Update 4: The growing List of Reasons to Vote Against Russell

(This post will remain at the top of the post list until after Russell is defeated in the primary. Please scroll down for new posts. Check the Blog Archive list in the right column for new listings)

The fact is, and this blog makes no bones about it, I despise Jon Russell.

It has been my misfortune to have known Russell for 6 years on a professional level.

Back in 2004, I was consulting on a local House campaign when HROC foisted Russell on us. Russell was fresh out of the Midwest... and he proved to be an unmitigated disaster.

It got so bad that we demanded, and HROC acquiesced, to keeping this guy away from the campaign.

The entirety of the relationship between Russell and myself is summed up in my second phone call from Russell, where he asked me if I had our campaign opponent's social security number.

I didn't have it. I didn't want it. And if I DID have it, I wouldn't have given it to him.

But that he would even ask me for such a thing? That's set the tone for the years that have followed.

Make no mistake about it: this guy is the prototype of the career politician.

Everything he's done has been aimed at getting elected... to something. Every position held? A campaign prop.

Right now, he has a pregnant wife that he will cheerfully leave behind with an infant and two toddlers as he's playing the big shot... first in DC, until it became even obvious to him that his congressional campaign was DOA, something I had known for months; and now in Olympia.

What kind of man would do that?

The kind of man that would ask for someone's social security number to do them harm.

The kind of man who would send out canned letters as part of a campaign ploy, acting as if they were spontaneous expressions for support of this clown.

The kind of man who would deny any responsibility for the debacle of Washougal City Government that HE, PERSONALLY, is responsible for.

The kind of man who would deny us the right to choose our own candidates, and who, were he to get his way, deny us the right to vote for people like Joe Zatrelli, Ed Orcutt, Don Benton, Marc Boldt and Tom Mielke.

The kind of man who would lie to others about the role he's played in working to stop the Cowlitz Casino.

The kind of man who would lie to the Precinct Committee Officers of this district about how much money he's raised and what his wife's job is.

The kind of man who would talk a great game about illegal aliens, but not even bother to show up to speak at or listen to the Woodland Resolution debate about that very subject.

The kind of man who claims to be a conservative, but who made thousands trying to ram the Vancouver Port Levy down our throats... like any other political mercenary.

The kind of man who would leave Washougal's government in a mess with a missing $100,000 so he could climb another step on his political career ladder.

The kind of man who would hire an unbondable buddy as Washougal's city finance director.

The kind of man who would support that horrific bridge replacement/loot rail plan that will blow a $100,000,000 a year hole in our local economy.

The kind of man who would lie about someone personally in an effort to discredit them.

The kind of man who would take balloons away from kids because they had the wrong logo on them.

The kind of man who would take credit for getting rid of Sellers while failing to explain his cowardly silence while she was still around.

The kind of man who would attack others for being the very thing he, himself, is: a career politician.

The kind of man who would constantly portray his wife as a doctor, even advertising that lie, when she clearly is not.

The kind of man who would lie about getting a college degree.

The kind of man who would lie to the 18th District Precinct Committee Officers about how much money he had raised, his education and that his wife is a doctor.

The kind of man who would deliberately violate state Public Disclosure Commission law.... and violate that law for months.

The kind of man who would make up a fake name to comment on stories involving his political opponents.

These are many of the reasons I oppose his candidacy. He has a history of tossing others under a bus, lying about others, exaggerating his own accomplishments and denigrating those opposing him... quite unnecessarily.

And THAT is what WE should have representing US?

I think not.