Party loyalty by losers not always easy

After a primary, it is traditional for the losing candidates to close ranks around their party’s winner, smile through the pain, and endorse the nominee.

Republicans did this in Eastern Washington’s congressional race. Ron Sims did it in the Democratic gubernatorial race.

The newspaper does not make a big deal about this because, as we explain to candidates on a regular basis, it is not news that Republicans support Republicans and Democrats support Democrats. If one of the congressional Republicans had endorsed Democrat Don Barbieri, or Sims had come out for Republican Dino Rossi, THAT would be news.

But a special award for stiff upper lip-ness has to go to Republican Senate hopeful Reed Davis, who dutifully and cheerfully endorsed George Nethercutt. This just a week after suggesting Nethercutt was a crybaby for complaining that Democrat Patty Murray wouldn’t debate him at the same time Nethercutt was refusing to debate Davis.

This endorsement of the man he called the party’s anointed one may have been particularly difficult for Davis, who had scrapped with party leaders, criss-crossed the state and scraped up money for radio ads, then found himself competing for second place on primary night with an unknown named Brad Klippert of Kennewick, who advertised himself as “a God-fearing, Bible-believing, 10 Commandments honoring Christian.” But Davis deserves credit for soldiering on.

Fill in the blank

Last week’s Spin Control mentioned an effort to protest the new primary system by writing in a candidate on one or more races. It was sponsored by Citizen Congress, which is the campaign committee of one-time congressional wannabe Craig Sullivan, a Republican precinct committee officer who talked about running as a Democrat for Eastern Washington’s 5th District seat.

Could be that Citizen Congress made a small dent. Or maybe the mention in the column struck a chord. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence.

But the latest tallies from the Spokane County Elections Office suggest that a few people may have taken that to heart.

The race with the largest number of write-in votes on any ballot was the Democratic congressional race. As of Friday afternoon’s count, 360 voters had marked a circle and written in some name other than Don Barbieri.

That’s almost twice the number of the next highest number of write-ins, which was in the Democrats’ uncontested lieutenant governor’s race. Among Republicans, who had a spirited three-way contest for the congressional seat, there were only 48 write-ins.

Whether it was Sullivan’s name on those Democratic ballots, we’ll never know. The county does not routinely count write-in votes that do not affect the outcome of a race. And since Barbieri’s county vote total stood at 37,448 votes, there’s no need to check the name or names scribbled in.

Those who bothered to write in a name, you know who you are. And why you did it.

Pre-emptive purchase

The day after the primary, the Democratic gubernatorial campaign launched an appeal to Republicans and independents with a new Web site, republicansforgregoire.com. Not unusual, really, considering the presidential campaigns have been making similar appeals for months.

But what’s even more crafty was something a state Democrat Party staffer came up with a week ago, buying the rights to www.democratsforrossi.com.

Boomerang, zoomerang

The last-minute attack by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against Democrat Deborah Senn may become a textbook case of how not to knock off a candidate, said one Republican strategist. It ticked off the local chambers of commerce, concentrated the final week of the campaign on who was hiding what, and left Senn ahead of Democrat Mark Sidran on election night.

Senn quickly counterattacked, blasting the secrecy behind the filings that obscured the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s $1.5 million contribution, and by the weekend before election day, it seemed like two out of three ads on television were featuring her face.

As Democratic operative Cathy Allen told Spokesman-Review colleague Rich Roesler: “Hell hath no fury like Deborah Senn.”