In a long day of high-octane campaigning that had her hopscotching between five cities around the state, including Seattle, Attorney General Christine Gregoire officially kicked off her 2004 gubernatorial campaign on Wednesday, July 30.

The mini-tour wound up in the late afternoon at Boeing Field, where Gregoire stepped off a private plane to speak to an enthusiastic crowd of between 60 and 70 waiting supporters.

The real audience for the events may not have been in the terminal, however. The splashy show of big-time campaign muscle appeared designed to create an aura around Gregoire as the Democratic Party's inevitable nominee, and to shock-and-awe her declared rivals into demoralized retreat--while also scaring off yet-unannounced rivals considering taking Gregoire on.

The previous day King County Executive Ron Sims officially kicked off his own bid for the state's highest office with a much lower-profile event on the Seattle waterfront, and former state supreme court justice Phil Talmadge has been openly running for governor, mostly under the radar screen, for months. U.S. Representative Jay Inslee, a proven campaigner and potentially formidable Gregoire competitor who was leaning toward running last week, has not come to a final decision, an aide says.

If Inslee does jump in, he and the others will start as underdogs. Gregoire's five-city tour proved that whatever the various candidates' respective qualifications, she is already lining up the kind of money and organization that will be tough to beat. A full-scale campaign for governor could cost $5 million or more, Democratic sources say.

The day's events were organized with the assistance of Greer, Margolis, Mitchell, Burns & Associates (GMMB), the ultra-heavy-duty Democratic political consulting firm that maintains a Seattle office. (Frank Greer worked on Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign; Jim Margolis is doing media for Massachusetts Senator John Kerry's run for the presidency this year.) It is not yet clear whether GMMB will play any ongoing role in Gregoire's campaign, a company operative attending the Boeing Field speech said.

Gregoire's kickoff speech seemed designed to enhance her image as a tough but compassionate moderate, while carefully sticking to broad generalities and uncontroversial topics. The attorney general stressed her bulldog negotiating posture in the difficult talks that led to the national tobacco settlement, but also asserted her superior consensus-building skills. Her "top priority" would be turning around the economy and getting the state "back on track creating great jobs," she said.

While she is close to the current governor, Gary Locke--Locke is privately telling party honchos that he will endorse her, Democratic sources say--at several points Gregoire appeared to rhetorically distance herself from the governor, whose popularity has slipped, pledging "to bring new leadership to Washington State."

Voter Ron Kenyon came out to Boeing Field to check out Gregoire because he was "kicking the tires" over whom to support. He described Gregoire's performance as "a good, upbeat, high-energy speech," but said that he was disappointed not to hear more about Gregoire's views on Locke's austere no-new-taxes budget and about her plans for fixing the region's transportation problems.

King County Democrats chair Greg Rodriguez, who is neutral in the race, was suitably impressed by Gregoire's show of force. "I thought it was very effective," he says.

sandeep@thestranger.com