By Jeremy Lott on 7.30.03 @ 1:06AM
Washington State is a great place to live, unless you're a politician.
When Washington State governor Gary Locke delivered the response
to this year's State of the Union address, the reviews were not
flattering. Glenn Reynolds
compared him to a city councilman. The authors of the American
Prospect's unsigned weblog
urged the national Democrats, "Please don't ever give Gary
Locke that kind of face-time again."
These judgments were unduly harsh for a brief speech that was,
let's face it, the best response in recent memory to the American
equivalent to the running of
the bulls. It was well written and played to Locke's strengths.
As the First Chinese Governor, he spoke of the necessity of family,
hard work, and education, and extended this paternalistic vision to
the country as a whole, often using Bush's own sloppy communitarian
rhetoric against him.
Locke declared his party firmly on the president's side in the
war on terrorism, and then attacked where the prez is vulnerable:
on entitlements, on the economy, on homeland security. He took a
swipe at the either/or Medicaid proposal the administration was
then floating (either keep the provisions of the system as
it currently exists or switch to a different track that
covers prescription drugs but rations care elsewhere). He blamed
Bush's "upside down economics" for the recession. He even managed
to paint some of his party's most unpopular policies (affirmative
action and an absolutist position on abortion) as part of "our
common purpose" over and against the "narrow special interests"
that animate Republicans.
Critics of Locke's rebuttal may have been overwrought, but they
weren't wrong to note some reluctance on his part. The governor is
horrible in open confrontation, and prefers to rule by flattery and
misdirection. As far as Washingtonians are concerned, the State of
the Union reply was Locke at his snarling most belligerent. Before
the last gubernatorial election, Dan Savage
complained in Seattle's alt weekly The Stranger that
Locke, "behaves as if he, like the queen of England, is a
constitutional monarch, barred from taking a public stand on
anything controversial or -- God forbid! -- political."
Savage meant it as an insult but the
governor-as-constitutional-monarch crack isn't far off the mark.
The governor of Washington State is a constitutionally weak office,
and it has been made even more infirm by the increase in voter
initiatives in the last two decades. I often summarize the new
consensus as, We hate the legislature, and the governor had better
play dead.
The normal way of things in Washington is that politicians work
hard to raise fees and taxes and pass irksome regulations, and then
citizens sign petitions and vote for initiatives, pulling the rug
out from under said pols at the ballot box. If Locke had his way,
affirmative action would still be in place in public education,
hand guns would be restricted, and a high car tax would not have
been repealed. This year, he managed to get a gas tax hike, along
with a few other fee increases, through the legislature, but
self-proclaimed "initiative whore"
Tim Eyman has promised to get back every last nickel for the
taxpayers, and, odds are, he will.
But Gary Locke's genius has been to recognize that we don't
particularly care what he thinks. His job is to say pleasant
sounding things and not rock the boat too much. This even temper
gave him excellent approval ratings and made him a two-term
governor, with options on a third.
Of course, given the stifling nature of the office, it didn't
surprise too many locals when Locke recently announced he won't be
exercising that option. He and his wife will be returning to
Seattle with their two young children in time for the oldest to
start school. "It came down to 'We want a normal life,'" he said.
As various pols begin the long struggle to replace him, let me be
the first to wish our quiet governor a happy retirement.
topics:
Taxes, Education, Economics, Entitlements, Medicaid, Abortion, Constitution, NATO
