Mark Miloscia files paperwork to challenge Tracey Eide as a Republican in the 30th LD

Des­per­ate to solid­i­fy their ten­u­ous hold on the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate, top Repub­li­cans have once again recruit­ed into their ranks a can­di­date repeat­ed­ly elect­ed to the Leg­is­la­ture as a Demo­c­rat with Demo­c­ra­t­ic vol­un­teers and donations.

Mark Milos­cia, who pre­vi­ous­ly served sev­er­al terms in the state House as one of two of the 30th Leg­isla­tive Dis­tric­t’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives, has decid­ed to run against his for­mer col­league Tracey Eide for Sen­ate. He filed his paper­work today with the Pub­lic Dis­clo­sure Com­mis­sion and also launched a cam­paign website.

But unlike Rod­ney Tom, Jim Kas­ta­ma, and Tim Shel­don, who defect­ed to the Sen­ate Repub­li­can cau­cus in 2012 (Kas­ta­ma has since left the Leg­is­la­ture); Milos­cia plans to cam­paign as a Repub­li­can. His C1 form lists him as a Repub­li­can, and he calls him­self a Repub­li­can on his new cam­paign web­site, cre­at­ed with NationBuilder.

Milos­cia has report­ed­ly long been inter­est­ed in mov­ing up to the state Sen­ate, though he chose to vacate his seat to pur­sue a bid for audi­tor in 2012.

Democ­rats Craig Pride­more and Troy Kel­ley also decid­ed to forego return­ing to the Leg­is­la­ture in the hopes of suc­ceed­ing Bri­an Son­ntag, result­ing in a crowd­ed four-way race. Milos­cia fin­ished well behind every­one else in the August win­now­ing elec­tion, cap­tur­ing only 9.77% of the vote. Kel­ley and Repub­li­can James Watkins went on to the gen­er­al elec­tion; Kel­ley pre­vailed and took office in ear­ly 2013.

There had been spec­u­la­tion that Milos­cia might seek to regain a seat in the House by chal­leng­ing Repub­li­can Lin­da Kochmar.

But evi­dent­ly, the Repub­li­cans approached Milos­cia with a bet­ter offer. No doubt he was promised big bucks (and per­haps even a com­mit­tee chair­man­ship) if he agreed to be their can­di­date for Sen­ate against Tracey Eide.

On his web­site, Milos­cia claims he switched par­ties “only after months of care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion”. In a blog post enti­tled “Choos­ing a par­ty”, Milos­cia (who could def­i­nite­ly use a spelling and gram­mar check­er) writes:

[C]ould Par­ty heroes like a Pres­i­dent Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, or the evan­gel­i­cal Rev. Mar­tin Luther King JR, be sup­port­ed by today’s Demo­c­rat [sic] lead­ers and activists?

Before, I’d felt there was a place as the Par­ty pub­licly pro­mot­ed a “big tent,” and respect­ed cul­tur­al diver­si­ty. Some lead­ers worked to insure [sic] that can­di­dates like myself, had a place.

Not any­more. Today, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty asks for our votes and mon­ey, but they will nev­er sup­port can­di­dates like JFK, RFK, MLK JR, or even a lib­er­al Tip O’Neill again.

A grow­ing seg­ment, tol­er­ant in name only, now com­plete­ly con­trols the par­ty with lit­mus tests and inter­est groups.

And on his about page, Milos­cia writes:

Today, it’s the Repub­li­can Par­ty that offers a big tent, wel­com­ing dif­fer­ent views… Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­cans don’t insist that every­one believe and vote exact­ly the same way.

Uh huh. Either Mark Milos­cia has no idea what he has signed up for, or the mon­ey he’s been promised is doing the talk­ing for him. If he thinks the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty is con­trolled by inter­est groups with lit­mus tests, he has no com­pre­hen­sion of what Repub­li­can pol­i­tics are like. The Sen­ate Repub­li­can Cau­cus, which Milos­cia now aspires to join, is dom­i­nat­ed by extrem­ists and is dys­func­tion­al to its core.

Milos­cia has long depict­ed him­self as a prin­ci­pled “pro-life” Demo­c­rat, but it’s  evi­dent to us that he is actu­al­ly an oppor­tunist like Rod­ney Tom and Tim Shel­don… in our view, the worst kind of politi­cian there is.

Milos­cia may have felt reject­ed in the wake of his cam­paign for audi­tor, after many Democ­rats declined to con­sid­er his can­di­da­cy due to his oppo­si­tion to mar­riage equal­i­ty, repro­duc­tive rights, and ini­tia­tive reform. But in defect­ing, Milos­cia is turn­ing his back on all of the peo­ple who have stood up for him over the years.

What Milos­cia fails to admit on his web­site is that there were a num­ber of pro­gres­sive Democ­rats who loud­ly and enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sup­port­ed his cam­paign for audi­tor, regard­less of what­ev­er dis­agree­ments they may have had with him on pol­i­cy direc­tions. Appar­ent­ly, those friend­ships aren’t worth as much to Milos­cia as the mon­ey the Repub­li­can Par­ty is will­ing to spend on his behalf.

Repub­li­cans are eager to expand the play­ing field, so to speak, to make it hard­er for Democ­rats to regain the state Sen­ate. If Repub­li­cans could man­age to cap­ture Tracey Eide’s seat, Democ­rats would then need to defeat three Repub­li­can incum­bents instead of two to get a major­i­ty. Hence their recruit­ing of Miloscia.

When Milos­cia ran for audi­tor, he appeared before a num­ber of Demo­c­ra­t­ic groups and proud­ly espoused Demo­c­ra­t­ic ideals. In the can­di­date ques­tion­naire he sub­mit­ted to the King Coun­ty Democ­rats, he began an answer to the ques­tion, Why should the coun­ty sup­port you over your oppo­nent? by stating:

Democ­rats need to elect the best per­son who can suc­ceed in man­ag­ing an agency ded­i­cat­ed to per­for­mance and improv­ing gov­ern­ment with the use of audits. This per­son needs to be able to pas­sion­ate­ly cham­pi­on gov­ern­ment improve­ment, gov­ern­ment pro­grams and Demo­c­ra­t­ic leadership.

Milos­cia went on to describe his pri­or­i­ties as follows:

My issues should be no sur­prise for I have not been silent on our press­ing needs as a state representative.

I have been a con­sis­tent and vocal cham­pi­on for solv­ing these three most press­ing issues fac­ing our state today:

1. Restor­ing vot­er trust in gov­ern­ment and Democrat[ic] leg­isla­tive lead­er­ship so we can start pass­ing need­ed tax and pro­gram reform poli­cies to help edu­cate our chil­dren, take care of the elder­ly and those less fortunate.
2. Revers­ing the wage inequal­i­ty gap caused by the war on unions and the mid­dle class which will also improve tax col­lec­tions and help gain vot­ers’ confidence.
3. Improv­ing the Qual­i­ty and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty of Gov­ern­ment, School pro­grams and bud­gets through the use of per­for­mance man­age­ment and per­for­mance audits.

As State Audi­tor, I will cham­pi­on those best prac­tices that fur­ther these goals.

If Milos­cia thinks the Repub­li­can Par­ty is inter­est­ed in any of these pri­or­i­ties, he’s delud­ed. Today’s Repub­li­can Par­ty is the par­ty of Grover Norquist and Tim Eyman, of Rush Lim­baugh and Ann Coul­ter, of Scott Walk­er, Rick Sny­der, and Paul LeP­age. Its agen­da is to wreck gov­ern­ment, evis­cer­ate pub­lic ser­vices, and destroy the rights of work­ing men and women. It is vir­u­lent­ly anti-labor.

The par­ty has embraced scorched-earth tac­tics and hostage-tak­ing to accom­plish this. Its modus operan­di is obstruct, obfus­cate, and oblit­er­ate.

Per­haps Grover Norquist said it best:

I’m not in favor of abol­ish­ing the gov­ern­ment. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.

In join­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty, Mark Milos­cia has turned his back on his Demo­c­ra­t­ic friends and vin­di­cat­ed his crit­ics. He’s part of the Par­ty of No now. Too bad.