names). Of course, the issues are what's important to voters--well at least to me.

Rich Cowan's issues are: Jobs and the Economy, Training a World-class Workforce, Military Families and Veterans, Infrastructure and Conservation, Agriculture, Tax Fairness, and Medicare and Seniors. Most of the supporting text is general in nature with the occasional jab at our fair congresswoman who is not referred to by name. There's not much detail, which is a shame. If you're going to address issues, you should provide the opportunity for people to learn more about your ideas and positions.

The issues Cathy McMorris Rodgers lists are: Economy & Domestic Issues, Government Spending, Energy, National Security, and Values. Generic statements support each one. Under National Security she states, "As the wife of a career Navy man, I understand the nature of their family commitments and the drawbacks that come of it." That's interesting because her husband, Brian, was retired from the Navy when they got married. He must have told her lots of stories because she certainly didn't live through any of "the drawbacks that come of it."

More interesting about her Issues page is that all of the links are broken. Presumably the links are there so you can find out more, but if you click on any of them you get this depending on the browser you use:
Well, it's not like she's been that concerned with the issues anyway. And apparently she's been too busy trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act--again--to double check the links on her site.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Our rep is wrong that cap and trade isn't a private approach. The government is actually creating a new market for a new product, expanding the private economy. It's really no different than other government structures that make capitalism possible.

That said, I'm glad the latest attempt at cap and trade failed. Obama campaigned on auctioning the credits, not the best version of cap and trade, but possibly OK depending on how the revenue is spent.

But, like most of his campaign promises, he immediately switched his position once he won office, to simply giving the credits away to big corporations.

We need to face the possibility that it is too late now even for remediation, particularly since this isn't just a US problem. The trade deals (and, indirectly, Clinton's financial deregulation) make it almost impossible to address global warming through national cap and trade structures.

Too bad. It's been a nice earth.