650 supporters packed into Bob Fergusons official AG kickoff this morning at the Seattle Westin, and it looked like nearly everybody but me wrote him a check.
  • Goldy | The Stranger
  • About 650 supporters packed into Bob Ferguson's official AG kickoff this morning at the Seattle Westin, and it looked like nearly everybody but me wrote him a check.

It's not a perfect measure of a campaign's strength, but the ability to pack the Seattle Westin ballroom with 650 people for an early breakfast fundraiser does say something about King County Council member and Democratic attorney general hopeful Bob Ferguson's support within his own party.

"No matter what I run for and how many times," quipped King County executive Dow Constantine in introducing Ferguson, "you will never be asked to show up at 7:00 in the morning." Yet there Constantine was along with a who's who of state and local Democratic politics.

Fergusons great-grandfather Clem wouldve been proud of him, but surely disappointed by his bacon-less breakfast.
  • Goldy | The Stranger
  • Ferguson's great-grandfather Clem, a butcher, would've been proud of him, but surely disappointed by the bacon-less breakfast.

Other speakers there to introduce Ferguson included Tom Pillow, the president of the Washington State Patrol Troopers Association, former Planned Parenthood director Lee Minto, and Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley. Pillow, whose organization endorsed Republican Rob McKenna in 2004 and 2008, explained that if you ask most troopers they'll say they're Republican, "but they're Republicans with Democratic needs." Minto repeatedly emphasized that "the next attorney general matters to women and the men who care about women." And Coakley admitted that here support for Ferguson was selfish. "I want colleagues who will stand with me for consumers," explained Coakley, clearly implying that Ferguson's pro-business Republican opponent Reagan Dunn would not. Safe bet there.

For his part, Ferguson gave a mercifully briefly 15-minute speech that was concise in laying out his four-point agenda, and refreshingly blunt in criticizing his opponent.

Independence, hard work, and a dose of good old fashioned frugality.

Ferguson described his opponent Dunn as "a nice guy," but insisted that there are core differences between them, the most fundamental, according to Ferguson, being "hard work." It was a distinction that drew snickers from the audience because Dunn does have a reputation as a nice guy, but he also has an equally deserved reputation as being lazy. And it was good to hear Ferguson calling Dunn on it.

For example, Ferguson explained the he served on the council's bipartisan budget leadership committee three times, and each time they produced budgets that were "balanced, bipartisan, and unanimous." Dunn, on the other hand, only served once, and according to Ferguson: "He quit when things got tough. And I mean he literally got up and walked out the door." (It's true. In 2010, Dunn walked out of a budget meeting, and refused to attend subsequent ones..)

Ferguson also took Dunn to task for repeatedly referring to King County government as a "work-free drug zone."

"I think he thinks it's funny," suggested Ferguson (and it is, kinda, if totally unsupported by the facts), who characterized it as an insult to prosecuting attorneys, public defenders, sheriff deputies, public health nurses, jail guards and other county employees.

"The office of attorney general is a serious job for a serious person," said Ferguson, who insisted that as AG he would "never quit when things get tough," and "work every day to represent and respect the hard working men and women of Washington state.

As for Ferguson's agenda in office, he rattled off four major areas of focus: public safety, consumer protection, protecting the environment, and advocating for veterans. "I want Washington to have the best public law firm in the country," said Ferguson who promised to bring to the office the values of "independence, hard work, and a dose of old fashioned frugality."

Again with the "hard work" line. But it's a line that works because it rings true, which is also the reason why this is the one contested statewide race that Democrats feel little anxiety about. Ferguson is as famously hardworking as Dunn is notoriously lazy. And for all the advantages that Dunn has—charm, money, toadying editorial boards, and his mother's legacy—in politics, hard work beats laziness almost every time.