Senate Minority Leader Bill Finkbeiner, R-Kirkland, is a member of the new generation of the GOP leadership in Washington state that includes state Attorney General Rob McKenna, state Senate Floor Leader LukeEsser, and failed gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. Finkbeiner, like the others, hails from the eastside of King County, the 45th District (Kirkland, Redmond, Woodinville, Duvall), and has terrific personal skills that can distract swing voters from his conservative politics. Finkbeiner was originally elected as a Democrat to the state House and actually voted for the gay civil rights bill in the past. "There is nothing wrong with being gay. I don't think gay people should be discriminated against, but I don't think this bill is the right way to go about that," he says. Democratic senators, including Lake Forest Park's Darlene Fairley, say that Finkbeiner would lose his leadership post if he supported the bill because the majority of his fellow Republicans are more conservative on social issues than he is. Finkbeiner says, "I've taken a lot of tough votes on social issues." For example, he points out that he was the lone Republican senator to support stem-cell research in this year's vote on the matter. Even Democrats acknowledge that Finkbeiner hasn't created that much vulnerability for himself and that opposing the gay-rights bill alone probably isn't enough by itself to cost him a senate seat.

From "The Longest Yard, Seattle Weekly, June 22, 2005

I'm glad he changed his mind in the intervening time. But, I can't vote for a Republican at this time. We must regain power through seats at every level of government. But, in times past, we had incredibly good public servants who were Republicans, and I'd like the option of voting for an exceptional Republican candidate at some time in the future.

*My note: Strangely, I don't condemn Jim Hargrove. He's a devout Catholic but he's been an influential Democrat in the Senate for a long time, and we're so lucky to have TWO Democratic senators in this district, given its pro-logging, anti-Native American, trending-conservative, strongly libertarian-leaning views.