Washington state’s Attorney General Rob McKenna tipped his anti-gay hand last year by endorsing many of the most virulently anti-gay candidates in the 2010 election. After the election McKenna went the extra mile and used his own campaign email list to rustle up supporters to do ballot rehab for two such candidates.
So far this year Mr. McKenna has focused on his own gubernatorial campaign to the point where he has neglected to promote candidates in other races on either his Facebook or Twitter page. With one notable exception: Mike Hope.
Rep. Mike Hope (R-Lake Stevens) was elected to the Legislature in 2008 to represent LD 44. But now he’s running for the position of Snohomish County Executive. Here is how he voted on key LGBT civil rights legislation since being sworn into legislative office:
Hope’s campaign lags 2-to-1 behind that of his Democratic rival, Snohomoish County Executive Aaron Reardon, in funds raised. And, the announcement of Hope’s candidacy in local newspapers (here and here) generated no interest on those websites. In other words, Mike Hope is not likely to win the election. Yet McKenna not only tweeted and Facebooked about his participation in a fundraiser for Hope’s campaign for county executive, he posted the above picture of himself speaking at the event.
Other pictures that McKenna has posted of himself during the run up to the primary election place him in the company of those he clearly wants to be associated with for the benefit of his campaign. Given that McKenna made an exception to his primary campaign “rule” about only promoting his own campaign, and given that he only appears to post pictures of people and events he wishes to be associated with, it would seem that Mr. McKenna is proudly going out of his way to support and associate with a proven anti-gay politician.
Although Washington is closely divided along party lines, the electorate has proven itself to be fair-minded on issues like a woman’s right to choose, the right of terminally ill people to choose to die with dignity, and civil equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) families. McKenna is clearly cognizant of this because he labors to project a moderate image. But McKenna’s unusual support for Mike Hope would seem to confirm what we observed last year, that Rob McKenna harbors deeper anti-gay convictions than he will admit to. As such he is out of step with the majority of the Washington electorate.
Related:
* Attorney General Rob McKenna’s moderate facade hides an anti-gay plotter
* Attorney General Rob McKenna promotes ballot rehab effort for anti-gay candidates
