Yesterday, Dow Constantine’s campaign got their hands on one peach of a video. In it, opponent Susan Hutchison confirmed what everyone already knew: That the moderation of her views in the past year has nothing to do with how she actually feels and everything to do with getting elected.At a dinner for the Washington Policy Center, Hutchison declared her love for a book that calls light rail “socialistic” (see Update below) and suggests an even more extreme version of Tim Eyman’s 1033 become constitutional law. Just in case you’re wondering, nothing about those two ideas jives with what Hutchison claims she believes now, one month before the election.So how to respond to something that’s so hard to refute? Claim your opponent is a partisan hack…In a damage-control press release sent yesterday afternoon, Hutchison went on the attack. Saying Constantine “wants to continue his brand of partisan politics that have resulted in cuts to public safety, the closure of public health clinics, and the elimination of neighborhood parks.” Fine, fine, that’s all well and good. No one expected Hutchison to come out and say “Oops, ya caught me.” But what’s really galling is this line:The Washington Policy Center provides a valuable service by creating a thoughtful discourse regarding the many issues we face in our region – a resource used by both Democrats and Republicans. So the claim is that the Washington Policy Center isn’t partisan, but Constantine is? Look, there’s nothing wrong with partisan think-tanks. It’s OK that one group of people with one school of thought produce policy papers while another group with the exact opposite school of thought produce the exact opposite policy papers. Democracy, rah rah.But to say that the group that hosts Ben Stein and a Fox News commentator at their annual gala isn’t partisan? That’s a whopper. And just in case you’re thinking, “Well that was only one night. Maybe they had a second annual gala MC’ed by James Carville.” Allow me to list off the titles of WPC’s last couple policy papers:New Study by Sound Transit Shows Light Rail Brings Minimal CO2 ReductionsA National Movement Hits Close to Home: The Living Wage Proposal Comes to Washington StateA Citizens Guide to Initiative 920: A Measure to Repeal the Estate TaxJustifying Washington Cap-and-Trade with European Myths and Shoddy ScienceI can stop now, right? Any group that presents the living wage as the second-coming of the boogeyman, portrays anything European in a negative light and thinks the estate tax is the biggest affront to mankind since hipsters started wearing Sperry’s…C’mon, Hutchison. At least make us work for it.Update: Washington Policy Center’s Mike Ennis, who actually wrote the line in question about light rail being “socialistic,” called The Daily Weekly to clear some things up. The sentence, as it reads in the guidebook: “Manipulating transportation policies to force a particular behavior coerces people into abandoning their individual liberties in favor of a socialistic benefit or supposedly a greater collective good is created.”Ennis’ explanation: “For one, that sentence isn’t referring to light rail at all. My use of the word ‘socialistic’ is not referring to the political system of socialism. It’s just a synonym for society. We in no way say or believe that light rail is socialistic…We don’t hide the fact that we’re critical of light rail because of its poor performance. But I do not believe, nor have I ever said, that light rail is socialistic. So the Constantine campaign is just factually wrong when they say that.”