The Seattle P-I has provided Joel Connelly a forum to publish Democrat talking points and attack Republicans since Dan Evans was Washington’s Governor. He was perhaps the dean of our state’s political writers when the P-I was a newspaper, but since its move to existing only online Connelly has become even more strident in his Democrat cheerleading (especially in his regular twitter – @joelconnelly – rants against House Speaker John Boehner).
A most recent example was last week, when Connelly used his blog to try to help the Democrats by making “Oil refiners, railroads and would-be coal port developers” the public enemy of this election cycle, ominously pointing out that they “have quietly poured thousands of dollars into Republicans’ coffers in this year’s mid-election battle for control of the Washington Legislature.”
All this money motivates Connelly to write about the theme the Democrats outlined for him to help rally their environmental base: “Election 2014 has been a snoozer so far. But donations and endorsement [sic] indicate it is turning into a proxy war over oil trains and coal trains and carbon emissions.”
Connelly’s list of seven different donors includes national companies like the Warren Buffett-owned BNSF Railroad, and major Northwest Washington employers (and taxpayers) Tesoro and BP. He details a total of $101,450 in donations from the evil “carbon industry” giving to three different political committees and five candidates.
However, it’s what Connelly leaves out that shows his overwhelming bias. He mentions, at the bottom of his story that “In each of five Senate races where the carbon industry has come in for Republicans, for instance, Washington Conservation Voters is backing their Democratic opponents.”
He must have forgotten the story just a week earlier in the NY Times (a paper you know Mr. Connelly reads), which highlights how the dependably liberal Conservation Voters will be acting as a Democrat front group this fall, using an infusion of cash from California billionaire Tom Steyer. As Shift reported when that story came out, the NY Times predicted Steyer would use the Conservation Voters to launder “perhaps $1 million or more in attack ads against legislators in ‘half a dozen key seats that could tip the majority of the State Senate in favor of Mr. (Jay) Inslee’s agenda’. If Steyer follows his usual dark-money approach, ‘his previous pattern indicates it will be hundreds of thousands of dollars for each candidate.’”
It seems that Connelly is not bothered by one donor give perhaps 10 times what he attacks the seven “carbon industry” givers for contributing. Perhaps it’s because Connelly is in complete agreement with Steyer’s front group – again from the NY Times – “We’re working to give Jay the Legislature that he needs,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the national League of Conservation Voters. “The state senators are the obstacles.”
And when the Democrats have obstacles, they can count on Connelly to try and move them out of the way.
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