Rusty Democrats begin quest to wrestle state's 'Rust Belt' from Trump
SOUTH BEND -- Pacific County had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since giving its heart to Herbert Hoover in 1928, until Donald Trump carried the Southwest Washington lumber, fishing and shellfish center last November.
The county's Democrats came together over the weekend for their 92nd annual crab feed, the longest running -- and most fun -- political gathering in the Evergreen State.
They witnessed a demonstration of what churches like to call "servant leadership." Party bigwigs, sheltered in a "VIP Room" when the state Democratic Party holds its crab feed, were out staffing the chow line.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell was spooning the potato salad, her customary job. This year, however, U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, ex-Rep. Brian Baird and new state state Democratic chair Tina Podlodowski plunked crabs on the plates of party faithful. "I've been giving you the crabs tonight," Kilmer joked.
They brought a back-to-basics message not often heard during the often stifling identity politics of Seattle's Democratic district meetings.
"We let him (Trump) steal the economy from the Democratic Party and we must not let that happen again," said Cantwell.
At the weekly Drinking Liberally gathering on Seattle's Capitol Hill, one loudmouth party activist regularly expounds that if young people in Washington fishing and timber towns want jobs, they can always move to Seattle.
Not so, said Port Angeles native Kilmer. "We don't want our region's largest export to be our kids," the congressman told the crab feed.
Talk is cheap, and Democrats must show an alienated base in Southwest Washington that they can listen and deliver. How so?
--Resist Trump's budget cuts. The 45th President is hammering rural and blue-collar areas that voted for him. Pacific County is the 4th most fishing dependent county in America, yet it is confronting potential cuts to the Coast Guard, elimination of the federal Sea Grant program, and stripping of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration services.
Mike Nordin, with the Pacific and Grays Harbor Conservation Districts, ticks off the coordinators and technicians he stands to lose. Will the Democrats in Congress get down and dirty, and fight for these jobs?
--Get Gov. Inslee's attention: Jay Inslee is a cheerleader of the "new economy" who rarely loses a chance to tick off a litany of clean energy projects. He has paid little attention to the once-Democratic counties that voted against him -- and Hillary Clinton -- last November.
Inslee does not show up at the Pacific County crab feed. He didn't even send along a goofy written statement this year. He made just a quick 11th hour appearance in Cowlitz County last year. If Democrats want to recapture rural voters, Inslee needs to come up with and commit himself to a rural development strategy. He also needs to get his butt to South Bend.
Having "two Washingtons," one booming and the other stagnating, is not healthy for the Governor's party and other living citizens. .
--Resources: Democrats didn't even run a candidate in one Southwest Washington legislative district. The party's "coordinated campaign" sent one staffer, a recent college graduate, to sit in a Longview office two days a week. Grays Harbor County received no attention whatever.
Bigshot visitors did Seattle fundraisers, and made cameo appearances at party headquarters in the Madrona neighborhood. A get-out-the-vote rally with Chelsea Clinton was held at Seattle Town Hall.
Podlodowski is a Seattle techie, but promises to change all that. "My goal is to put field organizers around the state of Washington," she said.
"We can't have a discussion about social issues until people are satisfied economically: We did not do that work in the last election," Podlodowski added.
The Democrats of Southwest Washington have taken a bath up and down the ballot in recent years. They've lost a U.S. House seat and once-safe legislative seats in Southwest Washington as well as county commissioner jobs in Thurston, Grays Harbor and Cowlitz Counties. Hillary Clinton took less than 40 percent of the vote in Cowlitz County.
Donald Trump won about 40 counties across the country that hadn't voted for a Republican presidential nominee in more than three decades. "Three of them were in my district," said Teresa Purcell, a Democrat who narrowly lost a legislative race in November.
According to the old adage, there's nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus the mind.
Democrats in Washington's "Rust Belt," and similar places across the country, were hung out to dry last November.
They seem fired up and ready to go, but have a lot of ground to make up.
By: Joel Connelly
Source: SeattlePI