Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
By CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA | Reporter
Presidential candidate and Governor of Washington Jay Inslee made a campaign stop at the Pacific Palisades Woman’s Club on Monday, July 22—just one week before the next round of democratic debates.
Inslee, who has been drawing speculation of being the next candidate to drop out of the race, rallied supporters and prospective constituents for a town hall.
The room itself seemed sufficient proof that our planet is getting hotter as Palisadians and local neighbors fanned themselves and sipped on room temperature water.
“I think that California is the epicenter of the climate crisis,” Inslee said in an interview with the Palisadian-Post when asked why he was visiting the state. The governor has been a loud critic on the short amount of time given to the current climate crisis at the first presidential debate.
“I’m going to do everything I can to give people an honest assessment of where candidates are [on climate change],” Inslee said when asked what he plans to do to steer the conversation toward the topic he’s based his campaign on. “You can’t solve this with a bumper sticker or a bromide and just say, ‘Hey, we’re going to get into the Paris Agreement.’”
Inslee made headlines for his planned proposals to get the United States to “zero-emission” electricity generation by 2035 and for calling on the federal government to invest over $3 trillion in “climate-smart infrastructure” and clean manufacturing.
“We will stop selling cars that run on gas and diesel in 10 years,” Inslee said on Monday.
Currently one of the candidates ranking among the lowest in every major poll, the Washington governor attributed that to people still not knowing about his campaign.
“I’m where Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were when they started their campaigns,” he said in response to an audience member’s question on what he plans to do to stand out. “This campaign is just starting. Only one out of three Americans can pick me out of a line up, so the first thing we gotta do is get people to know what I’m about. That’s the stage right now and I’m not daunted by that.”
Inslee drew his loudest applause when assessing the current situation in Washington, D.C., when asked what he thinks should be done about the ongoing criminal investigations surrounding the president and his recent inflammatory language.
“I think impeachment should be a bit of a last resort,” Inslee said. “I think we should think three, four or five times [before] we do it. Well I’ve done that and I think it’s time to start an impeachment inquiry on the president.”
After the town hall, neutral crowd members seemed intrigued by what they had heard, staunch supporters were invigorated and political strategists looked toward their next move.
“I came out because Inslee is the best thing we have going for any hope on climate change action,” said Joy Cernac, a Santa Monica resident in attendance who feels climate change action should be everybody’s top priority. “I think [Inslee] is incredibly strong and I think he really stood out in the last debate.”
Meanwhile, Michael Zelniker, co-chair of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps’ Los Angeles Chapter, said he has donated to Inslee’s campaign in hopes of keeping climate change on the lips of presidential candidates.
“There’s only one candidate that I’ve donated money to and that’s Jay Inslee,” Zelniker said. “I don’t know that I’ll support him ultimately, but I want to make sure he’s on that debate stage as long as possible so that the issues that he’s raising are on that debate stage.”
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