Kent, Republicans rally at Lincoln Dinner

Published 12:05 pm Monday, May 20, 2024

SOUTH BEND — Republicans in Pacific County gathered last weekend for their first Lincoln Dinner since 2019, enjoying the likes of brisket, chicken, fried oysters and pie while hearing from local and state legislators, party officials and candidates running for office this year.

The annual dinner, named after Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican to be elected president, had been on hiatus for several years during the covid-19 pandemic. The return of the event on May 18 at the Willapa Harbor Community Center in South Bend was a laid-back affair during what turned out to be a busy weekend throughout the county.

Speakers included state Sen. Jeff Wilson (R-Aberdeen), Pacific County Commissioner Lisa Olsen, congressional candidate Joe Kent, county commissioner candidate Rita Hall, and Washington State Republican Party Executive Director Matthew Frohlich. The event was organized by Brett Malin, chair of the county party, with conservative activist Glen Morgan serving as the evening’s master of ceremonies.

Kent goes on offense

Allotted the longest amount of time to speak, Kent’s speech toward the end of the evening focused heavily on foreign policy, national security and immigration issues.

Kent, a U.S. Army veteran who resides in Yacolt, is seeking a rematch this fall against U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Skamania), who beat him by less than one percent in the 2022 general election. He will appear on the ballot with Perez and two other candidates in the August primary election, including fellow Republican Leslie Lewallen, a Camas city councilor.

Perez has characterized Kent as a far-right extremist in their campaigns against each other for his stances on issues like wanting to restrict legal immigration and defund the FBI, as well as denying the results of the 2020 election. But during his speech on Saturday, Kent sought to paint Perez as the extremist on issues like immigration and foreign policy.

He criticized Perez for voting against House Republicans’ immigration bill in 2023, which all Democrats and two Republicans in the House voted against, and for voting in favor of the foreign aid bill last month that provided $95 billion in military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as humanitarian assistance in Gaza; the bill ultimately passed with super-majorities in both the House and Senate.

Kent decried the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, which he said he’s visited twice, and hammered the Biden administration’s immigration policies, saying the lack of better enforcement at the border is also allowing Mexican drug cartels to bring fentanyl across the border with ease. He also criticized the asylum process.

He shrugged off a bill co-sponsored by Perez and a group of bipartisan lawmakers earlier this year as “pure propaganda.” The bill would have temporarily reinstated the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program, which requires immigrants seeking to enter the country through the U.S.-Mexico border — including those seeking asylum — to be returned to Mexico while their case or legal status is being decided.

Pull Quote

‘The other side has gone so far that they’re gonna start pushing a lot of folks in our direction, people who have never been politically active before.’

Joe Kent, GOP congressional candidate

Kent also claimed that Democrats support unrestricted immigration in order to inflate the population of cities and states they govern for political purposes when the census occurs every 10 years. “Biden, Perez and all the Democrats do nothing about it because they just want a mass wave of humanity coming into the country, and then they fly them to major urban areas so that they can create more power for themselves,” Kent said.

On foreign policy, Kent criticized America’s involvement in the war between Russia and Ukraine, saying the conflict “is not in our vital national security interest” and downplaying the threat that Russia posed to the U.S. and its allies with Vladimir Putin in charge. He also said the Biden administration is supporting a “perpetual war” between Israel and Hamas by supplying Israel with military aid while also providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Criticizing the tens of billions of dollars that have been sent to the likes of Ukraine and Israel in recent years, he knocked Perez and most Democrats for not supporting a bill introduced by House Republicans last fall that would have sent $14 billion in emergency aid to Israel but would have been offset by cutting roughly the same amount from the Internal Revenue Service — although the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected the bill would have actually added to the deficit more by reducing the agency’s ability to audit high-income earners and tax evaders.

Ultimately, Kent believes Republicans will begin to benefit electorally from positions taken up by Democrats, and urged those in attendance to get involved this election cycle.

“The other side has gone so far that they’re gonna start pushing a lot of folks in our direction, people who have never been politically active before,” Kent said. “I also think people are seeing how the Democrats weaponize their system of power against everyday Americans — and President Trump being on trial is a great example of that.”

Update from Olsen

Olsen, the longest-serving of the three county commissioners since first being elected in 2016, provided attendees with an update about recent happenings at the county level.

“One of the things I really don’t like about running for office again is I’m really, really good about tooting Pacific County’s horn, but not very good at tooting my own — unless I’m with my family, then I tell them how wonderful I am all the time,” she joked.

Olsen said she’s worked hard on natural resource issues like timber, agriculture, aquaculture and fishing since coming into office. “They have all been under assault for a great deal of years and it’s kind of like a big ol’ brick wall in Olympia, but I’ve been doing the best I can to talk about Pacific County and our way of life here … and I hope I’m making a dent, because I’m doing it for you guys.”

She highlighted recent law enforcement improvements that the county has undertaken, such as funding $1.3 million for work at the Pacific County Jail, including outfitting officers with body cams and a new security system that is currently being installed. The county also contracted for new food service at the jail, which Olsen said had previously been “miserable.”

“I don’t care who you are, you deserve a meal,” she added.

The county was able to balance its budget last year while also funding two new corrections deputies at the jail, Olsen said. She credited county staff for their hard work, including Paul Plakinger, the county’s chief administrative officer.

Responding to a question from a woman in attendance about the prospect of hiring additional sheriff’s road deputies, Olsen said the sheriff’s office is fully funded for the first time in two decades.

“We’re doing the best we can,” she added. “We’re giving them what we can give them, and I know they’ve got a few people in the academy right now, which everybody struggles with — it takes a long time to get through the academy … They’re fully funded as far as our budget goes, and our budget’s our budget. That’s what we’re tasked to do as county commissioners: it is our job to set the budget and tell each department what they have to spend and what we can afford to give them.”

Hall makes introduction

Seeking to join Olsen on the county commission, Hall used her speech at the dinner to introduce herself to the party’s rank-and-file.

Hall moved to Ocean Park in 2018 from northwest Montana, where she lived off-the-grid with her late husband, and said she was heavily involved in that region’s politics before moving to Pacific County. Her brother Marty, a minister, moved here about 20 years ago, and she enjoyed vacationing here and visiting him.

In Montana, Hall said she served in a variety of public roles, including on school boards, planning commissions, as a precinct committee officer and as an election judge — an individual who supervises a polling place. Her parents were politically involved, one with each party, and she said she’s known about politics her entire life.

“I’ve done a lot of things [at the county level], and in fact I had a number of people who wanted me to run for county commissioner [while in Montana],” Hall said.

She was also involved in a political watchdog group, Montanans for Multiple Use, against the U.S. Forest Service, and said the agency “was not to be trusted, in many ways.” The group advocates for fewer regulations on lands managed by the forest service. Water rights issues have also been an area of interest for her.

Hall said she is “not the perfect person, in so many ways” and that she’s made a lot of mistakes in her life, but that she steps up to help other people and puts herself last.

“It was really hard for me to leave Montana,” Hall said. “I will always love Montana, but I knew that this is the place I’m supposed to be for one reason or another. This is where I’m supposed to be.”

Scary scene, positive outlook

The evening ended on a scary note after Hall, while navigating the flight of concrete steps from the community center down to the sidewalk, fell down the steps and hit her head. She began to bleed from her head and received assistance before an ambulance arrived and took her to the hospital.

Hall told the Observer on Monday that she knew she had a small brain bleed after falling and asked her brother Marty, who was in attendance, to come and pray over her for a “complete and fast recovery.” She said she fractured her clavicle and has staples in her head, but is thankful it wasn’t worse and grateful to those who helped her.

“A lot of blood poured out of me, but I am still very much alive and a survivor of far worse than this,” Hall said.

“In the future I will not be wearing clogs to negotiate the steep cement steps!” she added.