Biased Reporting in the Governor's Race

The Tacoma News Tribune today blasts a businessman who appears in a Dino Rossi radio ad as "Man helped by state bites its hand in new Rossi ad".

It might be true that small businesses are hampered by overregulation, as gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi claims.

But the South Sound businessman featured in a Rossi campaign radio ad complaining about the state’s business climate has been helped by state government grants and programs.

Jamie Beletz, a veteran political campaign consultant and lobbyist, houses his Tacoma-based consulting business in what’s known as a small-business incubator, which provides services to small companies to give them a boost.

Cry me a river. My personal opinion is that small business incubators are no better a use of tax dollars than, say, multi-billion dollar subsidies to Boeing or handouts to billionaires who build football stadiums. On the other hand, the impact of over-regulation is more onerous on small businesses than it is on large businesses who can more easily hire lawyers and lobbyists to cope with the regulations. If the regulatory burden of starting a small business was more reasonable, the justification and demand for incubators would diminish.

I suspect the real reason that the TNT is bashing this Rossi supporter is because he is a self-declared Democrat for Rossi. Does the TNT work as hard to expose the astroturf "Republicans for Gregoire"? I don't think so, even though it would be easy enough to do. One of these so-called "Republicans for Gregoire" is Ann Goos, whose track record of gubernatorial campaign contributions shows that she also supported Democrat Gary Locke in 2000. This year, she has given $2,700 to Christine Gregoire and $2,000 to ... Dino Rossi! [hey, aren't both those amounts illegal?]. Goos lists her occupation as both self-employed attorney and as Director of Environmental Affairs for the Washington Forest Protection Association. Perhaps the "Republicans for Gregoire", should be renamed "Overspending Lobbyists for Everybody".

UPDATE: To be fair to reporter Ken Vogel of the Tacoma News Tribune, he later wrote a story that was critical of so-called Republicans for Gregoire that was published on October 28. I quote from it more extensively here.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 07, 2004 12:42 PM | Email This