Adele Ferguson - ‘No rocket scientist’ label lingers

DICK MORRIS says a Patty Murray win over Dino Rossi in Washington State is the key Democrats need for a 60th filibuster proof majority in the Senate.

USA Today listed Sen. Murray as one of the top four female incumbent senators on the ropes. Deja vu.

Patty Murray kicked off her career in 1992 as “a mom in tennis shoes” who was the first to declare against fellow Democrat Brock Adams just before he threw in the towel when he was named the most vulnerable of the senators up for his meandering among the female flocks. She outpolled Republican Rod Chandler.

The Seattle Times beat the drums for her as “a different kind of senator” who shunned interviews with CBS, NBC and CNN to spend time with her family and wouldn’t talk to lobbyists. Five months into her first term with over five years to go, she had a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser to get ready for 1998.

In 1997, she was named one of the six most vulnerable women incumbents in the Senate. She also topped the annual list of “no rocket scientists” by The Hill publication.

IN 1998, SHE was fourth in Progressive Magazine’s annual list of the ten dimmest bulbs in Congress for her lack of accomplishment and saying she wanted to be the voice of salmon because “fish don’t talk” and telling children, “If I can do this job, anybody can.” It was what she told a Vancouver high school class at Christmas, 2002, however, that sent the peasants hunting up their pitchforks. “We’ve got to ask,” she said, concerning Osama bin Laden, “why is this man so popular around the world? Why are people so supportive of him in many countries that are riddled with poverty?

“He’s been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infra structure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities and the people are extremely grateful. We haven’t done that. How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?”

Letters flooded in to editors demanding “Osama Mama” apologize. Not only did she refuse to apologize, she shocked everyone again. While many Americans were having memorial services on the second anniversary of 9/l1, she threw a $1,000 a plate fundraiser breakfast. She did say that she woke up that morning with a sense of sadness.

When the Democrats won control of the Senate through the defection of Republican Jim Jeffords, Murray became chair of the Transportation Appropriations subcommittee and soon became known as the “Queen of Pork” and “Porky” Murray as she vowed to put Washington at the head of the list of handouts. She was in “The Pig:” book every year.

WHEN ALASKA Sen. Ted Stevens, majority Republican on the committee, put $223 million into the budget for a bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 inhabitants, there was widespread outrage over the “bridge to nowhere.” Chair Murray answered the criticism by saying if they yanked that bridge and a museum earmark for Seattle, everything sought by other senators would go down the tubes too. They wound up leaving the money in without the earmark.

In late 2004, Washingtonian Magazine of D.C. did its biennial poll of congressional staffers on the best and the worst in Congress and declared Patty Murray a repeat winner of the title “no rocket scientist.” This time, however, she tied with Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Our other senator, Maria Cantwell? She got “looks good in a bathing suit.”

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)