A Teleconference With Bill Frist And Mike McGavick

by John Hawkins | August 14, 2006 8:47 pm

Tonight, I got in on a conference call with Rightroots endorsed[1] candidate Mike McGavick, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Washington State. Bill Frist was there to introduce him to the bloggers, but McGavick did most of the talking.

McGavick is an interesting guy. He got his start creating his own public affairs consulting firm and did so well that he ended up running Safeco. He took Safeco from a point where they lost a billion dollars in a year’s time to record profits four years later.

His line about this was that he, “ran out of problems to solve at Safeco, but the Federal Government will never run out of problems to solve.”

Not bad.

We discussed fund raising a bit because McGavick has been lagging behind Cantwell, who has raised nearly 16 million dollars[2] so far while McGavick has raised less than 5 million. The good news is that Cantwell has already spent more than half of that money and she only has a 4 point lead. Moreover, McGavick is going to put 2 million dollars of his own money into the campaign to make sure she doesn’t leave him in the dust in the home stretch.

McGavick talked about a variety of issues, but what he said about the war on terrorism was really spot-on.

He said it’s vitally important for us to give the Iraqi government an opportunity to defend itself. We’re seeing a transition from our troops to their troops, but they need a little more time. If we do take off from Iraq, and leave a civil war in our wake, we’re going to encourage the terrorists and give them a potential base to use against us. That would be a huge mistake.

Beating an incumbent Senator is always tough, but out of the 4-5 Republican challengers trying to unseat Democrats in the Senate this year, McGavick may be our best shot at a pick-up right now. Cantwell is vulnerable, there’s an anti-incumbent mood out there, and popular Republican Dino Rossi, who may have been cheated out of the governorship[3], is campaigning relentlessly for him.

If you’d like to help Mike McGavick try to knock off Maria Cantwell, you can donate to his campaign at Rightroots[4].

Endnotes:
  1. Rightroots endorsed: http://www.abcpac.com/rightroots/
  2. 16 million dollars: http://www.opensecrets.org/states/election.asp?State=WA&year=2006
  3. cheated out of the governorship: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/archives/week_2005_01_09.PHP#003330
  4. Rightroots: http://www.abcpac.com/rightroots/

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