This feature on the GOP effort to win back the Eastside Seattle suburbs was originally published yesterday.
Washington state’s GOP is preparing to take back former territory this November.
The area is known as the Crescent; it’s mainly comprised of the 41st, 44th, 45th, 47th and 48th districts, which form a sweeping arc North to South, resembling a waxing crescent moon. It’s a highly contested area that both parties view as valuable and winnable (the Democrats took it from Republicans in the late ’90s and early ’00s). Consider it the political Jerusalem of Washington state.
This year the Crescent is vulnerable for a Republican takeover, said Senator Mike Hewitt (R-16, Walla Walla), Senate Minority Leader. That’s because Sen. Hewitt believes national anger at President Obama and health care reform has caused Independents to shift toward the GOP. Couple that with public frustration at the state level ove Democrats’ tax increases and budget cuts and a potential Republican upswing is in the works, he says.
“People are still upset at the national spending trend and I believe people are upset over the state spending trend,” said Sen. Hewitt. “November looks very, very good for us.”
Republicans have made it clear that they will hammer Democrats across the state on the tax increases that passed this session, the I-960 repeal (which took away the requirement for a super majority vote to raise taxes), and the cuts to education and social services the legislature made in response to the budget deficit.
The table may be set for change, but the Crescent isn’t a given victory for the GOP. For starters, just about every seat is held by a Democrat—having been taken over by the Democrats in the past decade as the district went from socially conservative to more socially liberal. Straight up GOP, or Tea Party, talking points don’t necessarily play here, a district that’s more Dan Evans (or Rockefeller Republican), than Sarah Palin Republian. These are tech families, not NASCAR families.
In other words, Republicans know they can’t win in the Crescent by being angry Republicans. And looking at the GOP candidate template that’s emerging in the Crescent, it’s obvious they understand this. Nearly all of the candidates are very Ross Hunter-esque (the incumbent Democratic representative from Medina—and ex Microsoft executive—who’s known as a champion of wholesome issues like education reform and also—particularly during this most recent session—as a budget whiz with an eye for inefficiency.) It’s a good model. Hunter does not have a GOP opponent yet, although former GOP state party chair Diane Tebelius is thinking of challenging him.
Most of the GOP candidates in the Crescent are nuclear family dads involved in their kids’ PTSAs or sports teams. And they’re pushing education reform instead of Tea Party issues like fighting Obamacare. How’s this for controversial: They’re emphasizing fully funding and reforming Washington’s public education system—including raising teachers’ salaries.
It’s ironic that in a year when Tea Party Republicans are supposedly in ascension, the key to successfully winning seats in Washington for Republicans is in the Crescent, where the M.O is to play it cool, collected, and safe.
Joe Fain, the republican candidate trying to unseat Senator Claudia Kauffman in the 47th district (Kent), is a perfect example of this un-Republican Republican (minus the kids).
Fain told PubliCola he cares less about his party than he does about simply changing the climate in Olympia and working on his centerpiece issue, education reform. He also lacks the sort of righteous anger we’ve heard from the GOP recently like the rhetoric on the State Senate and House floors last session when the GOP opposed the Democratic repeal of I-960, the supermajority requirement for tax increases. And more specifically, like the Tea Party rhetoric from candidates like Clint Didier (running against U.S. Sen. Patty Murray) who told PubliCola: “The Dept. of Education should be abolished.”
“There is anger for folks that are tired of seeing business as usual at the state level,” he said, speaking of the people he’s met door belling. “But this is not your hyper partisan community, I don’t think the public is looking for Democrat or Republican answers. I think they’re looking for the right answer.”
Fain is hedging a little. His background belies his “indie status.” While he is the former chief of staff for moderate King County Council Member Pete von Reichbauer, he was also a key campaigner for the successful 2008 initiative to make King County offices nonpartisan—a clear partisan ploy in Democratic King County.
Another Crescent race that’s likely to give Democrats cause for concern is in the 41st (Mercer Island), where the GOP challenger, Stephen Litzow, a two-term Mercer Island City Council member and former Procter & Gamble executive, has nearly double the contributions as incumbent Democratic Sen. Randolph Gordon.
Like Fain, Litzow isn’t a tea-partying extremist—in fact, Litzow’s on NARAL’s PAC Committee. Litzow has not replied to our email yet.
Litzow’s mark, Sen. Gordon, has actually never been elected, so Gordon will have a harder time with voter recognition than the typical incumbent. (He was appointed last year to replace Sen. Fred Jarrett after Jarrett became Deputy King County Executive for Dow Constantine.) In caucus, Gordon immediately stuck out as a new member of the Democrats’ left wing. He passed a bill, in concert with the ACLU, tempering the reactionary “no-bail” drive in response to the Lakewood shootings, he upped the fines on insurance companies who brought faulty appeals to claims, and he pushed a lefty bill—that failed—to tax big banks for excessive ATM fees. Not exactly high on the list for upscale Eastsiders.
His other issues also have an activist ring to them—election integrity, campaign reform and workers rights.
The GOP is running another business guy—wireless mouse in hand rather than pitch fork—in the 48th (Redmond, Kirkland), Gregg Bennett, a consultant for tech startups. Bennett is a fundraising superstar. He’s raised $165,000 to incumbent Democrat Sen. Rodney Tom’s $36,000. His top contributors are employees of global wireless companies like Bellevue-based Trilogy International Partners and the Trilogy Partnership.
Bennett, a fiscal conservative and social moderate, has the endorsement of the GOP establishment: AG Rob McKenna spoke at Bennett’s private, baseball-themed campaign kickoff “video release party” in Bellevue on April 8th. Bennett did not return our call, although we were eventually invited to the kick off.
It’s probably helpful to Bennett that incumbent Sen. Tom is coming off an odd session. While Tom did pass the 520 plan, a popular bill for Eastsiders, his conservative vote against the Democrats’ budget revealed that he’s a bit of a finger-in-the-wind guy (he switched parties from GOP to Democrat when the Democrats were in ascendance in 2006.)
Tom officially announced his bid for reelection just two weeks ago, and acknowledged it will be a tough race, but he believes he’ll win. That’s because Tom—singing the exact same song the GOP is singing—says Bennett doesn’t fit the socially moderate, fiscally conservative mold as well as he does.
“I fit this district really well—fiscally conservative, socially moderate,” Tom said. “That doesn’t fit anybody in the Republican Party. I’ve been a moderate, effective voice and that’s what people in the 48th want.”
And Tom is ready to go toe to toe with the GOP on education reform. “I’ve been very effective in education,” he said referring to this year’s big education reform bill ushered through by the Democrats. (The GOP voted against it.)
And the Democrats aren’t scared to talk about the budget.
Melinda McCrady, currently Communications Director for the House Democrats, said Democrats would counter Republicans attacks by emphasizing the pieces of the social safety net in Washington they managed to preserve in tough economic times, such as the General Assistance for the Unemployable, the Basic Health Plan, and financial aid for college students.
While this could be a strong election year for the GOP, they likely won’t come close to upsetting Democrats’ absolute control in Olympia. There are 61 Democrats and 37 Republicans in the House and 31 Democrats and 18 Republicans in the Senate, which means Republicans would need to pick up several seats well outside of the Crescent—where, really, only about six or seven seats out of the 15 are in play—to gain a majority. Political analysts just don’t see that happening.
Dwight Pelz, chairman of the Washington State Democrats, believes this will be a tough election year for Democrats, but he doubts they’ll lose the Crescent for nearly the same reason Sen. Hewitt thinks Republicans will take it: national trends.
“American suburbs have been trending from Republican to swing to Democrat in the last seven years,” said Pelz. “That accelerated in the suburban Crescent.”
Until about ten years ago that area was unequivocally Red, but over about a six-year time span starting in 1998, when Laura Ruderman won an upset victory against a Republican incumbent in the 45th district (Cottage Lake), the area fell into the hands of Democrats. A nearly clean sweep of the Crescent by Democrats over the next eight years was to follow, culminating in 2006 when Rodney Tom switched parties and retained his position in the 48th Legislative District.
Seeing 2010 as their year, the GOP is setting out to take it back. “Those [Democrats] are all brand new Senators. They came in on a sweep. They got elected because people were mad at George Bush and the Iraq war,” Hewitt says explaining that the mid-2000s were a fluke. “This is the first reelection process. Numbers look good in those districts and in the polls.”
The Democrasts acknowledge it’s going to be a hard fight. “That area is the true independent area (in Washington),” said McCrady. “A lot of battles are going to be won and lost over there.”
