I generally don’t pay much attention to local politics, since only the names and the faces change around here. There are in fact in Republicans in King County, such as Kathy Lambert, who seems to have been on the county council forever, and she normally isn’t worth more than a thought or two, since she generally votes with the minority. But her shtick apparently has become tiresome to some council members, so when alternatives were persuaded to challenge her in the increasingly blue District 3 she currently represents, few were particularly keen in discouraging the two Democrats who eventually emerged, Sarah Perry and Joe Cohen. Until now, Lambert has not had a serious challenger to her seat since she was first elected 20 years ago; in the August primary, Perry finished second, just four percentage points behind Lambert.
Lambert is certainly not popular among liberals in the county, and there are reasons for that. In a recent edition of the weekly The Stranger (that is still around?), Rich Smith writes that “The fact that Republican King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert represents any of the people in any capacity at all is wild, but the fact that she represents King County District 3 is flatly ridiculous.” Sure sounds a lot like Kyrsten Sinema.
He goes on to note that demographic changes are evident in recent voting patterns, indicating a shift toward blue status, which has apparently escaped Lambert’s notice. Her views continue to trend toward right-wing propaganda turns on education, gun rights, abortion rights, and defending the rights of landlords in eviction proceedings during the pandemic. Lambert also seems to have a thin skin, disturbed that her belief that she and the other council members are one big happy family, where everyone is contented with the fact that the majority Democrats do their thing, and the minority Republicans do their thing, is not shared by others.
But times are a changing. There is no gerrymandering here where Republicans choose their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives, and recent voting trends in her district suggested that Lambert is seriously at odds with the wants and desires of the new majority. Local Democratic politicos decided that despite her name recognition and the “virtue” of being an old-timer, the time was right to cease ignoring the fact that Lambert is becoming an anachronism in her district, and instead of supporting her for “old times” sake, it was time to see if there was an appetite for a change. Apparently there is, because Perry and Cohen combined to receive 60 percent of the primary vote, suggesting that Perry has a very good chance of unseating Lambert in the upcoming runoff election.
Of course, desperate times require desperate measures, so hey, why not try something out of the tried-and-hardly-ever-true socialist/racialist playbook? Here is the mailer that Lambert’s campaign currently has circulating:
Lambert’s fellow councilmembers have denounced this mailer and demanded she apologize for it. Councilmember Girmay Zahilay denies that he is a “socialist,” and it is doubtful he would be pulling any “strings” anyways since it is Dow Constantine who is currently the King County Executive. Lambert defended herself by claiming to be “disappointed” that the Democrats on the council didn’t support her in the primary (they are all “family,” after all), and that she didn’t understand what all the fuss was about anyways. She was only trying to “highlight” the differences between her positions and Perry’s, and sending out the mailer was just a “catchy” marketing gimmick to get people to take the time to bother to read what in her mind are the differences between the candidates.
Of course, something like this could easily backfire, and if a voter thinks it is time for a change, then something like this is sure to convince them of the need for it. Perry, of course, denies that she is a “socialist,” and her views are in fact not “out of line” with current Democratic positions. Perry has the support of most Democrats here mainly because of her perceived campaign organizing and fundraising skills, although Cohen—because of his extensive government experience, both here and in Washington D.C.—was probably the more qualified.
Perry professed disappointment at Lambert’s mailer: “She just decides to create a puppet out of a woman. I don’t have any understanding of women that do that to other women.” Well, stop and smell the skunk in the garden. Politics knows no color, creed or gender, and Perry seems to have missed the racist fear-mongering that was really the “message” being sent to voters. When someone is fighting for their political life—and a Republican in particular—you have to expect such things; Perry shouldn’t expect to be treated any more “special” just because she is a woman when it comes to political “cat-fighting”; we have seen plenty of other “Karens” who don’t discriminate in who is “deserving” of their juvenile, bigoted displays. Perry and her campaign just has to show that they are above this, and use the mailer as a “teaching” moment to convince voters of the need for an “adult” who is up-to-date with the times to represent their district.
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