His choice is Frasier

We’re on the eve of all-important mid-term elections in both local and national arenas. It’s an opportunity to sort wheat from the chaff. This is the season when candidates are prone to promote their party’s policy positions whether seeking state or national office. But this election cycle is different, at least here on the Twin Harbors home front.

Rep. Jim Walsh is seeking another term as our 19th District Washington State House Representative. Trumpster candidates (formerly known as Republicans) like Rep. Walsh are noticeably silent relative to their party’s national positions.

Democrat Erin Frasier poses a serious challenge to Rep. Walsh. That makes it all the more important for Rep. Walsh to speak out so we can compare his Trumpster Party positions with those progressive ideas for change that Erin Frasier represents.

For starters, Rep. Walsh, your fellow Trumpsters have regularly promised to replace the Affordable Care Act with something better. This is a huge issue throughout the Twin Harbors since a significant portion of our population counts as senior citizens. Yet your party has voted more than 50 times to repeal the ACA. Changes thus far implemented have resulted in an anticipated 20 percent increase in premiums for health insurance. Economists tell us that the largest portion of these premium hikes will fall on working middle class families who earn a tad too much to qualify for subsidies.

Twenty Trumpster Party controlled states are moving forward with legal challenges to the ACA. These legal actions include attempts to eliminate the ACA provision requiring insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions. Contrary to your party’s position, Rep. Walsh, 75 percent of Americans consider coverage for pre-existing conditions to be important.

Again, contrary to Trumpster Party operatives a majority of Americans favor ACA and Medicare- for-All. Rep. Walsh, we’re all counting on you to help us understand your Trumpster Party’s reasoning relative to health care.

Although most of these issues — and others, such as voter suppression, the party’s willingness to look the other way at Trump’s misogyny and his treatment of refugee families at the border — are playing out on the national stage, they reveal color and texture of the attitudes and perspectives of state office holders claiming membership in the Trumpster Party.

So it is that voters, whether Democrats or members of the former Republican Party, need to consider him as from the Trumpster Party when they cast ballots that will dictate Washington State’s future.

Dave Gauger

Raymond