That explains why Democratic organizers, tasked by the state party with finding and turning out Democratic voters this season, descended on the Loews Cineplex 12 in Woodinville last Friday night to canvass outside the opening-night screening of Michael Moore's new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. It was smart organizing. The cineplex was one of only three theaters on the entire Eastside showing the movie--and area Democrats were coming out of the woodwork to see it. The 7:50 p.m. show sold out by 7:10 p.m. Indeed, among the skinny teenage boys draped in meshed NBA jerseys lining up to see White Girls, the place was crawling with Eastside liberals: mostly athletic fortysomething women with graying blond hair.
After theater management told Eastside Democrat coordinator Jessica Hauffe that her group couldn't canvass on theater property, she relocated to the sidewalk across the street from a big-box PETsMART. Waving Kerry signs amid a din of supportive honks and occasional catcalls of "loser liberal," Hauffe and her team registered Democrats to vote while taking the names and numbers of potential volunteers.
However, one intense local, Todd Vranich--a burly 37-year-old with cropped rust-colored hair, reddened ears and cheeks, and olive shorts--circled the organizers pensively before walking away, and then, coming back to talk. "What does Kerry have that the other candidates don't?" Vranich asked earnestly. Vranich, who owns a construction business and isn't humble about "doing well," says he favors the Republican philosophy of lowering taxes. He's also clearly turned off by the strident, dogmatic politicking of Michael Moore. "When I see that unshaven Michael Moore," Vranich said, "I see a liar." However, Vranich was earnest about sorting through the issues. When one of Hauffe's volunteers, a wise fiftysomething guy named Bob Simpson, asked Vranich how Bush could possibly fight the war on terrorism while simultaneously running up record deficits thanks to those tremendous tax cuts, Vranich nodded and paused thoughtfully : "Yeah, I do think about that."
Welcome to plan B. The first rule of organizing--simply identifying your base--isn't going to be enough to win on the Eastside. In the 8th District, where Democrats and Republicans split the vote about 50/50, Hauffe's crew will have to resort to a harder tactic: winning over undecided voters like Vranich.
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Despite Dunn's dominance, the Dems smell victory here. Last January, Dunn, a country-club Republican from Bellevue, announced she wasn't running. With the Republican advantage of incumbency gone, the national Democratic Party has prioritized this district. The Dems need to pick up at least 11 seats to gain the majority in Congress. However, there are "a rapidly dwindling number of competitive seats," according to Amy Walter, a political analyst with The Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C. "This is an absolutely must-win for the Democrats because if they can't win in a moderate suburban swing district like this... I don't know where else they could win. If you're really talking about getting to 11, you can't get there without the 8th Congressional District." Josh Kurtz, the political editor for Roll Call, the D.C.-based paper that covers Congress, adds: "There's no doubt about it, the 8th is a definite priority."
The national party is so worked up about the district that the antsy Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee even swooped into town last February to find out if the local party could field a better candidate than perennial D Heidi Behrens-Benedict or former RealNetworks vice president Alex Alben, who'd been setting up shop for more than a year. Despite Alben's wealth (the best asset any candidate can have), the Dems wanted a better bet. In May, State Democratic chair Paul Berendt took the unprecedented move of recruiting a second candidate at the last minute, even after Alben had already banked more than $500,000. Berendt tapped big-name KIRO radio host Dave Ross. (The winner will likely face Republican King County Sheriff Dave Reichert in the general election.)
What's tempting the Dems in particular about this open seat is that Dunn's lock on the 8th was misleading. "The numbers there are actually trending liberal," Kurtz says. Indeed, thanks to increased density and high-tech values, the district's voting history has skewed Democratic lately. Dunn's dominance is offset by Gore's victory here in 2000 (49 percent to Bush's 46), Gary Locke's victory over John Carlson the same year, and Patty Murray's win over Linda Smith in 1998.
And, the Dems argue, Dunn fudged the choice issue, selling herself as pro-choice woman--a popular image in the socially liberal district--while actually scoring low marks with interest groups that track women's issues. (NARAL reports that Dunn voted its way just 30 percent of the time in 2003.) "It's the most pro-choice district in the state," according to Ryan Pennington, a Democratic organizer who oversees coordinated state field strategy. Pennington cites polls that show 58 percent support for pro-choice candidates. (Reichert is not pro-choice.)
But while the district may be socially liberal, country-club turf like Bellevue and Mercer Island--plus rural East King County and southern turf like Renton down into Pierce County that will dig Reichert's Wyatt Earp credentials--add a conservative hue to the picture. The Rs control 13 out of the 18 state legislative seats that hail from the 8th; and Maria Cantwell lost here in 2000, getting just 46 percent. "We have history on our side," says Republican consultant Randy Pepple. "But there's no question. It's a different district than it was when Jennifer [Dunn] first won it. It will be competitive."
Bottom line: The Eastside is exactly the kind of swing country that national pundits pontificate about on the Sunday morning talk shows. These are the coveted suburbs where no one is a knee-jerk Democrat or Republican. These are educated people who are interested in compelling arguments from either side. "This is going to be a campaign of substance over show," Pennington says. "We have to doorbell and make contact with the independent voters and talk issues."
"Eastside tech," writes Democratic pollster guru and former Clinton campaign advisor Stanley Greenberg, in his new book, The Two Americas, "the upscale suburban towns east of Seattle... are ground zero in the battles for contested voters."
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I talked to some voters at one popular Eastside bar in the Bellevue Galleria last week. Take a right at the California Pizza Kitchen, park in the roomy underground garage, and take the elevator up one floor to the air-conditioned Tap House Grill--a Wolfgang Puck knockoff with seven TV screens, and orange-and-purple square patterns decorating the beige wall behind the redwood bar. The place is packed with tables of screaming women in fresh jean jackets, tanned guys who look like they believe the conceits in porn movies, and waitresses in white shirts and little black ties. Tone-Loc's "Wild Thing" is blaring over the stereo.
The conversation at every table is definitely drunken and raunchy. When I ask one 38-year-old blond Bellevue mom if she's voting for Kerry or Bush, she leans into me and shouts, "I shave my Bush!"
I discover that the pundits are right. The the voters are divided right down the middle. "Bush is scary. Kerry's a Democrat. I'm voting for Kerry." "I hate Democrats. I want lower taxes. I'm voting for Bush." In fact, I leave several tables of friends arguing amongst themselves.
One table, though--a couple in their late 20s--is in agreement about the president: They support him. They support the war. They want Bush to "finish the job he started."
"Who are you voting for?" the woman, an attractive blonde, asks me derisively. "You've got Kerry written all over you." I'm not sure what that means, but I start in by saying I read Richard Clarke's book and... "Who's Richard Clarke?" the woman asks her boyfriend, a broad-shouldered guy in a tight Tommy Jeans T-shirt. "Clarke's a traitor," he says.
I conclude my rounds by talking to three off-duty waitresses sitting in the back corner. They too are a table in agreement. "Bush is for the rich people," one of the women says. They're all voting for Kerry.
When I relayed this story to Dem field coordinator Hauffe, she smiled: "That's exactly why we're here. We've got to make sure all the waiters in the 8th Congressional District are registered to vote."
