My point is David Carrier does not deserve any similar rebuke.

The Wa State Supreme Court just ruled that police cannot arrest passengers simply for being in a car that smells of marijuana. Seems to me that if Dr. Carrier isn’t smoking it, then he isn’t guilty even if his colleagues are lighting up around him.

I believe David Carrier has made this pledge — it just seems to be a moot point to use it as an attack when his colleagues and endorsed candidates are accepting the contributions that he condemns.

Completely agree that campaign contributions are a problem on both sides of the aisle. That is why supporting public financing of campaigns is so important.

If I understand correctly, David Carrier is not and will not accept these types of campaign contributions so it is legitimate for him to point out this difference between himself and Benton.

This information is all very interesting, and luckily, the PDC swings both ways. As an Independent, I think it’s interesting that everyone seems to think listing Don Benton’s PAC contributions is a big negative to his campaign when there are twice as many Democrats receiving the same contributions from the same people.

Has anyone looked at Sen. Pridemore or Rep. Fromhold’s contributions? How about Sen. Margarita Prentice’s? They’ve all received checks from either Phillip Morris or RJ Reynolds. Wal-Mart’s also given hefty contributions to both Fromhold and Prentice. In addition, all of them, including the Democrat Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown, have received contributions from the big cell phone companies.

And what about the Governor? Christine Gregoire has received ridiculously generous donations from every organization above, and Gregoire shows bundled contributions from Moneytree totaling $4750 – how far from the Moneytree has her apple fallen?

The fact is, these kinds of contributions are being given out across the board, and, if a candidate is smart, they take them. Each of these candidates, both Democrat and Republican, has a record of winning elections over and over again so they must be doing something right.

Blasting Benton for accepting contributions that are also accepted by a number of Democrat leaders is absolutely ludicrous and, by definition, completely hypocritical. I’m not a huge Benton fan, but let’s at least try to be fair and objective here.