A House Almost Divided

A House Almost Divided July 23, 2012

This is the local politician I got drafted into banner-carrying for in the parade Saturday:

vincent buys

His name is Vincent “Vince” Buys, a Republican member of the Washington State House from the 42nd district.

And yes, he happens to be my landlord. But that doesn’t mean he automatically gets my endorsement.

I never donate money to politicians and endorsements are rare. In fact, for some time, your humble diarist seriously considered running against him.

Wouldn’t that have made for some fun visuals? Picture the cover of the Bellingham Herald with Buys and Lott with dueling campaign signs, glaring at each other from across the lawn.

I teased him mercilessly with this image. If the Democrats wouldn’t have me, I pledged to run against him on the Rent Is Too Damn High Party ticket. (Imagine the headline: “Buys Discloses Lott’s Rent, Says ‘Not Too Damn High,’ Raises It.”)

Now this did not happen, for a few reasons. I heard whispers that the Dems were actually going to field a candidate, so he wouldn’t be running unopposed.

Also, things got crazy busy for about a month. This raised the prospect that I wouldn’t even be able to do the sorts of things one usually does in a paper protest campaign — show up at forums, do some media, give the occasional speech, etc.

So I reluctantly never registered to run against him.

Saturday the plan was simply to attend the Birch Bay parade. Vince inquired, with about an hour to spare, “Watching or walking?”

The question caught me completely off guard and I found myself for once not on the sidelines. As I carried his banner, I wondered if, perhaps, I should let my sore feet do the talking and endorse this guy. More on this tomorrow…


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