The Position 1 House race in the 19th Legislative District pits a pair of qualified candidates – Democrat Teresa Purcell of Longview and Republican Jim Walsh of Aberdeen — for a seat seen as critical by both parties.

Neither are newcomers to politics, but neither have held office. Walsh is vice chairman of the state Republican Party and Purcell has been a paid political consultant to high-ranking Democrats in Washington state.

The issue that matters most to their constituents in Grays Harbor, Pacific, Wahkiakum, Lewis and Cowlitz counties is the economy, specifically the recovery that seems to be passing the district by as most of the rest of the state prospers. They are miles apart on how to change that, but we believe Purcell has a better reading on the challenge and that is why we’re endorsing her.

Walsh believes we have become dependent on the government to lift us out of the slide that started when the timber industry began to diminish in the mid-1980s. He says private investment can turn that around if government gets out of the way.

Purcell sees government’s role as critical to providing infrastructure that can act as a stimulus to attract private industry.

They’re both a little right, but Walsh’s ideology takes it too far. It’s a misreading by someone who wasn’t here when the crash hit to say, as he does, that the area essentially renegotiated its social contract to become dependent on government grants instead of private industry.

Private investment has not picked up the slack, but we don’t believe that’s because government is too big or too onerous toward business.

Government assists business all the time, through tax incentives, by building infrastructure, funding training programs, providing an educated workforce and a host of other ways. We need the assistance of government and the willingness of government to partner with private investors to create viable business opportunities here.

Walsh casts Purcell as a liberal beholden to Seattle interests. When she talks about her having worked with Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and being endorsed by them now, he seems to think that’s a point against her. We don’t.

One of the things that made Lynn Kessler — one of the most effective lawmakers we’ve ever had — so valuable to this area was that she had credibility with the more liberal and urban wing of her Democratic Party but never wavered from loyalty to her rural constituents. As a result, those lawmakers better understood our challenges.

In Washington, income inequality is often drawn along urban-rural lines. Walsh’s free-market ideology seems deep-seeded and uncompromising. We need the state’s assistance in breaking through that line and Purcell seems ideologically and politically better suited for the job.