Grant County Republicans gather

MOSES LAKE — For Caleb Heimlich, the issue is simple.

“There’s not a single area of life where we’re better off today than two years ago,” the chair of the Washington State Republican Party said.

A number of people gathered at the Pillar Rock Grill at the Moses Lake Country Club Saturday night nodded their heads and murmured their agreement. It’s why they were here.

“That’s the bad news,” Heimlich added. “But the good news is we get to do something about it over the next eight months. We can turn things around, and it’s up to each one of us.”

And that, too, is why these members of the Grant County Republican Party gathered on Saturday at the party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner — to meet, to socialize, to share a meal, to be inspired and to raise money.

Over $15,000 in the auction alone, which included bids on holiday getaways, rounds of golf, an aerial tour of Grant County followed by a grilled buffalo dinner with Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, and a mystery box full of Grant County goodies, as well as raffles for a mountain bike, a giant TV and a carved wooden bust of former President Donald Trump.

According to Barbara Morgan, a longtime GOP activist in Grant County and one of the event’s organizers, around 250 people filled the Pillar Rock Grill’s banquet hall — more than twice the number who typically attend.

“How grateful we are to have you here, and to have so many people in this room to celebrate what we do,” Morgan said.

County GOP President Mike McKee, a Marlin-area resident who owns Mike’s Meats and Seafoods in Wenatchee, said the dinner is an important one for the county’s Republican Party.

“This is our major fundraiser for the year. In order to elect candidates, we have to have money,” McKee said, noting the party wasn’t able to hold its annual fundraising banquet last year because of COVID-19 restrictions.

However, none of the 13th District’s state legislators — Dent, Rep. Alex Ybarra, R-Quincy, and Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake — was at the Saturday dinner.

“Our local representatives are fighting for us in Olympia,” McKee told attendees, noting the legislature was currently working out the state’s supplemental budget at the time. “They thought it was more important than having dinner here tonight.”

Heimlich told those gathered that he believes 2022 is shaping up to be a year like 1994, which saw Republicans gain control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, turning out House Democrats at the time that included the current governor and then-Speaker Tom Foley of Spokane.

Tiffany Smiley, who is challenging Sen. Patty Murray, said she decided to challenge the longtime incumbent after successfully fighting to keep her husband — blinded during a suicide attack in Iraq — in the military.

“You know, I was raised on a farm. I didn't have any experience with the military. In some ways, maybe that was a good thing because I wasn't afraid to take them on,” Smiley said. “And Scotty, my husband, went on and became the first blind active duty officer to ever serve our country.”

Smiley said after taking on the Army and the Veterans Administration, and getting legislation passed and signed by Trump to improve health care for veterans, campaigning against Murray is actually not all that hard.

“In eight months, we have raised over $3 million,” Smiley said. “And I'm sure Patti Murray’s heard it by now, but there is a new mom in town.”

Delivering the keynote at Saturday’s fundraiser were Smiley and former Houston-area Fox affiliate TV reporter Ivory Hecker, who left her job in June 2021 after accusing her employer during a newscast of muzzling her. Hecker claimed she had been prevented from reporting accurately on problems with voting in the 2020 presidential elections in Texas and on Houston-area physician Stella Immanuel’s effective treatment of COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine.

“I actually went to her clinic, interviewed patients treated with hydroxychloroquine. I mean, she was not making this up,” Hecker said.

But Hecker, who now owns and operates her own media outlet, ivoryhecker.com, said she was told by her bosses at the local Fox affiliate to report that Immanuel, who was born in Cameroon, believes in witchcraft and demons.

“Why is Fox making me smear this woman's African religion when we're talking about COVID treatment?” Hecker asked. “That's a part of the spin to make her look crazy, to deflect away from the fact that this woman is actually healing elderly high-risk people from this supposedly no solution illness.”

“And it was so disgusting,” Hecker added.

Hecker encouraged attendees to take a courageous stand, even if it’s only asking questions or telling a simple truth.

“I think right now in 2022, there's a more massive silent majority than we've ever had. I mean, so many people are waking up, that the biggest MSNBC viewers are waking up and say, ‘Hey, something's not right here,’” Hecker said.

“So there's this massive silent majority who wants to get back to freedom and American values and think everyone just starts to pick up a little bit,” Hecker added. “We can really get our country back on track.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.