Column: Marie G-P clearly the only choice for Congress

Published 11:20 am Monday, October 10, 2022

The choice for Southwest Washington’s next congressional race could not be more clear cut.

Voters across the 3rd Congressional District should choose Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

The Skamania County resident and co-owner of a Portland car repair shop is a moderate, pro-choice Democrat who emphasizes the need to support small businesses, improve workers’ rights and job training and lower the cost of prescription drugs and medical care. She wants to address climate change and reduce the role of big money in politics. She opposes the colossally expensive removal of the four Snake River dams because the region and nation need all the fossil-free electricity they can get. She understands the resource-dependent needs of this district.

Hers is a commonsense agenda aimed at improving the lot of the middle class.

Gluesenkamp Perez’s politics are a good fit for the voters of the 3rd District, which includes all of Pacific and Wahkiakum counties and all or parts of several others.

Kent: Obstructionist and extreme

In contrast, Clark County Republican Joe Kent of Clark County is an unabashed Trumpist who has the former president’s endorsement.

He mouths Trump’s lies about the stolen 2020 election, which have been disproven and rejected by the courts, innumerable Republican officials and even members of his own administration. Kent wants to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, (so much for claiming to be a law and order candidate.) He insists the “vast majority” of Americans had problems with the election, even though Joe Biden won by 7 million votes.

Kent has appeared with Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson and rubbed shoulders with white supremacists who deny the Holocaust, want to deny women the vote and support Russian President Vladimir Putin. He objects to the FBI seizure of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-A-Logo Florida estate as the sinister work of the deep state — as if protecting national security secrets is a frivolous and politically motivated concern. He says covid is a “scam” and wants Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to seven presidents, held “accountable,” even suggesting Fauci should be charged with murder.

His pool of extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theories about the “weaponizing” of the FBI and the justice system is too deep to plumb here.

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Kent is a deeply flawed, delusional politician who has no business getting near Congress. He preaches freedom, but his objectives would shred the Constitution, upon which our liberties rest.

However, the trouble with him goes deeper. If elected, Kent would be an unabashed obstructionist. Listen to what he told a town hall meeting in Amboy in north Clark County recently: “Our agenda for the first two years is simple. … Impeachment, obstruction and oversight. The Biden agenda dies off in the crib,” according to the New York Times.

So combating climate change, making college education and child care more affordable, seeking racial equality, rebuilding U.S. roads, bridges and utility systems and fighting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would all be off the table?

Kent is a deeply flawed, delusional politician who has no business getting near Congress. He preaches freedom, but his objectives would shred the Constitution, upon which our liberties rest.

Kent, a former Green Beret, is fast-talking and has movie-star good looks and a tragic story to tell: His wife. a Navy cryptologic technician, died at the hands of an ISIS suicide bomber in Syria in 2019.

Angry that bureaucrats delayed Trump’s decision to withdraw troops, Kent says the death prompted him to get into the race. But he also entered the race after the incumbent, Republican Jamie Herrera Beutler, joined nine other House Republicans in voting to impeach Trump for egging on the Jan. 6 insurrection. Kent asserted she was disloyal to her party, forgetting that the oath of office mandates fealty to the Constitution, not partisan politics.

Except for his desire to combat China’s economic aggression and oppose “defunding” police, Kent is wrong on many issues. To name two: His near-absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment puts him at odds with the American mainstream. His call for a ban on all immigration ignores the essential role those workers play in the U.S. economy — especially in the food and service industries — and the humanitarian crises driving them to the U.S. in the first place.

G-P: Measured, articulate

This electoral choice is jot just about voting against Kent. In contrast to Kent’s glibness, Gluesenkamp Perez is more measured, but articulate. She sticks to a moderate tempo, in contrast to Kent’s frenzied and breathless demeanor. She can relate to the working class families of the district. She and her husband built their own house. And they live without health insurance so they can afford it for their young child.

Gluesenkamp Perez, a fifth-generation Washingtonian, was an unknown when she entered the race early this year. She is, however, no political neophyte. She served about six years on the Democratic state committee, working on that group’s rural and agricultural caucus to advocate for rural communities. She is an economist by training.

So the choice in this race is a no brainer. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s politics, demeanor and character are by far the best fit for Southwest Washington.