The article on Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (“Gluesenkamp Perez says voting record refutes claims she’s ‘woke,’ ” The Columbian, June 23) cast a light on Perez’s positions and our best interests. It also cast some well-deserved shade on Joe Kent’s dysfunctional “grasp” of the role of a U.S. representative. We, as voters, would be wise to take notice of the difference.
Perez is representing what she believes to be the most moderate course, balancing the conflicting needs and interests of her constituents. Needs and interests are rarely fully congruent. While I don’t always agree with her, I’m willing to acknowledge that politics is the art of the possible. We pay her to be an honest broker amongst us.
Kent, on the other hand, seems to be playing to a national audience of ideologues, not to a representative segment of 3rd District voters. The opposite of the functionally ridiculous concept of “woke” as it’s being used by the radical right-wing conspiracists is not “enlightened,” it’s comatose.
There are serious problems facing our nation and our region. I don’t want to send a Joe Kent to join the Klown-Karavan of Boebert, Green, Gaetz and McCarthy, wasting our time, money and squandering what little margin for error we have remaining.
