The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

We share widespread concern over the influence of money in politics. This is a far cry, however, from believing that the system has been permanently rigged by the “billionaire class.” Ironically, this year’s presidential campaign, fueled so powerfully by such accusations of total corruption, has done much to disprove the claim.

We understand the distortion of policymaking that the symbiotic relationship between candidates and donors engenders. Those pernicious consequences are often most pronounced not at the presidential level, but in corners of our democracy where the stakes for spe...