It’s early, that’s for sure. But when your task is the political equivalent of running a marathon with a monkey on your back, it can’t hurt to get a head start.
So it is that Bill Bryant stopped by the office the other day. Bryant is a smart, accomplished guy. Really smart and really accomplished. As in graduated-from-Georgetown-University smart, and built-his-own-international-business accomplished. In other words, he has some of the attributes we should be looking for in a governor, which might explain why he is campaigning to be elected for the job — in 2016.
Hey, we told you it’s early.
Anyway, Bryant has been a Port of Seattle commissioner since 2007, and some environmentalists aren’t big fans. He says he is a conservationist, and defends his voting record as a matter of choosing long-term jobs over short-term environmental gains. At least that’s my very brief explanation.
Sure, we could spend more time examining Bryant’s decision-making, and I imagine that we will at some point. But for now that would simply mean we are ignoring that monkey he’s lugging around.
Bill Bryant, you see, is a Republican. That is not meant as a pejorative but, to be honest, a lot of people in this state view it as one. In Washington, there is one Republican holding statewide elected office — Secretary of State Kim Wyman. That might not sound like much, but get this — it is one more than Oregon and California have, combined. Yes, off all the governors and state treasurers and U.S. senators and other statewide officials along the left coast, Wyman is the only Republican.
Which brings us to the nuanced, multilayered question facing Bryant’s campaign: Can a Republican win a statewide election in Washington? “At this point, no,” said Jim Moore.
Oh. OK. So much for nuanced and multilayered. Moore is director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., and he knows a little bit about this stuff. So I asked him to elaborate.
“The demographics are working against them,” Moore explained, pointing to the high-tech industries and other innovative companies that have boomed in Seattle the past couple years and have fueled the state’s population growth. “That economy attracts, at a higher rate than other forces, people who vote Democratic. The people there came through the big Democratic centers, like San Francisco, or from Eastern universities. They trickle out to the rest of the world and they bring those values with them.”
Tailoring his message
No, it’s not a surprise that Washington is as blue as a cloudless summer sky; the state hasn’t elected a Republican governor since John Spellman left office in 1985. But it was just 11 years ago that Republican Dino Rossi came within 133 votes of beating Chris Gregoire in the race for governor, and Jay Inslee’s election in 2012 hardly qualified as a landslide. Doesn’t that give hope to Republicans in the state?
“The demographics have changed,” Moore said. “Anytime there’s growth in the economy, the demographics change in favor of this kind of voter.”
Not that Bryant should be daunted. It’s just that Washington is looking for a different type of Republican than can be found in other parts of the country. “The big problem Republicans have in reaching this group,” Moore said of Seattle liberals, “is the Republican Party tends to speak against things.” In other words, the current national talking points of stopping gay marriage and deporting illegal immigrants fall upon deaf ears in much of Washington.
So Bryant is tailoring his message. He points out that he has lived on both sides of the Cascades. He focuses on education and on his background in international trade. And when asked what it would take to bring Washington and Oregon together to fix the Interstate 5 corridor, he turns thoughtful, purses his lips and says, “I don’t know.” Score one for honesty.
So, yeah, Bryant has some strong selling points. But it’s a good thing he started early.
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