In Seattle, we live in a liberal bubble, where Christian fundamentalism is a superstition banished to the rube-choked outlying suburbs, where class inequalities are acknowledged (on occasion) in the formulation of government policy, and where the hippie-dippy claptrap spewed by the bourgeois bohemians passes for intelligent discourse. From the perspective of a city where Howard Dean ruled supreme, it seems impossible to imagine that Republican conservatives could ever sweep to power in what seems a midnight-blue state like Washington.
Think again. Remember, Seattle really is a bubble, 85 square miles surrounded by reality, as conservative former city attorney Mark Sidran likes to joke. The latest news from the real world showed up in a recent private poll that has Eastern Washington congressman George Nethercutt, a staunch conservative who’s running against longtime Seattle-style D Sen. Patty Murray, only trailing Murray by a surmountable nine percentage points, 50-41. The crucial number, Nethercutt’s people say, is Murray’s weak reelect number–only 41 percent of the state’s voters believe she deserves reelection, according to their data. Generally, incumbents posting reelect numbers under 50 percent are considered to be vulnerable, and state Republican Party chair Chris Vance says the extensive national party support Nethercutt is receiving–Virginia senator and National Republican Senatorial Committee chair George Allen and Vice President Dick Cheney visited to stump for Nethercutt–is indicative of his prospects.
Nethercutt officially kicked off his campaign with a breakfast in Bellevue last week on May 14 that included speeches by Republican senator Elizabeth Dole and local Republican luminaries like former senator Slade Gorton and former gubernatorial candidate John Carlson. Nethercutt: “The NRSC doesn’t send Elizabeth Dole out to give speeches for losers.” The event drew an impressive 1,769 attendees.
The Murray campaign has its own polling data that shows her with a much bigger lead, up 54-31 percent. The Murray poll, however, was conducted before the bulk of Nethercutt’s two-week television advertising blitz. Vance says that a comparison of Republican Party polling before the ad run with the Nethercutt poll afterwards shows Nethercutt has made major gains.
However, Seattle may provide Nethercutt and Vance with a reality check of their own. Nethercutt remains largely unknown to most Western Washington voters, and Murray has yet to disburse any of her bulging campaign coffers $7.9 million on television advertising. “Poor George Nethercutt. He’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and he still doesn’t have any name recognition,” scoffs Murray spokesperson Alex Glass.
