Surveying the crowd of Tim Leavitt supporters at the Brick House Bar and Grill on election night, former Clark County Commissioner Betty Sue Morris had a revelation.
“I don’t know 90 percent of the people here,” she said. “That is very unusual in a political setting. All these new faces — that’s a good thing.”
It’s not an accident that the 38-year-old Leavitt’s successful mayoral campaign drew an enthusiastic core group of under-40 supporters, many of them newcomers to local politics.
It all started back in 2003, soon after he was appointed to the city council.
Leavitt and a few other 30-somethings began meeting monthly to discuss politics and share gossip in a social setting. They called themselves Pleiad, a French term inspired by a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus. It means “a small group, usually seven, of brilliant persons.”
They saw themselves as an alternative to the Liars Club, a group of veteran Vancouver pols who met regularly at their favorite haunts.
“I decided we needed to have an opportunity for the young up-and-comers to get together and socialize,” Leavitt told The Columbian in 2006.
The group, which continues to meet sporadically, includes Clark County Commissioner Steve Stuart, Camas Mayor Paul Dennis, and Dena Horton, chair of the Clark County Democratic Central Committee. Horton canvassed for Leavitt during his campaign. Both Stuart and Dennis were in the jubilant crowd at the Brick House Tuesday night.
In contrast, the Democratic Party establishment was well-represented at Mayor Royce Pollard’s campaign party at the Salmon Creek Brewery & Pub. State Sen. Craig Pridemore, Reps. Jim Moeller and Jim Jacks and Pam Brokaw, former district director for U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, were among those mingling in an older and more politically seasoned crowd.
Which raises the question: Did demographics play a role in Leavitt’s winning campaign?
No, said Marsha Manning, the 70-year-old Pollard’s campaign manager. “I won’t say that just because of his age he had the older voters. I’m not sure you could go with age in any way. The majority of our team were in their 20s. We never had a feeling that this was split out by age.”
Instead, she said, “I believe the voters voted their pocketbooks.”
Manning cited Leavitt’s main campaign theme — his opposition to tolling Clark County commuters to help pay for a new Interstate 5 bridge — and also the fact that the county’s voters bucked those statewide and voted to approve Initiative 1033, a strict revenue cap on state and local government. “I-1033 was a promise to put a couple hundred dollars back into your pocket,” she said.
Temple Lentz, Leavitt’s campaign manager, said the campaign did some early polling and held focus groups to find out where the candidate was strong demographically.
Younger voters were a natural constituency, she said. “It’s a demographic that was immediately more drawn to him. They could see themselves in him.”
But Leavitt took steps to appeal to a broader voter base, as well, she said.
“He found he polled very well with women over 35, and also with seniors,” Lentz said. “Tolls, public safety, tax dollars, those issues resonated with middle-aged moms and seniors.”
Leavitt, who is single and childless, looked for a way to reach out to families with children, Lentz said. “That’s one of the good things about Tim, is his willingness to say he doesn’t know everything,” she said. “We did pull together small focus groups of folks who had school-age kids.”
To connect with those voters, she said, he began talking about public safety in the schools, underfunding for gang outreach, and the need for after-school programs.
Leavitt also looked for ways to reach middle-aged voters in the so-called “sandwich generation” who are taking care of both their children and their parents, she said.
“It seems to have done well for us,” she said.
The Pollard campaign didn’t convene any focus groups, Manning said.
But the mayor did well in one-on-one debates and candidate forums, she said.
“I believe when the public saw the mayor and Mr. Leavitt stand side by side, they chose the mayor. We just didn’t have enough forums.”
Independent expenditures played a role in both campaigns. One union political action committee paid for several Hilton hotel workers to canvass on Leavitt’s behalf. Another paid for a series of satirical hit pieces against Leavitt on cable TV.
Leavitt said on election night that the TV ads might have backfired.
“There’s always that possibility,” Manning said. “How do you know one way or the other?”
Some of Leavitt’s paid canvassers may have crossed a line too, she said, based on reports the mayor’s campaign received of store owners who were berated for having Pollard signs in their windows and Pollard signs that were yanked out of people’s yards.
“There are rules of engagement in politics,” she said. “We go into battle, someone comes out the winner, someone comes out the loser. When you break those rules of engagement, the healing process takes a lot longer.”
Manning acknowledged that Pollard made his share of enemies over 14 years as mayor.
Former Commissioner Morris, who retired at the end of 2008, was one of them. “Royce had the attitude that whatever the city of Vancouver wanted, it was up to the county to provide,” she said.
“He had the opportunity to go out gracefully. The job is demanding. The older you get, the crankier you get.” Morris, who is in her late 60s, said she speaks from personal experience.
“Fourteen years is a long time for a man to be in office,” Manning acknowledged Friday, shortly before Pollard conceded to Leavitt at an emotional news conference. “I regret that we are throwing away an opportunity to have four more years.”
Gregg Herrington, a long-time editorial writer and political pundit for The Columbian who now serves as communications director for the Battle Ground School District, said he found himself “one-third amused and two-thirds disappointed” by the campaign.
“Tolls, which are years in the future and which will not be set by anyone in the Vancouver mayor’s chair or city council seats, nevertheless sucked much of the oxygen out of the campaign,” Herrington said. “That reality left real city issues, including candidates’ records and personalities, gasping for breath and finding little.”
Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.
