Presidential Politics in Washington State: It’s Just about the Money

Washington used to enjoy a bipartisan role in fall presidential campaigns, turning out big enthusiastic crowds for presidents and presidential nominees about to be rejected by the nation’s voters. 

Jimmy Carter wound up his 1980 reelection campaign at Boeing Field, hearing bad news from his pollster once back on Air Force One. Michael Dukakis tanked in a 1988 debate, but was greeted in the rain by thousands at the Pike Place Market. “Washington is now in play,” GOP strategist John Sears told me, looking at the turnout for his vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp in 1996.

No more. The Evergreen State is now deep blue on the nation’s electoral map, having backed the Democrats’ nominee in 10 consecutive runs for the White House. The last Republican nominee to pour resources into this Washington was George W. Bush in 2000.

Instead, presidential campaigns here have become an extractive industry. Campaign cash is raised here to be spent elsewhere. The candidates come for private events, witness Obama visits or the recent visit by Democrats’ Veep nominee Gov. Tim Walz. Seven battleground states are monopolizing the nominees’ time.

I suppose we should be flattered. “Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” the late California Assembly Speaker Jess Unruh once proclaimed. License plates proclaim Wisconsin as “America’s Dairyland” but dollars spent to court its voters come from the milking of wealthy donors here.

Our campaigns still have a retail phase in a couple places early in the year. New Hampshire citizens get to ask questions at town meetings. Astute questions from a 15-year-old student named Quin Mitchell caused aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to institute defensive measures. The New York Times and Boston Globe ran stories when Quin was barred from a GOP forum.

Access is a feature of campaigning, withdrawn later in the year. I recall watching Bob Dole working an old minor league ballpark in Ottumwa, Iowa.  Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis courted farmers by proposing they grow Belgian endive. The Des Moines Register becomes America’s most watched newspaper in weeks before the caucuses.

Big public events of the fall go to the battlegrounds. Mitt Romney didn’t even announce that he was flying into Portland and Seattle for private events. With a get-out-the-vote plan, but lacking resources to fully implement it, Republican State Chairman Kirby Wilbur fumed at the money Romney’s campaign was taking out of the state.  The GOP had, after all, a viable gubernatorial candidate in Attorney General Rob McKenna. .

There was a $17,700-a-couple tab for one Obama dinner.  The ritual of such events is that a press pool is marched in to hear the candidate’s stump speech, then herded out when paying guests begin asking questions. One visiting media bigfoot, New Yorker editor David Remnick, was permitted to stay for a Medina event. He heard Bill Gates ruminate about how billionaires in the room could by themselves finance a campaign and elect a president.

With its Amazon/Starbucks/Microsoft economy, the Puget Sound region is on the A-minus list when it comes to grading national political fundraising. Recent visitors have included Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and soon-to-be North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein. Ex-Vice President Joe Biden visited the Capitol Hill home of public affairs consultant Roger Nyhus early in the 2020 campaign. Nyhus is now U.S. ambassador to a bevy of Caribbean countries.

We can only send dollars to the main event. Battleground cities like Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Madison, and Charlotte get the big rallies. Two small east side communities, Medina and Hunts Point do show up on presidential campaign maps as both are home to wealthy bipartisan givers. if you want direct involvement, travel to a battlefield, ZOOM in on events, write a check, or stand on a sidewalk and watch the vice presidential candidate’s motorcade go by. One imaginative Seattle resident dressed up in a stovepipe hat as part of a “billionaires for Bush” protest when W came fundraising in Medina, and a couple years later donned her finest to attend an Obama event at Hunts Point. 

Usually, the game is pay to play. Hillary Clinton came to raise money once at the Laurelhurst digs of Stan and Alta Barer. Across the street, about 30 uninvited people congregated, with teenagers telling jokes, dog walkers introducing pets, and two retired attorneys in earnest discussion. At the evening’s end, the guest of honor emerged with eyes straight ahead and jumped into the waiting SUV. The bystanders were not acknowledged as the motorcade headed up the hill. The candidate had been sighted for at most 20 seconds.