Eyman, haven't you heard of using honey instead of vinegar?

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‘Lying whore:’ Eyman’s anti-Inslee tantrum
Posted by Joel Connelly, February 21, 2013

Initiative promoter Tim Eyman and Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan sent out a broadside Thursday calling newly elected Gov. Jay Inslee a “lying whore” in perhaps the most vulgar and juvenile bid for attention that Olympia has witnessed in years.

Eyman has resorted to invective many times before and has a history of showering abuse on state, county and local public officials.  But the latest missive will be appreciated mainly by connoisseurs of wretched excess.

When King County Council members Jane Hague and Kathy Lambert voted for a temporary $20 car tab fee — to prevent deep cuts in pubic [sic] transit — Eyman published a wanted-style poster with the word “LIAR!” in bold face beneath pictures of the two council members, both of them Republicans.

The latest outburst is apparently in reaction to state House Democrats’ unveiling of a transportation package that would raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon.  It is the first step in what’s expected to be a lengthy tinkering period involving both houses of the Legislature and the governor.

Inslee said on Wednesday that he looks forward to “robust dialogue.”  The governor emphasized, however, that a growing state needs to grow its infrastructure, especially when 25 percent of its jobs are supported by international trade through its ports.

“We clearly need to address the growing maintenance and preservation needs in our current infrastructure, the big-ticket needs to improve freight mobility across our state, and the unmet needs for sustainable transportation such as pedestrian and bicycle improvements,” Inslee said in a statement. “We can’t afford not to take action and this is a job I expect the Legislature to accomplish.”

Eyman and Fagan have morphed that into a call for new taxes.

“Candidate Inslee repeatedly promised to veto any tax increase.  He said no way to higher transportation taxes in 2013,” said Eyman and Fagan.  “Inslee said he’d grow jobs to generate more tax revenue.  What a lying whore he turned out to be. In recent weeks, he’s made it clear he’ll sign any tax increase the Legislature unilaterally imposes.”

Eyman feeds on attention, which may explain the vulgar hyperbole.   The joke has long been that the most dangerous ground to occupy in the state capital is between Eyman and a TV camera.

Successful on tax measures, Eyman has repeatedly lost at the ballot box with measures designed to impede public transportation spending,  the most recent a bid to block Sound Transit light rail from crossing Lake Washington and to block tolling on the I-90 bridge and S.R. 167.

Eyman has bombarded news outlets with near-daily releases, one of which arrived as President Obama was getting ready to be sworn in for a second term.

Eyman has been swarming the state’s body politic since 1999, but may find his nimbus growing a little thin.  He has found deep pockets: Big Oil and the Beer Institute helped fuel his last initiative requiring a legislative “supermajority” to raise taxes. Real estate kingpin Kemper Freeman Jr. kicked in $1 million to the transportation measure.

But the need for the state to spend more on K-12 schools, public colleges and universities and a creaky transportation infrastructure is there for all to see.

“He (Eyman) has already shown he has nothing to contribute to a sane discussion about the value of public services in our state,” said Andrew Villeneuve, director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, a group of youthful web activists who have critiqued Eyman initiatives for years.

A statewide poll by the respected Fairbank Maslin firm, released Thursday, showed Washington voters in strong support of community and four-year colleges:  56 percent of those surveyed said the state has not done enough to support public higher education.

The poll found that 64 percent of those surveyed would be “more favorably” disposed toward members of the Legislature who support higher education.  It found that a majority of the state’s residents have a personal connection to either a community college or a four-year college.

“What this research shows us is that voters clearly and deeply understand the connection between access to quality higher education and economic success for their families,” said Bill Lyne, president of the United Faculty of Washington.

Patrick Stickney, a Western Washington University junior active in student government, was encouraged at the poll figures, but argued that it brings out a blunt truth:

“Combined with the billion-plus dollars the state must put into K-12 education, it is obvious that the state must raise new revenue to make the investments necessary for a successful Washington.”

It will be interesting to see the reaction that Republicans and The Seattle Times, both of which have endorsed Eyman initiatives, have to the “lying whore” release . . . and whether the Association of Washington Business continues to let itself be used to channel money into his initiative campaigns.
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