Former Republican Congressman McCloskey to Campaign for Congressional Challenger George Fearing

George Fearing - Democrat for United States Congress

Press Advisory
August 14, 2008
Former Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey to Campaign for Congressional Challenger George Fearing
McCloskey to discuss Doc Hastings’ spending, ethics, mistreatment of Veterans

Tri Cities, WA.  George Fearing’s campaign to unseat 14-year Congressman Doc Hastings received another boost today with the announcement that former Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey would join the candidate for a district-wide media tour on August 20 and 21.  The tour will focus on Doc Hastings’ deplorable record with Veterans and Ethics.

The media tour will include stops in Wenatchee, Yakima, Tri-Cities, Moses Lake, and other towns throughout the sprawling, ten-county district.  Rep. McCloskey and Candidate Fearing will meet with newspaper editorial boards as well as conduct on-air radio interviews and television segments.
Congressman Pete McCloskey (Ret’d)
Paul Norton “Pete” McCloskey Jr. (born September 29, 1927) is an influential former Republican Member of Congress from Yolo County in Northern of California. First elected in 1966, he ran on an anti-war platform against President Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination for President in 1972.

McCloskey could be considered one of the original “maverick Republicans.”  His public service has been marked by issues of ethics, honesty, influence by big money lobbyists, and the historic Republican principles of fiscal responsibility, limited government and environmental balance.  McCloskey testified in Congress along with “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” organizer John Kerry. He was one of the first Members of Congress of either Party to call for the resignation of Nixon after the Watergate scandal.  Co-Chair of the First Earth Day, one of McCloskey’s greatest legacies is his co-authorship of the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

McCloskey was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star and two Purple Hearts for his service as a Marine rifle platoon leader in the Korean War.  He and other former Republican leaders created the Revolt of the Elders in 2005 to try to restore traditional Republican ethics to the House of Representatives after Congressman Doc Hastings, in his position as Chair of the House Ethics Committee, refused to act regarding the Abramoff scandal and the corruption of Majority Leader Tom DeLay and a number of other Republican House Members, two of whom are now in jail.  John Doolittle (R-CA), Tom Feeney (R-FL), and Don Young (R-AK) are under active investigation by the Justice Department and four others have declined to run again.

Mr. McCloskey, 80, who went through college and law school under the World War II G.I. Bill, has spent considerable time lobbying this past year for the recently-enacted GI Bill sponsored by former Marines Senators Jim Webb and John Warner and Congressman Jack Murtha.  It was Congressman Hastings’ opposition to this bill and his failure to act in the Abramoff scandals which has caused Mr. McCloskey to volunteer to help defeat Hastings, whom he believes to typify all that has gone wrong with the Republican Party in the past few years.

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