With a rhetorical flavor more bitter than a whisky sour, Dow Constantine’s campaign has broken through the last barrier between deliberate misrepresentation of Susan Hutchison’s positions on issues and outright lies. An e-mail sent out shortly before 2:00 p.m. Tuesday by Dylan Ordoñez, the campaign manager of Friends of Dow Constantine, spits sour grapes at the shoes of The Seattle Times editorial board for their endorsement of Hutchison. The e-mail begins:

Friends,

I am sure by now you have seen the Seattle Times endorsed Susan Hutchison for County Executive.

Like many of you, I was not surprised by this endorsement. Of course, I would have liked Dow to have received the support of the Times. But, as we’ve seen, their endorsements don’t always reflect the values and priorities of their readers.

In truth, The Seattle Times’ editorial board is representing the values of its readers more accurately with their endorsement of Hutchison than with others it has made in the past.

The e-mail goes on to make a statement about Hutchison that is false and politically divisive:

This is a race between one Democrat – Dow Constantine, and one right-wing Republican – Susan Hutchison.

The tactic of lying about a non-existent party affiliation between Hutchison and the Republican Party should make a very important point to King County voters who may be mailing their ballots between now and Election Day. If the polling holds true through the vote count – Hutchison maintains a narrow five point advantage – Constantine will be serving as Chairman of a County Council that will have to work with Executive Hutchison. A stack of evidence is piling up as to Constantine’s willingness to conduct County business in a manner similar to what we have seen from the Chicago Democrat machine. The chairman allegedly held funding for flood prevention and mitigation hostage so that he could get money for what one insider in state politics called “booze-cruising foot ferries.”

The electorate will have to decide if they want to elect a man to the County’s highest executive position who seems not to be able to control his impulse to attack. The work-out ahead for County officials is going to be brutal, much more so if divisive partisan politics and individual egos stand in the way of discussion and compromise.

The e-mail (in keeping with all such communications emanating from the Constantine campaign) does not offer any solutions the current Council Chair has for bridging the great divide between King County Present and King County Future. King County needs a leader possessing ideas and a philosophy of politics as the process of finding common ground. Far from causing the Seattle Times editorial board to second-guess itself, Constantine’s tirade is more likely to be seen as validation for a well made decision.

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