Former presidential candidate asks Trump to turn anger into ideas during Kennewick visit

Former New York Gov. George Pataki mixed business, politics and a bit of farm talk during a brief visit to the Tri-Cities on Wednesday.

Pataki, an early candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, touted Republican principles and candidates on the eve of the Washington GOP Convention in Pasco.

Pataki spoke passionately about the power of free markets to solve thorny economic challenges at the Washington Policy Center’s Solutions Summit.

Pataki is not an official participant in the GOP’s May 18-21 convention, but he intended to visit with state party leaders as they prepared for some 3,000 delegates and alternates to converge at the TRAC center for the four-day gathering in Pasco.

The convention is primarily a vehicle to build support for Republicans running for office in the state and to select delegates to the national nominating convention this summer in Cleveland.

Voters in Washington’s May 24 presidential primary will determine which candidate the delegates support. Donald Trump is the only Republican candidate still in the race, but the Washington ballot includes the names of John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson.

Trump, the presumed nominee, has been invited to Pasco. Steve Beren, spokesman for the Washington GOP, said there was no confirmation he would attend as of Wednesday afternoon.

Pataki was one of the original 16 candidates for the 2016 Republican nomination. He withdrew in December and threw his support to Ohio’s Kasich, who dropped out as well.

He’s come around on Donald Trump, a candidate he has criticized, sometimes harshly.

“Donald Trump has tapped into a feeling of people across the spectrum that Washington, D.C., is not acting in their interests,” he said.

Converting that anger into ideas and solutions is the key to general election success, Pataki said during a brief press conference at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick.

“If it’s a campaign of anger against anger, I don’t have a lot of confidence in the outcome as a Republican,” he said.

Pataki said he takes his former rival’s more outrageous statements with a grain of salt.

“In a campaign — I know from personal experience —you say a lot of stupid things.”

The ex-governor said Trump can reach out to women and minorities alienated by the campaign’s harsh rhetoric with sound policies around America’s role as a force for good in the world, a strong military and replacing the Affordable Care Act with a free market alternative.

Pataki displayed his agricultural roots when he recalled growing up on his family’s cherry farm. The farm was sold when he became governor. After leaving office, he bought a 412-acre farm where he plays an active role raising beef, hay and grapes.

He cited New York’s Historic Farm Trust, which helps aging farms with small grants to pay for upgrades, as a favorite accomplishment while in office.

Pataki noted that like Washington, New York is a rural state dominated by a major urban area. Rural residents shouldn’t be too concerned about where elected officials live, he said. As of Wednesday afternoon, five of the 45 candidates to file for 10 statewide positions, including governor and U.S. Senator, have connections to Eastern Washington.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from. What matters is solutions,” he said.

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 5:41 PM with the headline "Former presidential candidate asks Trump to turn anger into ideas during Kennewick visit."