Red and Blue

Timothy Goddard notes:

Regardless of what happened Monday morning, the gubernatorial election showed that Washington is very evenly divided between red and blue–but the fact that only a three of our nine person delegation to the House of Representatives is Republican doesn’t bear that out. However, there’s a man who aims to make that score a little bit more even. That man is Doug Roulstone, and he is challenging Rick Larsen for the 2nd District House seat.

Based on the rest of the post he does look like a strong potential challenger to the the incumbent. But I’ll save discussion of the candidates for another time.

Rather, let’s look at the opening point: the state is evenly divided between red and blue. Well, maybe and maybe not. All that the gubernatorial results really show is that the folks who cast a vote for gegroire or rossi were pretty evenly divided and that neither candidate was strong enough in the eyes of the voters to be significantly better than the other. But, heck, lets apply the original logic to District 2: larson 203,383 to sinclair’s 106,333. Therefore, District 2 is close to 64% blue and 36% red which is significantly different than the relatively close numbers for governor in the district (rossi +8400). By the original logic the only proper representation should be blue and, perhaps, there shouldn’t even be any challengers. Most, including this writer, will not agree with that…

Even if the 2004 gubernatorial election results proved that there is, statewide, a near even division between red and blue, which it does not, it has no relevance to congressional district elections. It would make not a whit of difference if the rest of the state were 100% of any color. Whoever is elected representative from this congressional district is to represent the people of this district not the state of Washington.

With that in mind why, if he is to represent the people of this district, is this candidate looking to the Republican House Caucus for money? Does he actually intend to represent them? If you want to know who has an elected official’s ear follow the money! If the money leads you outside their representational area perhaps you should vote for someone who will represent you. The same applies to the incumbent: who is buying larsen’s votes?

On a totally different note does anyone know why Sound Politics does not support trackbacks?