Well, here it is, primary season, and I'm looking over our US Senate candidate choices so far. Like so many voters, I am dissatisfied with Congress and am looking for someone new, someone to upset the applecart and challenge the incumbent, Patty Murray (more on her in a moment).
So I go down the list, methodical as ever in my search. First I eliminate the Republicans -- no way am I going there. Then there are the perenniel candidates like Goodspaceguy Nelson (yes, I understand he legally changed his name to that) and Mike the Mover (here's his campaign website). Somehow they didn't trip my trigger.
My list having been narrowed down to a few (I actually created a spreadsheet to track my search), I started digging in and contacting them. And that's how I came across Bob Burr.
I'm going to leave it up to the reader to check out Bob's website, because it speaks for itself. If you live in Washington State or know someone who does, I encourage you to visit the site, join the Facebook group, and follow the Twitter feed.
My purpose today is to lay out the reasons why I, an ardent Obama supporter and tireless volunteer during his campaign, an Iraq combat veteran, and a woman, have chosen Bob Burr over incumbent Patty Murray this time around.
First, Patty Murray isn't accountable. Unlike Bob, she refuses to complete Project VoteSmart's Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests. Bob Burr is anxious to complete it for Project VoteSmart as soon as we get past the primaries (because they don't allow primary challengers to take it), but has already posted his responses on his own website.
Murray has received more lobbyist money than anybody else in the Senate leadership besides Harry Reid. Bob Burr has received none, and indeed, is loath to even set up a campaign account at all.
Second, Murray isn't really progressive. Her fall from grace in my eyes began when she refused to support a public option during the health care debates, "because we don't have the votes." Hey, we're never gonna have the votes until people start drawing their line in the sand and saying, "This is a good thing and I will vote for it"! How can Congress accomplish anything if everybody's sitting around saying, "You go first -- if it's popular enough, maybe I'll join you"? Bob Burr's website unequivocally states, "The killing of a Medicare For All option in favor of a massive handout to health insurers is another sordid, recent example" of Congress and corporations' partnership in crime.
Third, as a veteran, I have first-hand, bitter experience with Patty Murray's responsiveness to veterans' issues. Everybody calls her the champion of veterans because she sits on the VA committee and once in a while throws us a bone. But after contacting her office seeking help dealing with a local VA facility that had illegally blocked my access to health care due to my disability accommodation (a service dog), I found that, rather than investigating the circumstances and applying the facility's own written policy as well as federal law, they simply sat on it for a couple months, during which my health continued to deteriorate, and then regurgitated to me the VA's own position! (The matter has since been resolved subsequent to a leadership shuffle, resulting in an apology that acknowledged that I had been in the right all along.) If this is the type of attention veterans can expect when contacting Patty Murray's office with difficulties related to their entitled care, then this isn't the candidate veterans want.
Bob Burr, on the other hand, hasn't come out with a specific position on veterans' affairs (although I will push him for one!), but he does support a withdrawal in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and heavily favors pro-environment legislation, which will improve our national security through non-military means. Any time you're dependent on someone, no matter how abusive they are to you (Middle Eastern countries that have most of the oil on the planet), you can never really quit 'em.
So what's a Progressive veteran in Washington to do? If you favor:
- Campaign finance reform, and getting big business out of our electoral process
- An aggressive pro-environment policy
- Withdrawal from our current war zones
- Universal health care
you'll break with the Democrats' endorsed candidate and vote Progressive. I'm voting for change again this year -- I'm voting for Bob Burr!