Speaking of rugged charisma, when I watched one of the debates, I liked the way Inslee turned toward McKenna when the latter spoke and, with his head leaning slightly forward, looked like linebacker about to rush McKenna.

McKenna always looked like a cross between Bill Gates and Church Lady.

I don't think these ads made any difference. I never saw them; I never saw a single ad for the governor's race. To be honest, I don't even think I'd recognize Inslee's speaking voice (I certainly would McKenna's). Not that I'm representative, but I just don't think they matter. Inslee won because he's a Democrat, in a Democratic state. Inslee's the perfect WA governor, actually; he's completely personality-free, and will complement the wallpaper perfectly. That's what we like in this state.

So he won b/c washington prefers a frat boy look with a strong jaw line to some nerdy panty waste looking guy?

Fuck you and I'm glad Idont watch tv.

@3 Well, you're representative of a certain type of voter, I guess. I'm the same way in that I mostly avoided political TV ads, and of course, for people like us, party and policy preferences guide our choices to the exclusion of these more superfluous factors.

But I think we all know people who let factors outside of party/policy preference significantly influence their vote. An ex-girlfriend's grandmother once explained that she votes based on which candidate has better hair. She was not joking. Yeah, looks do matter to some people, whether it's politics or anything else. I don't say that to insult the slight of frame, effete and bespectacled among us, that's just the way it is.

Actually, Goldy may be right. Political psychology research indicates conscious deliberation has a lot less to do with how voters choose candidates than we think. TV viewers often don't pay attention to what's being said, but instead absorb impressions of a candidate's strength or frailty -- and they do so outside their own awareness. Check out this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/…

folks always discount voters' relatively long memories, i say it's as McKenna's pro-active stepping-out-of-the-ranks opposition to Obamacare as anything. that subjected the state to some embarrassing national opprobrium and was so hateful. folks remember things things; or else everyone i talked with did.

I vote based on the issues, of course, but this race was totally stud vs nerd.

I regret the lack of more blade servers and fake twitter and FB accounts.

A lot has to do with image creation. Since we knew they weren't going to tell the truth and were going to lie, we got in there first and created images that stuck in people's minds.

Certainly nerds get elected all across the country, even to high-status positions such as governor. Tim Pawlenty would never have gotten elected were that not true. What struck me, though, was the way McKenna tried to front like some tough guy (telling constituents who dare to ask a question to get a job) while he looks and otherwise acts like a weak nerd. He would have been better off playing to his strengths and not trying to act like a frat boy.

As to ads, I saw a lot for both candidates. It depends on what you watch.

Goldy is right. Campaigns are often won based on trivial things. You can talk policy papers all you want but a large part of the electorate votes on the gut impression of the candidate. Things like Reagan looking tough, or Dukakis looking silly in a tank, or George H. W. Bush not knowing what a scanner looks like or Al Gore claiming he invented the internet. All of these are bullshit issues, but they decide elections, especially close ones.

This is a Democratic state but McKenna is a likeable Republican. He is moderate and has plenty of support on this side of the mountains (I've seen lots of McKenna signs in Seattle). There is also "Democratic fatigue", especially with the Governor's race. Many Washington voters consider themselves independent and would love to vote for a Republican just to prove that independence (something the Stranger staff has pointed out before).

It was not only these ads, but the general hustle of Inslee that helped him win. He shook a lot of hands in this race (as he always does) and that makes a surprising amount of difference even in a statewide race. I am curious as to how well Inslee did in more rural areas compared to the 2004 race. His history east of the Cascades as well as his rugged look may have helped him pick up a few votes there as well. He obviously lost those counties, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did better than Gregoire did 8 years ago. That election was very similar to this one, in that no one was an incumbent and the Republicans ran a guy who isn't an idiot. Unlike that election, this one looks like it won't go down to the wire.

Don't know that Inslee fits the bill of "middling party hack" that our past several governors did, though I was certainly underwhelmed by his campaign. His official cardboard cutout portrait will fit in nicely next to his predecessors.

The key, for me, was that McKenna was almost certainly going to be a Scott Walker kind of governor - fighting against women's health, labor, and education. He had to run against his real record of being anti-health care by stating that he has a wife & daughters! He accomplished nothing other than wasting time & money as AG, all the while showing his hand as a GOP tool.
Now he can fulfill his destiny as a middling party hack working for a DC think tank, writing up shitty legislation to hand to bribed reps & sens.

Hard to run a campaign against unions, gays, big business, feminists...when your state has a majority of them!!

When McKenna lost his SCOTUS case, I thought it would undo his ambitions. He was willing to throw women under the bus for his political career and it backfired.

Good thing we haven't abolished the initiative referendum in WA, as per Goldy, otherwise Ref 74 would not have happened.

@20 So, so very wrong. Ref 74 was a public yes/no vote on a law that the state legislature had already passed. It was the bigot class trying to overturn an established law.

Initiatives are laws started by people. These laws are not processed through the public body charged with making laws, the legislature. Initiatives are end runs around representative democracy, and are easily bought by big money players.

A referendum is a check on state legislators who have been bought by the aforementioned big money players. Ref 74 was never about money - it was about hate & civil rights. It should have never been up for a vote.

I never saw the side by side. I think looking at it now that people with families would vote for McKenna because that's what the add shows- compassion and education, technology and comunity/outdoorsy stuff and being on the left side of the screen and less flashy it's easier to look at.
Inslee's is very statement orientated and construction based. But I know what Inslee has done, because he was my Representative for over a year and I admired him, have corresponded with him and was proud of his voting record while he was my Rep. So for me it was all about name recognition and track record. I knew I could trust him to listen to the people.

@7, Locke didn't offshore anything, and Inslee's not going to matter much either. WA's governor is a pretty powerless creature. The action is in the legislature, and, unfortunately, the initiative process. If Eyman's bizarrely popular BS isn't overturned by the courts, it does not matter one bit who's in the governor's chair, or in the state House or Senate, because the problems facing WA right now cost money that we don't have and aren't allowed to raise. So: liberal schmiberal. I voted for Inslee because I'm a Democrat, and he's a good guy, but I don't have expectations.