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(This
is from the electronic version of Demogram, which is published by the
Lewis County Democratic Central Committee.
Lewis H. Zieske, Jr., Editor.)
Democratic
Congressman Brian Baird took a large majority of the votes for his race
to be re-elected to a 3rd term in the U.S. Congress in the recent primary
election. But in the Lewis County Balloting he received only 44.48 percent
of the votes. He trailed Joseph Zarelli, his Republican challenger, in
Lewis County by a count of 8,701 to 6,971 for Baird.
Jan Leth, Baird’s Lewis County campaign coordinator, thanked voters who helped Baird increase his Lewis County percentage over what he got in the last election. Leth urged Democrats to work harder. “We have an outstanding Congressman and friend in Brian. We can carry the county for him if we will just work a bit harder,” Leth said. Leth gave us the following article for publication.
Growing up in a family with caring parents, Brian Baird lived in a small town where neighbors helped each other and worked together to make their community a safer place to live. Brian’s dad, a teacher, taught him the value of hard work, respect and responsibility. His mom owned a small business and instilled in Brian the value of giving back to the community.
Brian earned a BA from the University of Utah. He received Masters and PhD degrees in Clinical Psychology from the University of Wyoming. He has worked with and counseled disabled veterans, cancer patients and their families, children who had mental health problems and serious head trauma victims. For 12 years he taught at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, serving as chair of its Department of Psychology.
In November, 1998, Brian was elected to Congress. There Brian helped lead efforts to contain the rising costs of prescription medications, protect Social Security and Medicare and pay down our national debt. He has fought the spread of illegal drugs and championed efforts to reform our nation’s campaign finance laws.
Congressman Baird has been profoundly responsive to his district’s constituents. He was instrumental in opening the Windy Ridge approach to Mt. St. Helens. He saved PeEll’s sewage treatment plant by bringing in the Army Corps of Engineers to help. He has sought funds to help Lewis County with its flooding problems and with preventing unrestricted Canadian lumber shipments that were hurting the county’s logging business. Recently Baird presented a $50,000 federal grant to Lewis County for use in the battle against the strangling influence of methamphetamine.
Brian has visited hundreds of classrooms in Southwest Washington where he listened to students, teachers and parents talk about their concerns. He has supported efforts to modernize schools, hire more teachers and reduce class sizes.
Brian promised to be responsive to all of his constituents—to listen, to work hard, to use common sense and to attend to the needs of Southwest Washington. He has done that well. Now we need to re-elect Brian Baird so he can keep up the great work.
