https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/politics/district-24-senator-eyes-state-lands-role/
Senator Van de Wege has been running the Senate side of Inslee's program to stack the WDFW Commission with Anti-Consumptive Use viewpoints. I'd certainly like to hear about what he specifically wants to do as Commissioner of Public Lands beyond the boilerplate 'I'm a firefighter, so I know how to deal with wildland fires' included in the article above. His voting record is enough to make me highly skeptical that he is anything other than a political animal willing to change his stripes to suit whichever way the current political wind is blowing.
Maybe it's time to start brainstorming for possible candidates that could have Westside voter appeal yet aren't anti-consumptive wildlife use or anti-natural resource use. Maybe Mr. Blake could be interested?
Ding ding ding!!!!!!!
Consider for a second that King County gets about 65 cents back for every dollar that it sends to Olympia. One would think that a candidate who was socially accepting of all and said, "Hey, I'll fight for you too. We are getting fleeced" would have an excellent chance, even in some parts of King Co. No Republican can be the one to say that because it's the R's that pushed for the "McCleary fix" that has exasperated the already overwhelming redistribution of funds from urban to rural that the state budget represents.
The peninsula is an even better place for a moderate pro-sportsman politician. The issue is that politics have become national. Any candidate that aligns themselves with the Republican party has to deal with being associated with the National Republican Party. Frankly, that is a non-starter for far too many voters in Wa state and for important reasons. Additionally, a few recent SCOTUS rulings have made the social portion of the national Republican party platform even more disliked and increased the importance of socially liberal candidates to many more people in local elections. The same can be said for R's in some areas but as the last midterms show, the R's take over of the judiciary has become an election nightmare in more places than it has become a help to their candidates.
If you have a loved one who is gay, if you one of the 32% of the population that is atheist/agnostic/ other or if you are one of the 60% of Washingtonians who are pro-choice, the republican party is generally a non-starter as far as who to vote for. As an atheist, pro-choice father of a gay kid, I can tell you that I will choose those things over hunting every day of the week and twice on Sunday. This is even more true after the Dobbs and Kennedy cases.
I lobby my local rep's on hunting and fishing issues. Much of the issue as I see it is that the vitriol that they have seen come their way leaves them to not trust sportman and women or rural voters from conservative areas. Honestly, look at the politics section of this board or the Juneteenth "joke" someone posted here. Look at the bumper stickers at your local Cabela's. Hunters are doing a piss poor job of branding themselves.
