Kitsap Sun Statement and Interview

Kitsap Sun Editorial Board Debate 

KIRO tv Candidate Statement

The politicians who begin focusing on unaligned voters in the final weeks usually forget about them as soon as the votes are counted. They make the mistake of thinking they won because voters lurched to the right or to the left when the deciders were usually somewhere in between.

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Will Democrats, who appear headed for a similar big victory this fall, keep this cycle of self-deception going? Probably.

But between Nov. 4 and Jan. 20 someone should think about what voters were saying, at least the voters who provided the victory margin.

Were they endorsing all things that escaped the mouths of all Democrats? Or were they casting a vote of no confidence in the status quo, and since there’s a Republican in the White House, they voted more frequently for Democrats? Because if they were voting for real change, they might be unhappy with the way either party acts once they get to Washington, D.C.

I was thinking about this last week while listening to U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks debate his Republican challenger Doug Cloud. Dicks had avoided debates before the primary but met Cloud three times and seemed at ease with the format.

But rather than stand in as the Democrat vs. a Republican challenger, Dicks was made to represent all that was wrong with D.C. Cloud, it seems, would have been just as comfortable debating a Republican as long as he or she was an incumbent.

That’s because the Gig Harbor lawyer, though conservative, doesn’t necessarily pin the blame for what ails us on liberals. Instead he points to corruption that stems from a conspiracy between government and Wall Street and special interests.

“I’m running against the ingrained incumbency in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street,” Cloud said. He referred to a “servile Congress” that is bought by powerful interests that are then rewarded.

“It’s an absolute corruption gone wild,” Cloud said.

The two candidates for Washington’s 6th Congressional District met in their final debate Tuesday night, with Republican challenger Doug Cloud labeling incumbent Democratic Rep. Norm Dicks part of a corrupt culture in Congress. Meanwhile, Dicks emphasized his 32 years of accomplishments there.

The candidates disagreed on the amount of government regulation needed in almost every area of American life, from health care and the economy to what employers should pay their workers.

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Cloud said Tuesday that an equal rights amendment was “an invitation to litigation” and a form of price fixing that would weaken the economy. He similarly criticized Medicare and Medicaid for setting health care prices below their market value, which he said raises health care costs for others.

Cloud cited a free market economy as the solution to those problems and most others he was questioned about Tuesday.

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“Medicare fixes prices at 20 to 30 percent of their true value,” said Cloud, a 51-year-old lawyer from Gig Harbor. “That makes those of us that are not on Medicare have the extreme price we have to pay for our health insurance. Mr. Dicks and his friends want more of that.”

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Cloud said that since Dicks was elected in 1976, he has become part of a system controlled by lobbyists who secure votes and funding earmarks by contributing to congressional campaigns.

He used this month’s $700 billion economic bailout package as an example of members of Congress rewarding the people who keep them in power.

“The bailouts are just indicative of institutional corruption,” Cloud said. “To me, it’s the mad dash of the independent power brokers in New York to keep their positions of prestige and keep the rest of us down."

The Republican challenger to a 16-term congressman called Norm Dicks' policies tantamount to "slavery" at a 2¬½-hour candidate forum in Port Angeles City Hall on Thursday.

Doug Cloud, a unabashedly conservative Gig Harbor attorney, attacked Congress -- where Dicks has represented the 6th District, which includes the North Olympic Peninsula, for 32 years -- as "disgusting" as well as "extreme, corrupt and out of touch."

"We have to confront this broken system," he added. "We need to elect new people."

Cloud charged that the $700 billion appropriated to save financial institutions "will find its way back to the incumbent Democratic members of Congress."

Cloud also said the answer to the country's financial woes is to eliminate what he called government manipulation.