Should WA Dems be helping the Seattle Times?

The Washington State Democrats have sent out a fund-raising appeal so that it can place an ad critical of Rob McKenna in the Seattle Times.  (See http://www.wa-democrats.org/content/our-newspaper-ad.)

This ad calling out Rob McKenna for his attacks on public employee unions is running in today’s issue of The Olympian.

GOAL: We need to raise $6,935 to place this ad in The Seattle Times and keep up the pressure on anti-union forces in our state.

Rob McKenna sure is dangerous, the ad is good, and Dems need to get the message out.  But the Seattle Times was a major opponent of I-1098 (the high-earrners’ income tax initiative), a major supporter of Tim Eyman’s I-1053 (see this editorial),  and a backer of other regressive fiscal policies and candidate.

How sad that Democrats have to give support to their enemy the Seattle Times.     Some Democratic leaders have encouraged Democrats to boycott the Seattle Times.

This situation exemplifies the great need the Left has in Washington State to build a progressive media infrastructure that we control so that we can get our message out.  Of course, that’s no easy task.

Since Democrats control both houses of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, you’d think they’d be able to use their positions to educate the public about issues such as regressive taxation. But at the recent Town Hall meeting on Mercer Island, I heard barely a word from our Democratic representatives about the regressiveness of the tax system.   The Governor sure isn’t leading. Democrats should at least be organizing their messaging.  Or do the state legislators not coordinate with Pelz’ Democratic Party establishment?

Or maybe there are too many “centrist” (Blue Doggish) Democrats-in-name-only legislators.

Sadly, on the issue of revenue and taxation, our leaders are afraid to lead, lest the voters think they’re tax-and-spend liberals.  The result is that the Right controls the messaging in Washington State, as they do nationally.

The PCOs and grassroots activists are mostly progressive, in my experience. Somehow that progressivism doesn’t trickle up to our leaders.