Insiders battle in Senate race

By Jim Brunner
Seattle Times staff reporter

GREG GILBERT /SEATTLE TIMES Nethercutt was part of the "Republican revolution" in 1994.

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At first glance, Washington's U.S. Senate candidates would appear to have little in common.

Incumbent Democratic Sen. Patty Murray is a Seattle liberal who has fought the Bush administration on everything from tax cuts to the invasion of Iraq. Her Republican challenger, Congressman George Nethercutt, is a Spokane conservative strongly backed by the president.

Yet for all of their differences, Murray and Nethercutt's political biographies share decidedly similar chapters: Each got to Congress by campaigning against it.

Murray in 1992 jabbed an accusatory finger at male lawmakers in "dark suits and red ties" who'd sneered at Anita Hill and dissed moms in tennis shoes. She beat longtime Congressman Rod Chandler to become a leading star in the "year of the woman," a Democratic landslide that tripled the number of women in the Senate.

Murray and Nethercutt: now vs. then Once underdogs, both candidates are now well-financed insiders Patty Murray 2004 Total raised: $10.7 million Top contributors: EMILY's List $248,842; Microsoft $59,652; Baron & Budd (Texas law firm) $38,559; Boeing $34,850 Patty Murray 1992 Total raised: $1.5 million Top contributors: Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee $17,500; Women ... For a Change $16,125; AFL-CIO Committee $10,000; AFSCME (American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees) $10,000 George Nethercutt 2004 Total raised: $5.4 million Top contributors: National Republican Senatorial Committee $35,000; Microsoft $31,020; Isothermal Systems Research (Clarkston, Wash.-based defense contractor) $27,716; Trident Systems (Virginia defense contractor) $21,250 George Nethercutt 1994 Total raised: $1 million Top contributors: PJ Taggares Co. $8,000 (farming company); Services Group of America (food processor) $8,000; Merrill Lynch $7,430; Republican National Committee $5,000 Source: Center for Responsive Politics, Seattle Times archives. 2004 totals are through Aug. 25.

Two years later, Nethercutt bashed a tax-raising, check-kiting Congress personified by his opponent, House Speaker Thomas Foley, who had sued his own constituents to overturn an initiative that would have limited the time people may serve in Congress.

Nethercutt, campaigning on a promise to serve just six years, became the first person to knock off a sitting house speaker in more than a century. He was a poster boy for the "Republican revolution" that swept the GOP into control of the U.S. House for the first time in 40 years.

Fast-forward to 2004. Nethercutt busted his term-limits promise four years ago. Murray, the "mom in tennis shoes," has become a powerful Democratic party fund-raiser, raking in a record $143 million from lobbyists and special interests for Senate colleagues.

Both are seasoned lawmakers — insiders — whose campaigns have sparred over who is coziest with Boeing and who can deliver the most federal spending to Washington state.

The transformation from outsider to insider is as old as American politics. While voters occasionally toss out incumbents in fits of anger, they more commonly send them back year after year with the expectation that they'll gain seniority and influence.

"The trick is to run against Congress and then benefit from the trust that's generated from being there," said Bryan Jones, a political-science professor at the University of Washington.

Murray and Nethercutt both say they retain the same values that sent them to Washington, D.C. She fights for school funding and abortion rights. He has voted for tax cuts and led a charge to help farmers in his district win access to new international markets.

Still, looking back at the rhetoric that propelled them to Congress, you'd think Murray and Nethercutt could never have stomached the place for so long.

"You owe a lot of people"

Murray got there first. In 1992, the former preschool teacher and first-term state senator was scoffed at by political veterans for challenging incumbent Sen. Brock Adams in the Democratic primary.

But when Adams was felled by allegations of sexual misconduct and announced he wouldn't seek re-election, Murray had the advantage of being the first in the race. She beat former U.S. Rep. Don Bonker in the primary, suddenly becoming the front-runner against Chandler, who had represented the 8th Congressional District for 10 years.

On the campaign trail, Murray repeated the story about how she, years earlier, had gone to Olympia to lobby against cuts to a preschool program only to be dismissed by an unnamed male state legislator as "just a mom in tennis shoes."

	TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES Murray was first elected in 1992, "the year of the woman."

The tale struck a chord at a time when Anita Hill had been pilloried by the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee during the raucous Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, the event Murray said prompted her to run in the first place.

On the stump, Murray said it was time to shake up the Senate by sending a regular woman there to stand against the career politicians.

"You know what happens when you build a political career? You owe people all along the way. You get back there and you owe a lot of people, and you can't accomplish anything," she said at the time. When asked about that comment in an interview last week, Murray didn't believe she had said it.

It was a hard pitch for Chandler to counter; he had been in Congress for a decade and the state legislature for eight years prior to that.

"In other years, that was the type of gravitas or preparation that was expected. But it became a negative," said Randy Pepple, a Republican political consultant and former Chandler adviser.

Murray was swept into office along with fellow Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, and Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, bringing the number of women in the Senate to six.

"I don't desire a career in politics"

By 1994, the political winds had shifted against the Democrats, but the theme of the elections was similar to two years earlier: Congress needed a shakeup.

Nethercutt, an amiable adoption attorney, was even more explicit in his promises to be a different sort of politician. He said he just wanted to go to Washington, D.C., for six years and then come back to live under the laws he'd passed, just like everyone else.

"I don't desire a career in politics," he said at one debate, according to the Spokesman-Review of Spokane.

He even frowned on federal money Foley had brought home to Spokane, observing in one debate, quoted by the Baltimore Sun, "We're past the time when we send someone to Washington to grab pork and come back."

George Nethercutt Age: 59 Hometown: Spokane Background: Republican congressman representing Eastern Washington's 5th District. First elected in 1994, when he defeated then-House Speaker Thomas Foley. Prior to that, Nethercutt was an attorney specializing in adoption and estate work.

Like Chandler, Foley struggled to find any way to combat the political newcomer. Nethercutt didn't talk in specifics, preferring to dwell on the overarching theme of change.

When the votes were tallied, Foley became the first House Speaker since 1860 to lose a re-election bid. Nethercutt was an instant star in a class of 73 freshmen Republicans who installed Newt Gingrich as the new speaker.

Nethercutt broke his term-limits pledge in 2000, saying he had come to realize that seniority and influence were good things in Congress. He took a major beating in the press but was re-elected by a wide margin.

Campaigning as insiders

This year, Murray and Nethercutt are campaigning on decidedly insider credentials.

Nethercutt often touts his ties to the White House. President Bush has strongly backed his candidacy and headlined a fund-raiser on his behalf. Nethercutt says that relationship would help him secure federal money for the state if the president is re-elected.

"If I can communicate the values of Washington state to the leader of the free world and the leader of the country, I think it serves our state," Nethercutt said. "I think that's leadership."

He pointed to his efforts to get $15 million for dredging the Columbia River near Vancouver — money that was announced by Bush at a campaign stop with Nethercutt in August.

His experience and ties to power in Washington, D.C., are pluses, he said.

"I have 10 years experience, and I know how our legislative process works, I know how our political system works," Nethercutt said.

Patty Murray Age: 53 Hometown: Seattle Background: Democratic U.S. senator since 1992, when she defeated Republican Rod Chandler. Former preschool teacher who also served a term in the state senate representing Shoreline. Murray is seeking her third term.

As for Murray, she has evolved from a "mom in tennis shoes" to a powerful senator who received political contributions from Nike and Reebok.

Big fund raising

The state's senior senator already has obliterated her earlier fund-raising totals, pulling in nearly $10.7 million for her re-election campaign before last week's primary. Nethercutt has raised $5.4 million. Six years ago, Murray raised about $6 million, only $1 million more than Republican challenger Linda Smith.

Part of Murray's new fund-raising prowess can be traced to her leadership of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) in 2001 and 2002. In that post — which Murray sought — she raised $143 million for fellow Democratic candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.

Securities firms and banks gave the biggest chunk, donating $8.7 million at a time when Congress was mulling stricter accounting rules in the wake of several corporate scandals.

Murray said she raised the money not out of personal political ambition but to help candidates who shared her values.

Thanks to her fund-raising work, Murray rose in the ranks of the party and was appointed to Minority Leader Tom Daschle's four-member executive leadership committee.

Although Congress may have changed them, Murray and Nethercutt both insist they've also changed Congress.

Murray says she's in a better position to fight for working families. Last week, she proposed a budget amendment to cut federal payments to some banks that make student loans, a move advocates say would free up billions of dollars to help students. Her amendment was defeated.

"I'm coming from the perspective of being the one person in that room who went to school on college loans. My perspective in Congress is really important," Murray said.

Nethercutt, too, argues that his viewpoint has made a difference.

"When I ran as a first-time office seeker in 1994, I was critical of the direction our country was going. We had not had a balanced budget for 30 years. I voted the right way. We balanced the federal budget for four straight years."

Now that the two former political upstarts are squaring off against one another, one thing is certain: After Nov. 2, one of them can lay claim to being an outsider again.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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