Is winning over Washington’s Democrats as easy as showing up? We’ll
learn the answer to this question when the next round of polls and
fundraising figures comes out, but based on the reaction Hillary
Clinton received during her first stop in Seattle since declaring her
presidential candidacy, it seems a little face time can go a long way;
the reaction to her speech at Benaroya Hall on October 22 was
rapturous.
It didn’t start out that way. Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz,
warming up the crowd, railed against the “truly evil” Republicans in
D.C. and then offered people a chance to applaud for their preferred
candidate, ticking off a list of several of the leading Democratic
contenders: Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, and, of
course, Clinton. The candidate who received the loudest applause from
the audience? Edwards.
That made some sense, as Edwards leads Clinton in fundraising in
this state. In fact, the latest fundraising figures show that as of the
end of the third quarter, Clinton was dead last out of the top three
candidates here: Obama was in first place with more than $1 million
raised from Washington, followed by Edwards with $548,472 and then
Clinton with $470,392. Polls have told a somewhat different, and more
muddled, story. Clinton has consistently led in national polls, but in
the few polls conducted in this state, her numbers have bounced around,
producing less-than-conclusive results. The most recent poll, however,
showed her in the lead: In early October, a Strategic Vision survey of
800 likely Democratic voters in Washington found Clinton at 48 percent,
Obama at 22 percent, and Edwards at 10 percent.
You could have said, then, going into the Benaroya event, that
people in Washington were seriously drawn to Obama and Edwards but
remained ready to embrace Clinton if given a good reason. That’s what
Clinton tried to provide in her speech at Benaroya, sweeping the main
themes of the Edwards and Obama campaigns into her own message and then
offering a four-point promise for what she would do as president.
“Americans are desperate to turn the page,” she said, echoing Obama’s
change motif. “Too many Americans today feel invisible,” she said,
mirroring Edwards’s class-consciousness. Then, pushing the buttons of
every angry liberal in the audience, she asked: “Are you ready for a
president and vice president who will respect the Constitution of the
United States of America?” The crowd roared.
“If you’re ready for change, I’m ready to lead,” Clinton said.
Point one in her four-point promise: restoring America’s leadership
in the world, beginning by sending out emissaries around the globe,
upon her election, to announce that “the era of cowboy diplomacy is
over.” Point two: rebuilding the middle-class economy. Three: reforming
government and fixing the damage done by Bush-Cheney. (“I live in dread
of discovering what we find when they finally leave town,” she said. “I
don’t think we know the half of it.”) Four: restoring the future for
children. (“We do not want to be the first generation of Americans to
leave the country worse off than when we found it.”)
The applause was thunderous by now, with repeat standing ovations.
Clinton had mentioned early on in her speech that she was happy to be
in Washington, “a place that doesn’t mind having strong women in
charge”—a reference to the unique trifecta of Governor Christine
Gregoire, senior senator Patty Murray, and junior senator Maria
Cantwell—and now she directly addressed the issue of running for
president as a woman. As she often has on the campaign trail, she said
she would be proud to be the first female president, but quickly added
that “I’m not running because I am a woman.”
Then, her voice softening, she spoke of being humbled by meeting
elderly women who remember not having the right to vote, and feeling
inspired by meeting young women who see her as proof that they could
someday become president. “I remember when my parents told me that,”
she said. “There was not that much basis in it in those days, but it
was nice to hear.” The audience laughed with Clinton at this, and you
could feel them warming to her, cheering her.
These were the devoted, highly informed Democrats of the Puget Sound
region, gathered for their annual “Maggie Awards,” named after the
revered late senator Warren G. Magnuson, whose progressive tradition
Clinton pledged to continue as she keynoted the event. If Clinton could
win this crowd over—and by the end of her speech, it seemed she
had—then murky polls and lagging fundraising aside, she’ll be in
a very strong position in this state. 
