Adele Ferguson - Didier: don’t spend time by the phone

IT WAS BAD enough when Clint Didier, who ran third in the U.S. Senate primary election where the top two vote getters are nominated, offered an endorsement to Republican Dino Rossi in exchange for policy pledges but he used the wrong pronoun.

He said “we,” meaning the endorsement represented the 170,000 plus people who voted for him as a candidate endorsed by the Tea Party.

Rossi told him to put his endorsement where the sun don’t shine and the woman who founded the Tea Party in Seattle said Didier wasn’t speaking for them even if they had endorsed him for the primary. Nobody speaks for the party, members speak for themselves, said Kelli Carender, but she and eight other of its leaders are now endorsing Rossi, “because he is absolutely superior to Patty Murray.”

Didier, a Pasco farmer and former professional football player, must have been knocked around too much when he played because he emerged from the primary with a price for his support, despite getting only 12.5 percent of the vote to Murray’s 46 percent and Rossi’s 33 percent.

He apparently viewed his supporters as having enlisted in a private army dedicated to him as their general. If so, then there are 14 more private armies out there, considering there were 15 candidates for the office on the ballot. He called a news conference to announce that be would lead his supporters in the campaign on behalf of Rossi when Rossi did the following:

Signed pledges not to raise taxes, vote against any federal spending plan, and personally sponsor the Sanctity of Life Act, a bill to ban the U.S. Supreme Court from declaring state abortion restrictions unconstitutional.

ROSSI SAID STICK IT. He doesn’t take orders from anybody, he said. If Didier had been nominated, it might make sense for someone to ask him to make a few pledges since he has been all talk with no past record.

Rossi became famous back when be was in the Legislature and put together a budget with no tax increases in it in the face of a huge deficit. He even persuaded Gov. Gary Locke to join him in writing it, a pretty fair accomplishment since Locke never saw a tax he didn’t like.

Rossi can be counted on similarly to vote no on outlandish federal spending should he be elected to the Senate. As for abortion, there is no question he is pro-life, he is a devout Roman Catholic, but he has chosen to leave abortion out of political discussions. He would not be expected to lead any fight to restore a ban.

The late State Sen. Ellen Craswell, R-Poulsbo, onetime state leader of the religious right, opposed abortion but declared in her campaigns she would not seek legislation to abolish it, knowing that a majority of Washingtonians voted for the initiative to allow it. Endorsement by the Tea Party is a tremendous victory for Rossi.

THAT HAS BEEN my biggest concern when it comes to throwing out Democrats who have been on a wild spending spree led by President Obama. That the Tea Party and the Republicans must unite if they are to succeed Nov. 2. The nominee is a Republican and Tea Partiers must work for his election as the GOP would have done if it was the other way around. They have a common goal, dump the Democratic spenders.

As for Didier, he said he was eager to get to work campaigning for Rossi as soon as Rossi was acceptable. I suggest he wait to be asked. But I wouldn’t sit by the phone waiting for it to ring if I were him.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached t P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98349)