Rossi campaign event's ugly turn caught on tape

By Bryan Bissell, PolitickerWA.com Reporter

[img_assist|nid=2382|title=Dino Rossi|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=175|height=139]The Washington State Democratic Party released a video today shot before a Dino Rossi campaign event in Ellensburg over the weekend, where Kittitas County Republican Party Chair Dr. Matt Manweller, a Central Washington University political science professor, unleashed a tirade on Democratic Party volunteers protesting Rossi's stance on the minimum wage.

Rossi recently said he would consider looking into cutting the minimum wage for entry-level teenage workers by $1.50, and in the past has voted on measures to freeze mandated minimum wage increases during periodsof high unemployment.

"Working families are struggling through tough economic times under the policies of George Bush that Republican Dino Rossi has backed 100% of the way," said Washington State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz in the release. "The fact a multi-millionaire like Rossi would suggest to struggling families making the minimum wage that he'd cut their pay and that a top Rossi advisor refers to minimum wage workers with degrading insults like ‘stupid' and ‘dumber than a post' shows how disturbingly out-of-touch Rossi and the Republicans are - and why a Bush Republican like Rossi can't be trusted to run our state."

Manweller repeatedly spoke to the protesters, engaging in an off-and-on argument for three minutes about the merits of the state's minimum wage policy, which is to increase it based on inflation every year.

"Only somebody as dumb as Gregoire would endorse it," Manweller said at the beginning of the confrontation. When told by the Democratic volunteers about single moms trying to make ends meet on a meager salary Manweller shot back, "This policy hurts single moms. There would be 100,000 more single moms with a job."

Later on, when told there were over 300,000 people who supported increasing the minimum wage, Dr. Manweller responded with an insult.

"You and 300,000 people are dumber than a post," he said. "Your stupidity is harming my county."

Reached for comment, Dr. Manweller said he stood by what he said.

"They are fundamentally wrong on the minimum wage. Every academic knows they are wrong and they don't care," he told PolitickerWA.com about supporters of an increased minimum wage. "It is pure demagoguery and they just don't care."

His only regret was the phrasing of his comments.

"I should have used ‘ignorant'," Dr. Manwell said. "Anybody who supports an increase in the minimum wage is ignorant. I stand by my point."

Manweller also made it clear that he was speaking for himself and no one else, adding that he was not a top Rossi advisor, as the Democrats had called him. He was one of three idea bank committee chairs for Rossi's Forward Washington Foundation, a group he founded to advance policy ideas in the state between his two runs for governor.

"I am not even his county chair," Dr. Manweller said. "I sit on no advisory boards for him. [The term] ‘Top Rossi advisor' is completely inaccurate."

The Rossi campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Bryan Bissell is a PolitickerWA.com Reporter and can be reached via email at noreply@politicker.com.

Post new comment

Most Active Stories

RSS Feeds

Comments

Post new comment