Semi Bird received the endorsement of the Washington State Republican Party, but not before a series of raucous events and shout-downs from delegates
Carleen Johnson
The Center Square Washington
“Remarkable and historic” or a “chaotic clown show”?
There were dramatically different takes from the two Republican candidates for governor on how last weekend’s state party convention in Spokane went down.
Ultimately, Semi Bird received the endorsement of the Washington State Republican Party, but not before a series of raucous events and shout-downs from delegates.
Now, a week after leaving Spokane without ever stepping foot inside the Spokane Convention Center, the other Republican candidate, Dave Reichert – former King County Sheriff and congressman – told The Center Square he’s not happy about how things transpired.
“It was no shock to us when we arrived, but what we were hoping for was that there would be someone who could take the reins and bring some sort of order to the process and some fairness, but that didn’t happen,” he said. “It broke down into total chaos, and some have called it a political clown show and others have had even more descriptive adjectives,” said Reichert.
Reichert says he was in town, ready to attend the convention and give a speech to delegates. It became clear to him on the first day of the convention, with the party’s candidate committee discussing disqualifying both candidates, that something was up.
“A day or two before the convention, Bird admitted to identity theft and so they had an admission of guilt and with that they had the disqualification based on that admission,” he said, a reference to Bird’s conviction 31 years ago for bank larceny involving the theft of his father’s identity.
Bird told The Center Square he has owned that mistake from more than three decades ago.
“Here’s the truth of it: I did wrong 31 years ago,” he said. “I don’t make excuses for it and take full responsibility for it. My father forgave me and knew it came from a place of bitterness.”
Bird shared that his father was abusive and an alcoholic who years later found the Lord and got sober.
“He changed, and he came back into my life a couple decades later, and it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me, and I was at his death bed,” Bird recalled.
Reichert has been critical of Bird for not disclosing his run-in with the law before it was reported in The Seattle Times.
“A guy who’s going to steal from his own father and commit identity theft, and that’s the guy you want to nominate to be the governor of Washington state?” Reichert asked. “I mean in the old days you wouldn’t even be able to get a job at Walmart. I really struggled with the juxtaposition of the cop versus the crook.”
In response to that comment, Bird said, “I would say to Dave and anyone out there who would sit in judgment, everyone has the right to better their life and choose right and to do better. But to sit in judgment and disparage instead of lifting one another up, that is not the kind of leadership that I want leading my state.”
Party Chair Jim Walsh took issue with Reichert’s “clown show” remark.
“In fact, the Washington GOP convention was never ‘chaos,'” said Aberdeen’s Walsh, who also serves as a state representative in Olympia. “As I’ve said repeatedly, the convention was not scripted or stage-managed. It was real, authentic and passionate. The Washington GOP will harness that passion to fix what’s broken in our beautiful state.”
Republican voters will choose between Reichert and Bird in the August 6 primary. Democrats will choose their candidate between state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah.
The general election is Nov. 5.
This report was first published by The Center Square Washington.
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This is disappointing late breaking news. Really bad for Republicans. Pretty much anyone whose ever been involved in politics knows Bird won’t get elected. King County has the population base to carry the Democrats no matter what candidate. The Republicans needed a candidate that can swing those King county Democrats over. That’s not going to happen now, not a chance. On another note, Jim Walsh needed to have a script. He needed the convention to look like Republicans mean business. Having even the slightest bit of a hint at it being a clown show \ chaotic does not promote any kind of message that ‘We have our act together’. Why do you think the Democrats always have scripted shows….makes people think they have it all together. I will vote for Bird only because voting for a Democrat will be to continue the Inslee madness.
Thoughts on the governor’s race, guaranteed to anger many. But hey, I did that over JHB from the day she got here, and no one paid any attention, so why not now?
Here’s today’s bulletin: neither of the GOP candidates can win in this state.
There are 2 main issues as I see it: we’re a state controlled by a disciplined, focused, fringe-left party machine frequently aided by useful tools.
Locally, Rivers, JHB, Kathy McDonald and other allegedly GOP names come to mind in their assistance to democrat agendas.
Second is this insistence on looking at the label of Republican while failing to force accountability to those using it.
Like it or hate it, this is a leftist state. There is, in my estimation, zero chance under current circumstances, that any Republican can win statewide, starting with King County; where GOP incompetence has been endemic for the past 2 decades, at least.
Leftist hatred simply runs too deep to get them to magically begin to vote GOP.
Seattle, for example, is an ongoing train wreck. Under normal circumstances, the voters would have rebelled against the leftist establishment that had turned this once great city into a fringe-left shithole of drugs, overdoses, crime and hundreds of millions wasted on homeless programs failing out the gate.
But what’s happened at the polls? Is even ONE Republican on the city council?
And King County Executive Dow Constantine’s tenure has been a nightmare. Yet he’d be easily reelected.
This state needs to hit rock bottom before change even becomes remotely possible. And we’re not there yet.
The current GOP rank and file is a reflection of frustration resulting from candidates who run allegedly on GOP principles only to forget… or ignore… why they’re there.
Why get people elected, and after a brief time, they turn into unrecognizable characters of what they claimed to be during their campaigns. Rivers and her gas tax/CRC betrayals are two of the more illustrious cases.
While I was on state party staff, it became obvious that for many, “Republican” was just a label. Alienating a substantial portion of the GOP electorate who rightfully cling to what that label is SUPPOSED to mean will never end well.
Just ask now former Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
If Dave makes it to the general, there is no hope in hell that a substantial part of the GOP, which most Dave supporters have been busy alienating, will support him.
The same applies to Bird. Many Dave supporters will just sit this one out.
It’s the reality. It’s unavoidable.
Dave’s got a troubling voting record. We’re being asked to ignore that record, where past is prologue, and support him anyway.
Bird has a history where the same holds true, fake or real. Neither side will budge. And the end result will be yet another train wreck governor, likely the train wreck AG.
These are, IMHO, the cold, hard, facts of the matter. I have no bias in this conclusion. I don’t advocate against either candidate. But this is how I see it.
Regardless of how the Republican Convention went in Spokane, the question is who can beat Democrat Bob Ferguson? Personally Semi Bird made a very positive impression on me, almost a life long concservative Republican. The one vote I did for a Democrat was for John F Kennedy – the old party Democrat. But the party has changed to liberalism. Dave Reichert who comes from the big Democrat controlled metro areas of King, Snohomish, Pierce, Thurston, Mason and other counties has a strong base. It will take this type of organizational base in the heart of the Democrat area to win against Ferguson. Bird from Tri-Cities, cannot overcome that tremendous Democrat base of metro WA State. That is why we have been ruled by the liberals for so many years. Reichert can do this, and he is conservative. Both candidates have come to our C3 group (Concerned Christian Citizens of Clark County). Bird is more charismatic and he won me over in the first meeting. Reichert was very “business” focus, “just the facts Ma’am” Sgt Joe Friday style. So I have to support Reichert knowing he can and will win over Ferguson.
Bob my question directly to you is Have you attended a Semi Bird Event? And or have you watched his 20 some podcasts on YouTube? Because until that answer is yes? You are not doing your job. Glenn
I will be so glad when the primary is over, and Mr. Bird and his untruthfulness goes back into retirement. He claims all his issues are 30 years old but his Patriot Builders LLC mess as a shoddy contractor settled out in November 2023. If he couldn’t manage a few subcontractors then how are we to believe he can manage our state. It’s not that he has a checkered past, it’s that he keeps lying about it. Mr. Bird loves to pull out that race card when cornered.
https://Bird-Docs.com for the real documented truth.
From Robert the no last name sainte?
Here is the facts.
I will be voting for Reichert and Lewallen. Not only because I believe they are better qualified, but because I believe they have the best chance of winning in the election. The Washington GOP is delusional.
RINO RINO RINO.
I’m an Independent.
The county, the state, nor the country has the time to elect more old school republicans. We need bold candidates who are not afraid to debate and a bold electorate who are not afraid to take a stand.
We can continue supporting the candidate who say they are only one who can reach across the aisle while compromising our values or we can come together and elect the bulldogs who tell us they are just as mad as we are and are not going to take it anymore.
Clearly voting for the same type of candidate has not been working. We can always hope that this time, this centrist candidate, will be different. Big money is betting they can continue to keep conservative voters divided.
Vote for the strongest candidate who represents your values and passion..We must demand more from our candidates. Mediocrity begets mediocrity. Time is up in Washington State.
This I weird Semi showed 912 votes, I vote for him and checked the Talley and he had 901. Wow they must be using state voter tabulation machines with percentage winning software installed
Reichert and his minions are the liars about what happened at the convention. I was there. Reichert wasn’t. The truth is Bird delegates overwhelmingly outnumbered Reichert delegates and were not about to accept the state party trying to to save Reichert’s face by saying Bird hadn’t been truthful in the vetting process at the last minute and therefore trying to scrap the vote on governor, as if Reichert has never been untruthful or hid something. State party leadership wanted the grass roots until it showed up, but the grass roots prevailed. Democracy in action. By lying about it, Reichert is foolishly shooting himself in the foot with the party base that he might need.
Dave Reichert has the support of many active Sheriff’s and has the experience, expertise and Integrity to become Governor of this State!
With a 31% positive rating from the Heritage Foundation on his conservative voting record in congress
The Heritage rating is based upon a sampling of some thirty votes on issues which are of particular concern to the Heritage Foundation out of nearly a thousand votes cast per congressional session. There are other reports which more accurately identify Reichert as a moderate Republican whose political alignment is slightly left of the main body of Republican members of Congress–but far to the right of any Democrat member.
That said, in this governors race it is an error to compare Reichert with other republicans simply because he will not be running against a republican in November. He will be running against Bob Ferguson.
The comparison/contrast view has to be made between Dave Reichert and Bod Ferguson. And in doing that it becomes apparent that there is less to be compared and much more to be contrasted. Ferguson will yield nothing toward any republican political interest or policy issues. Zip. Nothing. Nada. In contrast to that Reichert will concur with, promote and defend a great deal that is in the interests of republican principles, policies, and political agenda. His 14 year voting record in congress clearly establishes that–even though his overall political profile is that of a moderate or mainstream republican rather than that of a straight-up conservative such as myself.
At risk of belaboring the point I will mention the new WSRP Platform adopted at the recent convention. I can confidently say that there is probably nothing in it that Ferguson will support, while knowing that Reichert will support nearly all of it. That is the comparison through which the virtues of Reichert and the vices of Ferguson are most clearly illuminated. This is especially true in the areas of law, order and crime. I cannot imagine a potential governor who would be more dedicated toward enforcement of the law nor more competent in his ability to get that job done than Dave Reichert. Ditto that in reference to the Carbon Tax, and in reference to Parent’s rights to raise and educate their own children, and there is more but that is enough to make my point.
The only comparison to be made between Reichert and Byrd, and it is vital to understanding the governor’s race, is the Reichert can win in November and Byrd cannot. And that really is the bottom-line.