Madame Senator

I am not happy being represented by Maria Cantwell in the US Senate. She isn't a Bill Frist or an Orrin Hatch, but she certainly doesn't stand for traditional Democratic/democratic values either. More than anything, it's the hypocrisy.

She knew the drug industry wrote the Medicare D drug benefit and that not only would it not help seniors, it was likely to hurt them. We told her. There was no constituency of voters that wanted this bill. That didn't stop her from voting yes and touting her "concern" for seniors. Does she think we won't notice?

She may be a champion for the scenery and animals in Arctic Wildlife Refuge, but she has failed to show the same regard for the people living in Washington State.
She made some sporadic attempts to nail Enron when Snohomish County was suing to get it's money back so it could keep its schools open, but neither she nor Senator Murray have followed through on their promises of holding these people accountable or getting our money back. We are still operating off of contracts drawn up under duress from these thieving so and so's.

She is far too comfortable with bad presidential nominations and right wing judges for me. She subscribes to the "president deserves" school of thought and happily shooed in goons like Chertoff and Gonzales. It doesn't seem to trouble her that Bush is not the brightest light and that he has a marked preference for cronies with checkered pasts. It is really annoying when she responds to pleas for moderation and good sense with the non committal phrase, "I take my oversight responsibilities very seriously" and then sells the farm.

Her attraction for highly profitable and overweening corporations did not stop with the drug manufacturers. She found the draconian bankruptcy bill very much to her liking. She thinks abolishing the estate tax is fine idea even when we are racking record deficits and the tax burden has dramatically shifted from the rich onto the backs of the middle class and working poor. Her defense that it hurts small businesses and family farms is fiction. One of her prominent constituents, Bill Gates Sr. has been campaigning for years for preservation of this tax. I am sure he would be all too eager to explain to her why it is fair, good for the country and democratic. Eliminating the estate tax would benefit Senator Cantwell at the expense of the majority of her constituents.

She voted for the Iraq invasion and every spending bill that put us deeper in debt and made our soldiers and the Iraqi people victims. She was all a twitter after her trip to the Green Zone and had the nerve to send her constituents the fatuous Bush talking points.
She likes the Patriot Act that predictably has led to the same abuses of power we had in the 1970's. She not swerved by any evidence that this act was antithetical to the Bill of Rights and had little or nothing to do with the successful attacks of 9-11. She has made no commitment to vote against a renewal that I am aware of.

She won the 2000 election by one of the narrowest margins of any elected representative. In my neighborhood, I hear al lot grumbling about her performance.

Her business friendly voting record has netted a :war chest of over $5 million dollars at this early stage of the campaign season. That's almost 70% more $$ than she spent on her entire 2000 campaign. Her top contributors are Microsoft, Real Networks, Preston Gates, Baron & Budd, a legal firm that specializes in "toxic tort law" based in Texas, Boeing.
Waters, Kraus, another Texas based mesothelioma outfit, Simmons Cooper LLC, another toxic tort law outfit out of Chicago, yet another class action outfit call Leiff Cabreser et al, and Amazon. A little farther down are Goldman Sachs and Baupost Inc, a firm that specializes in investing in liquid assets for the very wealthy.

The GOP have been lusting over Washington State for the last few election cycles. Witness the Rossi/ Gregoire food fight. There is no doubt they will pour resources and a lot of hot air into this state.

The GOP are not a political party any more. They are cult complete with brown shirts and screamers. Like the Nazi's they hate to be compared to, they don't produce anything, they just break stuff. Voting for anyone even loosly associated with them, is an act of willful self destruction. She is not worst of our problems, but she certainly is one of them.

I want better choices than having to decide between the outrageous and the mostly unacceptable. I would welcome a serious progressive challenger. Mark Wilson has entered the race. He is a progressive with great ideas but I wonder if he has the clout to run against an incumbent. If he makes the war in Iraq a big issue, he might do all right. He is a Marine Corps Veteran and is active in Veterans for Peace.

Carol DW