Further comment on the topic of a letter to Peninsula Voices discussing the Clallam County commissioner campaign (“For Randy Johnson,” Peninsula Voices, Oct. 21) is appropriate.
That writer asserts that extreme positioning on the left-right scale is no longer a useful leadership paradigm and points out that this is a problem that Richards has, Johnson less so.
It is important to note that membership in, or support by, extreme activist groups such as the Sierra Club could indeed become problematic for a Clallam County commissioner.
Is the relationship used to inform and to gain perspective (OK), or does it command the candidate’s worldview (not so OK)?
There is a ton of difference.
In this regard, remember that Richards has supported the group Save the Olympic Peninsula, which is behind the advertisements that have appeared in the PDN that attempt to impugn the Navy for doing what the broader nation expects the Navy to do: practice modern techniques and acquire readiness.
These ads imply the Navy will endanger murrelets with its jets.
And that our natural environment will be ruined, etc., etc.
This is over-the-top, mainly exaggeration, with some parochialism, provincialism, “nimbyism,” contradiction and a lot of anti-militarism and anti-science thrown in.
This reveals an over-reactionary, polarizing type of leadership.
Regarding this campaign: Many of us are sick of reading the thinly veiled innuendos concerning the bad-boy timber industry and its supposed lowlife, dishonest officers.
Get real.
Besides, Richards is the Dow Chemical man — he worked for Dow Chemical as an engineer — and you want to ascribe to him more purity than a timber man?
Herbert A. Thompson,
Port Angeles