Gop: Democrats Partying Too Soon

TUESDAY'S PRIMARY was a big day for Democrats. But as a gauge for the outcome of general elections, primaries are like divining rods - faithful, but sometimes unreliable.

There was a moment during her election-night victory party when Ellen Craswell's Scripture-inspired campaign for governor ran into the secular world she now must face to win the governor's office in November.

As her 27-year-old campaign manager, Mathew Mears, talked of the role of providence in the campaign and asked how many volunteers had prayed for Craswell's victory, the television sets that were turned on to monitor election-night results showed a randy bedroom-seduction scene from a new situation comedy about an aide to the mayor of New York.

"We can't watch this garbage," yelled one volunteer as she ran to cover the screen with two Craswell campaign signs.

Many Republicans probably felt the same emotion as they spent the end of last week listening to Democrats spin Tuesday's primary election results into predictions of a big comeback in November. They also had to watch President Clinton's buscapade roll exuberantly through Western Washington, with fellow Democratic candidates - even some who shunned him just two years ago - jostling for a spot on the podium next to the shirt-sleeved commander in chief.

The 1992 primary offered the first sign of the Democratic-dominated Year of the Woman. In 1994, it was clear we were headed toward the Year of the Republican. While no such sweeping trend was evident this time around, you can say this about Tuesday: It was a better day for Democrats than Republicans.

As a gauge on the outcome in the general election, primaries are a lot like divining rods - faithful, but sometimes unreliable tools. You can count on both parties blowing tens of thousands of dollars on dry wells during the next six weeks.

Much of the Democrats' optimism stemmed from the victory of a Republican - Craswell.

They were taking their cues from Craswell's GOP opponents, who had spent months during the primary campaign trying to convince people that her self-described "radical" prescriptions for cutting government down to size and her talk about following "God's plan" would make Craswell unelectable against any Democrat in the general election.

That left some Republicans in a bind on Election Day, when the former state senator from Poulsbo used her impressive grass-roots army to forge a narrow victory. Most of the GOP candidates who ran against Craswell graciously called for party unity and some spun out scenarios about how Craswell might beat King County Executive Gary Locke, the Democratic primary winner. No open wounds.

But many Republicans weren't reticent about expressing worries that a Craswell candidacy might be a repeat of 1988, when state Rep. Bob Williams gathered less than 40 percent of the vote against incumbent Democratic Gov. Booth Gardner.

GOP consultant Brett Bader even had an unlikely slogan for Republican legislative candidates to use if their Democratic opponents try to make Craswell's views an election issue - just as Republicans did with liberal Democratic Gov. Mike Lowry in 1994, even though he wasn't on the ballot.

"They should tell voters that `If you're voting for Gary Locke, you need me there, too, to hold him in check,' " Bader said.

Young supporters celebrate

Of course, Craswell's supporters can draw solace in the fact that many of the same Republicans were, until midsummer, dismissing her chances of winning the primary. Her victory party was filled with young political novices excited by their first campaign.

By contrast, the atmosphere was far more buttoned-down at the Bellevue hotel hosting the party of the Republican runner-up, House Majority Leader Dale Foreman. Lobbyists and other political professionals, stymied because there was no cellular reception inside, were lined up at the pay phones most of the night.

The most poignant disappointment belonged to King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, who celebrated his 58th birthday on a night when he would finish a distant third in the Republican primary.

It was the third time Maleng had run - and lost - a statewide race. His aides say it was likely his last such effort. Democrats and Republicans often speak with genuine respect and fondness for Maleng, they just don't vote for him in big numbers. "Norm is always everybody's second choice," said his campaign manager, Kent Patton.

Clinton visit boosts Democrats

The day after the election, the Clinton-Gore caravan drew large crowds as it whistle-stopped its way from small city to small city between Seattle and Portland. There were a few discordant notes, like the roadside sign near the Tacoma suburb of Parkland that read "Parkland Inhales."

Even in heavily Republican areas like Lewis County, though, a presidential visit is an upbeat affair.

Locke got to tell crowds at every stop that he and his wife, Mona Lee Locke, are expecting a baby. And 9th Congressional District hopeful Adam Smith, who told The Wall Street Journal in July that he didn't want to campaign with Clinton, used the word "great" three times in two sentences to describe his delight at standing next to the president.

No Democratic candidate was more excited to be on the podium than Brian Baird, who until Tuesday was just a psychology professor embarked on a quixotic challenge of 3rd District Rep. Linda Smith. Smith is considered such a populist hero that Ross Perot considered her for his running mate.

But in the primary, Baird stunned even Democrats by winning 50 percent of the vote - earning an effusive plug from Vice President Al Gore in Longview. Unfortunately, Baird isn't yet a household name around the White House. Gore got a bit confused, referring to a high-school student-body president as "Brian Baird."

"It's quite a day for me," Baird quipped.

A post-Democrat Democrat

Among Democrats, the "village people" have been overtaken by the Bridge Builders. No fewer than 32 times in three stops did Clinton refer to building bridges - building bridges to the 21st century with a great education, more jobs, stronger communities, etc., etc.

He was also building bridges past the Democratic Party. His aides claim Clinton's renewed popularity is due to positioning himself as a kind of post-Democrat Democrat with appeal to independents and Republicans.

"Clinton has blurred the party lines," insists Joe Lockhart, Clinton's campaign press secretary. "I think the president has shifted the definition a bit. It's difficult to put a formula or label on the president." Cynics do have a label for Clinton: Republican Lite.

The broad-reach strategy is also favored by Gary Locke, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee. In his victory speech, Locke tried to shed any partisan patina. He even added a new, if ill-defined, category to the list of voters he hopes to attract: "pro-education Republicans." We're still not sure what an anti-education Republican looks like.

Different spin

At one stop, Clinton told the crowd: "What I want to say to you is that the country is going to be looking at Washington state, because the voters of Washington state, by the narrowest margins in five congressional districts, bought on to Mr. Gingrich's and Mr. Dole's Contract with America."

The Republicans had one of their big guns, national party Chairman Haley Barbour, out here throwing water on the Democratic giddiness. But his assessment was similar to the president's.

"In 1994 Washington was a superstar state for us," Barbour told editorial writers. This year, he said, "We knew these were going to be tough races."

In fact, most Republicans didn't expect a tough race for Smith, who recently boasted on national television that polls showed her winning 70 percent to 30 percent. Democrats now have numbers to back up their optimism in three or four other congressional races.

Republicans, though, rightly pointed out that the congressional primary results were no guarantee that a big Democratic wave was on the way to reverse the GOP's 1994 rout, which gave the party seven of the state's nine seats.

In the 1994 primary, most Democratic incumbents - including then Speaker of the House Tom Foley of Spokane - fared even worse than the targeted Republicans this time. For example, in 1994, Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell only took 45 percent of the primary vote. This year, Rep. Rick White, the Republican who ultimately defeated Cantwell, got 50 percent.

Bob Moore, a Portland-based Republican pollster, noted that in 1994, Democratic incumbents such as Foley and Cantwell actually improved their vote total in the general election.

In the governor's race this year, the Democratic candidates collected 54 percent of all the votes. That too, Moore says, can be a misleading indicator of party turnout in November. In 1992, Republican gubernatorial candidates got 57 percent of the primary vote. But Lowry won the general election and Democrats nearly swept state races that year.