Can’t win on the issues

Seattle liberals and ‘progressives’ are afraid of losing their stranglehold on Washington State in the mid-term election in November.

The state Republican Party has fielded the former CEO of Safeco Insurance, Mike McGavick, to run against incumbent junior Senator Maria Cantwell. McGavick took Safeco from what was an actual slippery slope of financial ruin to where they are today, an industry leader. When he resigned his position to run for the Senate seat, McGavick got a very nice severance package consisting of $28 Million dollars.

And because McGavick is running quite close to Cantwell in the polls, the left wing of the Democratic Party has ignited their base to make baseless acusations against him.

A descendant of a founder of Safeco Corporation and her politically active attorney will announce later this morning that they’re suing Senate candidate and former Safeco CEO Mike McGavick for the $28 million he was paid by the company this year.

Emma Schwartzman is the great, great granddaughter of a Safeco founder. She is scheduled to appear at a press conference near Safeco’s Seattle headquarters with attorney Knoll Lowney. who successfully challenged in court Tim Eyman’s property tax initiative. Lowney and his firm have given political donations to liberal candidates and groups such as Washington Conservation Voters. His law partner, Richard Smith, announced last week he would run for state Supreme Court.

According to a press release sent this morning the “central claim in the suit is that a significant portion of the $28 million McGavick received from Safeco after he resigned as Safeco’s CEO resulted from a fraudulent transaction between McGavick and the Board of Directors that breached defendants’ fiduciary duties to shareholders. The suit also alleges that the Board of Directors violated federal securities laws by concealing the magnitude and extraordinary nature of the payout.”

The Democratic Party and supporters of Sen. Maria Cantwell have already focused on McGavick’s pay. The state Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission in April, alleging that McGavick’s compensation was an illegal campaign contribution. In June, liberal blogger David Goldstein was searching for Safeco shareholders angry at McGavick’s compensation.

The key piece of information in that blockquote is the last sentence.

David Goldstein is better known as ‘Goldy’ from Seattle-based left-wing Horses Ass. org blog. He has made complaining about McGavick’s successful venture into capitalism a full time subject at his place since McGavick’s campaign started gaining steam.

A little fact checking done by a local invesitgative reporter working for the Seattle NBC affiliate, Robert Mak, shows that the great, great granddaughter of the founder of Safeco Insurance owns only 50 shares out of an outstanding 119.2 million shares available. A pittance, and proof that the anti-McGavick left has had to dig deep to find an angry shareholder because, since McGavick’s time in “The Big Chair”, Safeco’s stock price has risen 118%.

Eric Earling at Sound Politics has some more facts and numbers for you to be impressed by.

As can be expected by anyone looking at the facts, the McGavick campaign has responded to the suit by calling it what it is “a politically motivated character attack” . Cantwell can’t beat him on the issues, so they have to try and get his finances locked up via court order.

Not that this is the first time Goldstein has played scummy politics. Goldstein was also the guy who first publicised a story about members of the family of an opponent of Goldy’s darling County Executive, Ron ‘Tax to the Max’ Sims, calling the opponent incompetent and a liar.

I know that everything goes in politics, but when you have to connive people to make basesless accusations, you cannot then go on to claim the high moral ground.