Now that Hillary Clinton has scored another “comeback” in Ohio and Texas, her supporters are once again fantasizing about a new year that brings a female executive to the White House, an expanded Democratic majority to Congress, and a flourishing of the liberal agenda to D.C.

It’s a vision with lefty-goose-bump-inducing potential on par with those parting skies and “celestial choirs” that Clinton invoked in Ohio recently while mocking the Obama-as-liberal-Messiah storyline.

Who knows, it could be that a Hillary Clinton administration paired with a Democratic majority in Congress—or, cue those celestial choirs again: a Democratic supermajority—would usher in a new era of progressive lawmaking, peace on earth, and swift legislative movement on Capitol Hill. But if liberals want a glimpse of how a first-term female executive might work with a Democratic legislative majority, there’s a not-quite-heaven-on-earth example out there: Washington State.

•••

Christine Gregoire is not this country’s first female governor—she’s not even Washington State’s first female governor. But according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, she is currently the only female governor in the U.S. (out of a total of five) to be working with a state legislature dominated by Democrats. Like Clinton, Gregoire has dealt with the challenge of being a female executive in part by cultivating an image as a tough, tireless wonk. Of more consequence to Washington Democrats, she has developed a politics shot through with Clintonian elements.

This means that far from pushing for a progressive agenda, Gregoire, since being elected in 2004, has been a case study in cautiousness. The liberal agenda in Washington State under Gregoire has stalled. With the sole exception of domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, Gregoire has failed to exploit her position and Washington State’s wide Democratic legislative majorities to accomplish a single bold, liberal move.

That is no doubt in part because she won office in one of the closest gubernatorial races in American history, defeating her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi, by only 133 votes in a contest that was ultimately settled through a lengthy court battle that stretched well into the summer after her inauguration. Gregoire was criticized during her 2004 campaign as a stiff, unlikable presence who polarized the Washington electorate (sound familiar?), and despite the fact that John Kerry carried Washington handily, Gregoire barely eked out a win.

The resulting lack of a mandate put Gregoire in a permanent defensive crouch that involved always casting a wary eye on legislation or policy initiatives that might be used against her when she ran for reelection. (Her reelection campaign, it turns out, will now be a replay of her last campaign, with Rossi challenging her in a grudge match that echoes the kind of grudges and thirsts for rematches that the Clintons are famous for drawing.) The closeness of the 2004 Washington governors race therefore created a scenario that is similar to one that Democratic opponents of Clinton’s candidacy now worry about: If Clinton barely ekes out a win against John McCain, will Clinton, concerned about her reelection effort, avoid taking any risks during her first term?

If she governs like Christine Gregoire, the answer to that question will be “yes.” Gregoire’s record over her first term is the picture of defensiveness and caution: She signed a limited domestic partnership bill, but she has remained silent on the more politically combustible question of gay marriage. She expanded health care coverage for children in Washington State and went to bat for S-CHIP, the federal children’s health-care initiative, but when some members of the state senate tried to get universal health-care coverage for Washington adults, Gregoire shut them down on the grounds that she didn’t want to raise taxes. At a time of large state surpluses and significant numbers of homeowners in Washington affected by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, Gregoire penny pinched when liberal legislators wanted to expand Washington’s housing trust fund. And she went to the mat to keep a double-decker freeway running along the Seattle waterfront, despite the opposition of environmentalists and the city’s mayor.

That’s not the end of the list of liberal complaints. Gregoire dragged her feet on protecting a woman’s right to get “morning after” contraception at pharmacies in Washington State, angering feminists and pro-choice activists with her slowness in taking action; she failed to support a comprehensive family leave bill that was strongly backed by unions and the Democratic senate majority leader; she kowtowed to local anti-tax demagogue Tim Eyman; and, in an echo of state Republican tactics, she was far more excited about upping the punishments for sex offenders than putting gun control on the legislative agenda. Under Gregoire’s watch, sex offenders got stiffer sentences while efforts to deal with guns on campuses in the wake of local and national school shootings got shunted into a study, and attempts to close a loophole allowing the mentally ill to get guns were torpedoed.

•••

Gregoire, then, has been in the Washington State governor’s mansion what some liberals fear Clinton would be in the White House: a triangulating self-preserver who out of political necessity keeps controversial liberal goals off the agenda while reveling in opportunities to seize “Sister Souljah” moments (for Gregoire, ignoring the state’s hotbed of liberalism, Seattle; for Clinton, shutting out progressives in D.C.) in order to make herself more palatable to independents and Republicans.

Also like Clinton, Gregoire has gone out of her way to prove that she’s “tough enough” to have the job. She has never hesitated to, for example, jump in a helicopter and tour—with state press and national guardsmen in tow—areas of Washington state that have been hit by floods or wildfires. She’s made a point of personally attending, or sending her husband to, every funeral of a Washington State soldier killed in the Iraq war. Her commander-in-chief bona fides, a particular challenge for any female leader breaking from a tradition of male executives, are well tended to and solidly established. But politically speaking, her cultivation of a tough-as-nails aura often seems more about neutralizing misogynist fears about female leadership and less about becoming a formidable force behind the bully pulpit. Asked for her signature political accomplishment, Gregoire’s spokesman, Aaron Toso, rattled off a list of bread-and-butter achievements that sounds a lot like the list of noncontroversial achievements that Clinton rattles off when talking about her successes as a Senator from New York. Gregoire points to 84,000 more kids with health care, a rainy-day fund created, and 220,000 new jobs; Clinton points to more kids with healthcare, responsible budgeting, and efforts to create new jobs in struggling rural areas.

Not high on Gregoire’s list: gun control, tax reform that would ease the burden on poorer Washingtonians (we have one of the most regressive tax systems in the country), and ahead-of-the-curve moves to protect the environment and prevent climate change that go beyond the no-brainers (doing more to clean up Puget Sound, taking steps to toughen car-emission standards, and contemplating a cap-and-trade system).

If a female chief executive with same-party legislative majorities is an opportunity to push the policy envelope, well, it hasn’t happened here.

•••

Perhaps aware that, in Clintonian fashion, she’s played it so safe that she’s left little for her Democratic base to be enthusiastic about, Gregoire last month took a smart risk. At Seattle’s KeyArena, in front of the largest, most adoring liberal audience she has stepped before in her life, Gregoire made a play to shut down the idea that she’s a Clinton-type leader making safe, Clinton-type moves and, Clinton-like, using her liberal base as a foil rather than as an ally.

Surrounded by a throng of 17,000 people (with 3,000 more standing outside unable to get in), and heading toward her own election fight, Gregoire told the cheering audience that she was endorsing a candidate who, at least rhetorically, is packaging himself as proof that Democrats can take bold liberal positions and win elections: Barack Obama.

For Gregoire, it was smart, survival-based politics: Govern as a centrist open to Republican ideas but, depending which way the winds are blowing during an election year, dash toward the left or the right as need be.

It might well work. She might well win. But it will be a Clintonian sort of victory.

Josh Feit contributed to this article.

eli@thestranger.com