Susanna Keilman is a Republican, and she is standing for State Representative, Position 2, in the 28th Legislative District.
The Tacoma News Tribune was not particulary impressed by Susanna Keilman, on account of her declining to be interviewed:
Unfortunately, while voters and the TNT’s Editorial Board would have benefitted from a spirited conversation amongst all three candidates in this race, Keilman declined an invitation to participate in the endorsement process. If Keilman moves on to the general election this fall, we hope she’ll rethink her strategy and realize the importance of the public exchange of ideas and the responsibility to reach beyond one’s base.
You would have thought that Susanna Keilman would have welcomed the opportunity to get some extra coverage, especially as she has raised close to $100,000 for her election campaign, including $50 from Paul Wagemann, a Clover Park School District Board member.
In June Paul Wagemann was censured by the Board, for “harassing, intimidating and bullying the district’s superintendent“.
The superintendant, Ron Banner, was quoted as follows by The Tacoma News Tribune:
Paul Wagemann is part of a community group with an overtly racist agenda, and I am being subjected to heightened scrutiny by him due to my race, and due to my leadership and support of equity and inclusion for our students and staff in the school district…
On June 13 Susanna Keilman attended a meeting of the board of Clover Park School District. Paul Wagemann was the main subject of public comments, and this was a chance for the budding politician to make her point. She could have made a spirited defence of her $50 supporter. Or perhaps she could have made an eloquent critique of critical race theory.
And guess what she said? Wait for it…
I’d like to yield my time to J… Healy, please.
That was it, Susanna? Is this the kind of response we want from someone who is standing for political office? Who has raised around $100,000 for her campaign? She yields her time to someone else? Who is she going to yield her time to if she gets elected?
But perhaps it didn’t matter what she said. Susanna Keilman attended a highly charged meeting, and was making it clear to her supporters which side of the fence she stands on.
I’m glad to see Susanna Keilman finally being exposed. If you watch her League of Women Voters interview, she essentially gave no real position on anything. She pretends to be a moderate, but hangs out with the far right-wing extremist Wagemann crowd, who are the primary movers behind her campaign. Don’t be fooled. Keilman is the perfect example of a political opportunist. She grew up on welfare and supports a party that wants to do away with welfare and social security. She states her mother was the victim of racism and she supports a party that does everything it can to deny people of color the right to vote. She reveals her mother experienced sexism, and yet she supports a party that, as you read this, is working successfully across the country to deny women the right to control their own bodies. Keilman is the new blue-state republican: put on a public sheep skin and privately hang out with the wolves.
Keilman was routed just as badly during her attempt to get on the DuPont City Council in 2021 as she is so far in the primaries. She is clearly an unqualified candidate, with no voting record in WA until she voted for herself last fall. The Pierce County Rs must be desperate if all they can come up with is this evasive truth stretching candidate.
Have the Republicans give up? On the face of it she has no chance in November.
Given the cash dump the state Rs put into her race with nothing to show for it it would seem they’ve given up. My DuPont friends had her number from
Day one. She is not involved in her community and was willing to sell it away to CalPortland in their quest for a new mine pit. Her rep seems to shot in DuPont.
On July 4th Keilman had a campaign truck in the Steilacoom parade. On her vehicle were some of her donors and supporters who just hours earlier had participated in the Lake Steilacoom boat parade waving the same “Don’t Tread on Me” flags carried by the January 6th insurrectionists. Pictures are available of both events. They obviously ditched those offensive flags in Steilacoom; but same people with extremist views carring different flags. Days later these same “patriots” hosted a fund raiser for Keilman where Wagemann was also a guest. Showing up to support Wagemann’s well-documented racist behavior demonstrated exactly who and what she represents.
FYI: Leaders in the Pierce County Republican Party have encouraged republican candidates to not speak to reporters from the TNT. They don’t want their candidates to be asked hard questions that may reveal too much. The far-right “fake news” authoritarian effort to discredit free press seems to be embraced by Keilman.
Agreed, she is not what we are looking for in a genuine candidate for any position! She is talking the talk but when the hard questions and decisions arise – I don’t see much promise of a woman that cannot walk the walk,You must be able to do both for your constituents. I also have not been impressed with her main pitch about her single mother’s and their very hard life living in poverty in bad neighborhoods, just didn’t seem genuine? I am sure it was no cake walk but her mom did the best she could correct? She seems to constantly throw her under the sob story bus…You made it Susanna!out of poverty so many don’t and you do not hear them talking about it at every turn.
I closely followed her attempts to break into DuPont city council politics last summer. Her military experience is six years in the Air Force reserves- only found out through some digging but she milks that for all she thinks it’s worth. She tried to sell herself as a military wife when there was no indication she was as of last summer. She had only lived in DuPont since December 2019 yet felt she was the one to serve as a council member some 16 months later. Stay away from this chameleon cloaked in far right platitudes.
Keilman received an alarming 26% of the vote and raised a large amount of cash to campaign with, without declaring much policy or engaging in debate. This Legislative District must remain vigilant with researching its political candidates thoroughly, because it is not hard to imagine corporate interests looking for a side door in.
I think it unlikely that she will be elected, but I am not expecting the Democrats to do well in November. So perhaps Biden’s woes will help her. She gets contributions from building interests, and curiously, she got $1,000 from Altria Client Services LLC, in Richmond, Virginia.
It’s great to come back and revisit this little article. Keilman was, once again, soundly voted out of an office for which she is ill suited. Cagey and dismissive of the constitutional right that SCOTUS took away this past summer, Keilman posted a sob story video about needing an abortion herself. At the end of October! This woman is a fake through and through.