Issue #246
GOP: At sea in Bellevue without Rodney Tom?
With Rodney Tom out of the running, the 48th Legislative District is gearing up for a good ol’-fashioned red-on-blue rumble. That’s bad news for the Republicans in a district where they’ve suffered a 20-year bleed of support. Everything changed in the swing district with the announcement by incumbent Sen. Rodney Tom—the Republican, turned Democrat, turned Majority Coalition Caucus leader—that he would not run for re-election, citing personal and family issues. This election is no longer about Tom. Instead, it’s an open seat race, likely to come down to a conventional Democrat versus a conventional Republican. That’s bad news for the Republicans. The GOP now restarts the fight with a candidate problem – or, rather, the problem of having no candidate. The GOP also has a 48th LD problem. Namely, their problem is that it isn’t 1988 anymore. Crosscut, 4-28-14.