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Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert wants Washington voters to believe he is a straight-arrow, reasonable Republican, not another mindless Donald Trump zombie, but how much of that claim is just cynical politics?
Reichert has cheerily noted that he is getting hit from the left for being too MAGA and from the right for being a RINO (Republican in name only) and says that puts him in a political sweet spot in a state that has not elected a GOP governor since 1980. And he is right to think an image of moderation, plus a message that leans heavily on his career as a cop, just might attract a lot of middle-of-the-road voters who are repulsed by the Trump cult that the Republican Party has become yet are ready for a change from decades of Democrats running state government.
To preserve his appeal among moderates, Reichert has refused to say who he plans to vote for in the presidential election in November, even though his secrecy is upsetting to Trump fans. However, the old cop blew his cover at a Republican gathering in Wenatchee last March. Let’s just say, it was not a profile in courage.
“The media is looking for me to make a statement about Trump,” Reichert told the crowd. “That will be the nail in the coffin. As soon as I do that, I lose that opportunity to win over some of those 25% of those undecided voters.”
Reichert could have stopped right there, and people would have understood, if not admired, his political calculation, but he did not stop there.
“So, someone asked me,” he continued, “will you vote for him? And I said, ‘What’s my head doing?’ ”
According to folks who were in the room, Reichert then nodded “yes,” which elicited chuckles from the audience.
I hope Reichert enjoyed the little laugh, because he may now have turned himself into a joke; not brave enough to say out loud how he plans to vote, but not smart enough to keep it a secret. Beyond a mere political fumble, though, there is something much more troubling about Reichert’s nod toward Trump.
Reichert is a former champion of the law who is pledging to take a tough stance against crime if he becomes governor. And, yet, he is apparently voting for a presidential candidate who is not merely a convicted felon, but a person who, in a long string of civil cases, has been found to be a perpetrator of sexual assault and a con man who has run both a bogus university and a fake charity — not to mention his instigation of a violent attack on the United States Capitol in which police were bloodied and beaten.
If Reichert were really the brave lawman he claims to be, he would publicly declare his unwillingness to return a criminal to the White House. Yes, it would kill his candidacy among the MAGA fanatics who do not like him much anyway, but it just might make him truly attractive to voters who believe principle is more important than politics.
See more of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View other syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
Editor’s note: Seattle Times Opinion no longer appends comment threads on David Horsey’s cartoons. Too many comments violated our community policies and reviewing the dozens that were flagged as inappropriate required too much of our limited staff time. You can comment via a Letter to the Editor. Please email us at letters@seattletimes.com and include your full name, address and telephone number for verification only. Letters are limited to 200 words.
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