War sharpens race in 3rd District

By Adam Wilson | The Olympian • Published August 10, 2008

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird hasn't shied away from taking controversial stands in the past year, a fact that has provided ammunition for his challengers in the Aug. 19 primary.

The incumbent Democrat found himself the focus of national attention last August, when he came back from a trip from Iraq and said an increase of U.S. troops was stabilizing the country.

Fellow Democrats in particular were upset with the change of view from one of the few congressmen to oppose the Iraq War when it started in 2003.

Was he right? Did the surge of combat troops to Iraq quell the violence?

Baird says he called it. The 11 U.S. causalities in July were the lowest monthly number since the war began.

But fellow Democrat Cheryl Crist of Olympia has her doubts, and she's challenging Baird in the primary.

So is Christine Webb of Tumwater, but the Republican thinks Baird is right on Iraq and wrong on the economy.

And then there's Michael Delavar, an anti-war Republican from Washougal who jumped in the race when Baird changed his mind.

"Since he flipped on the war, it was an opportunity to be an anti-occupation Republican against a pro-war Democrat," he said. "We realized somebody has to make a challenge."

Delavar, an airline pilot, worked on U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's campaign for president. Like the Texas Republican, he's opposed to foreign intervention, starting with the Iraq War.

"It was undeclared by Congress, and regardless of the reasons we should have gone in there or not, it is no longer a war; it's an occupation," Delavar said. "We no longer have an enemy who we are fighting, who can surrender. We can't afford it, besides."

Both he and Crist want hasty withdrawal of troops, as opposed to Baird's predictions of "substantial" withdrawals by 2010.

But Crist, a retired stockbroker and real estate agent, has different reasons from Delavar's.

"At the time of the terrorist attacks, I thought, 'What a violent world we live in,' and I would work for peace," she said.

Her challenge to Baird in 2004 didn't go far. She won 15 percent of the primary vote. But she says she has learned a few lessons and that Baird was wrong to support the troop surge. She says alternative news outlets paint a different picture of the war than the mainstream media.