McGavick tests senatorial waters
As he attempts to make the change from running a winning campaign to winning a campaign, Mike McGavick was in Spokane late last week trying out the role of Senate candidate.
McGavick, former chief of staff to Sen. Slade Gorton and currently the CEO of Safeco, is about one step and four weeks away from being the GOP’s best hope to knock off Democrat Maria Cantwell in 2006. He’s at that awkward in-between stage for a candidate: He’s got an exploratory committee but not a full-blown campaign committee, with a formal announcement scheduled for the end of August.
That’s more a nod to McGavick’s role as the head of a publicly traded company than any reluctance to commit to the race. Clearly he has much of the candidate stuff down, talking about a resume for working in the other Washington along with the need to look to the future and get a better deal for this Washington from the feds.
People who have been around state politics for a quarter century or more may recall McGavick as the Eastern Washington coordinator for Gorton’s shocking 1980 win against Warren G. Magnuson. Those with a little less history might remember him as running the entire campaign for Slade’s comeback victory in 1988.
McGavick said he will not follow the strategy of “running against Seattle” which his former boss used with some success in his 1994 re-election, but with less success in the 2000 loss to Cantwell. Gorton did fine in Eastern Washington, but he got swamped by Cantwell in King County, and that was the ballgame.
McGavick is quick to point out he wasn’t involved in the campaign five years ago, so he can’t be tagged with that decision.
And while he says he won’t be wandering the red counties east of the Cascades using the state’s biggest – and most liberally Democratic – city as a punching bag, “I am going to speak out against some attitudes coming out of Seattle,” he said.
The difference, he said, is suggesting tactfully that some people around metropolitan Puget Sound may have unrealistic ideas of what’s important in the rest of the state. For example, “they have a cavalier attitude about water” and don’t understand its importance to the drier eastern counties.
If, as expected, McGavick gets into the race, don’t look for another “name” Republican to challenge him in the primary. Although it didn’t work so well in 2004 – George Nethercutt and Dino Rossi both fell short in November even though they didn’t have to blow big bucks on the primary – Republicans still think it’s their best game plan against Cantwell.
How the Brits do it
Time can lend a certain perspective and humor to even the most crushing of defeats. So it seemed on Friday, when former House Speaker Tom Foley spoke to the Sister Cities Convention luncheon. Being a former ambassador, as well as a better-than-average storyteller, Foley was an obvious choice for the gig. He’s made his share of appearances in Spokane since 1994, when he lost his congressional seat to Republican George Nethercutt.
At one point he segued into his meeting with the British House of Commons speaker, who explained that in that country, once one becomes speaker, one runs for re-election without a partisan label. The district voters are just asked if they want to retain so-and-so, speaker.
“It’s almost unheard of that anybody’s ever defeated,” he said, adding with a smile: “I think that’s a much better principle than in the United States.”
Not just for the old oak tree
The latest twist in campaign paraphernalia for cars is showing up in Spokane. It’s the looped ribbon of various colors proclaiming “I Support ___” made popular by the yellow loops that back the troops. It may or may not be an improvement on the standard bumper sticker.
On the plus side, they can be shifted anywhere and don’t leave that gummy residue that can take off the paint before it lets go. On the negative side, they can be “appropriated” by the other side rather easily.
The latest local version to show up has something of a pastel rainbow motif, proclaiming “Support Jim West.” It has no organization or source of funding listed (clearly a downside of this medium’s small message space) so it’s not clear if the rainbow coloring is supposed to be a clue.