Sue Lani Madsen: It doesn’t mean what you think it means

The post-convention results of candidate endorsements are going to leave some newbies to the political process disillusioned. As Inigo Montoya said in “The Princess Bride,” “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.”

A party endorsement doesn’t mean money, doesn’t mean people who prefer Republican policies will vote for the endorsed candidates, and it doesn’t mean nobody else gets to file for office and click “Prefers Republican” when filing week opens on May 6. It’s a couple weeks worth of bragging rights and a current mailing list.

The fellow who asked from the convention floor how much money the Washington State Republican Party would be giving Semi Bird as the endorsed candidate for governor must have thought there was a money spigot. There is not.

Dave Reichert had withdrawn his request for an endorsement Friday morning, expressing exasperation in his Facebook post at how the candidate vetting committee handled late-breaking evidence of Bird’s violation of Rule 12. The rules required candidates seeking endorsement to disclose “any concerns in your past or present that may bring negative media attention to yourself or the WSRP.”

According to reports published in the Seattle Times on April 17, an incident in 1991 resulted in a plea deal on a bank fraud charge in 1993. Bird admitted to using his estranged father’s name and Social Security number on an application for line of credit. In his speech to the delegates on Saturday morning, he called it “a dark time in his life” and said there was no excuse.

The candidate committee recommended pulling the governor’s race off the endorsement ballot altogether. That recommendation was reversed by the vote of the delegates. It was the kind of chaos Robert’s Rules of Order is designed to control, not unusual unless one has never participated as a delegate. American political party conventions sound more like a viral British style parliamentary debate with delegates booing and cheering while the chairman bangs a gavel and requests decorum. A high proportion of delegates were particulatly enthusiastic first time attendees.

Reichert is one of several candidates who declined to sign a pledge not to file for statewide office “where the WSRP has solely endorsed another candidate.” He’s made it clear for weeks that he’s in it through November.

Noncompete pledges and pre-primary endorsements were a bad idea according to Cindy Zapotocky, former Spokane County GOP chairman. “Each of these candidates have constituencies who have supported them with money. Everyone wants the other candidates’ constituencies and donors to just flip over.”

Primary elections are designed to give time to get acquainted with candidates and the issues that drive them. Zapotocky’s advice to candidates? “Stay in, go to the debates, get your views out there. You have a microphone in front of you. Ideas need to get out there, we need to exchange ideas at every level.”

The delegates at a state convention are not a representative sample of the entire electorate, or even the Republican leaning electorate. Bird launched his campaign right after the November 2022 general electionand began visiting county party events. He took advantage of the long lead time to recruit and activate supporters into county party leadership and precinct committee officer positions around the state. It was a smart political move for someone whose only elected office has been local school board. Reichert filed at the end of June 2023 after wrapping up his work with a group working on intercepting human trafficking and missed the 2023 Lincoln Day Dinner circuit.

Jefferson County had endorsed Semi Bird over a year ago because he showed up and made personal connections.

Lisa Farr, vice chair of the Jefferson County Republicans, said the candidate committee report made her think “Why am I even here, and I wanted to walk out but didn’t.” She was impressed with how the body used the process and the rules to finally endorse a candidate. Her positive take away – a lot of people were passionate and engaged, and the governor’s race is just one piece of the puzzle. She doesn’t know who Reichert is and says she needs to get to know him better, but “if Reichert turns out to be our guy I’m 100% for Reichert.”

Louis Musso II, who has been a precinct committee officer out of Kittitas County since 1976, took the long view. “The pledge was well-intentioned, I am sure, but this experiment at artificial unity simply backfired. I expect the endorsement of Bird will not even move his polling numbers into double digits. The fact that this isn’t the first time the convention has gone against GOP voters as a whole and been been politely ignored probably isn’t well known.”

The afterglow of a convention endorsements will have faded by the end of filing week.

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com.