Fresh candidates and an open field inspire new crop of voters

Danielle Pattalochi had never taken much interest in presidential politics. In past elections, she never found a candidate who moved her.

Now Pattalochi has become a self-described political junkie and a devoted follower of Sen. Barack Obama. How devoted? Last summer she paid for personalized license plates that read "OBAMA08."

"It's almost like a religious experience where you feel connected and you say, 'Wow, this man represents my heart,' " says Pattalochi, 31, of West Seattle.

Finding former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was a religious experience for Tricia Farr of Olympia. She first heard of Huckabee in September, when she saw him on a nationally televised "Values Voters Presidential Debate."

"I prayed and I asked God who he would have and it was clear to me that it was Mike Huckabee," says Farr, 38, a stay-at-home mother of three.

Now she is working hard to spread the word about her candidate. And though she's never even attended a presidential caucus, she is planning to host one in her home next month.

Every presidential election seems to reawaken a portion of the slumbering, disengaged or disenfranchised electorate.

But this election — at least at this early stage — seems different. How else to explain the huge turnout recently by voters in Iowa and New Hampshire?

Part of it is simply the fact that, with wide-open races on both the Democratic and Republican sides of the ticket, there are more candidates — and more diversity among the candidates — than usual.

The top tier includes a woman (Hillary Clinton), an African American (Obama), a Mormon (Mitt Romney), a former Baptist preacher (Huckabee) and a war hero (John McCain).

Some candidates in particular are attracting voters who, for a variety of reasons, had lost interest.

Obama, for instance, has found a way to fire up the famously fickle youth vote. Huckabee is connecting with evangelical and social-conservative voters. And Congressman Ron Paul's anti-war, anti-establishment themes are winning the hearts of disillusioned voters across the political spectrum.

But it's not just the candidates and their messages, says University of Washington political scientist Bryan Jones. There is a hunger born of a deep and widespread dissatisfaction, the likes of which pollsters haven't seen since at least the 1970s, Jones says.

"This is a very unhappy country," he says.

Pattalochi says she had always viewed politics as a "big charade." She believed most politicians were either corrupt or merely consumed with self-interest. She says she voted in past presidential elections, but mostly out of dislike for one candidate, rather than passion for another.

When Pattalochi heard Obama was running for president, she says, "It was like ice water in the desert." She had learned about Obama five years ago when she read his first book, "Dreams From My Father."

Pattalochi makes her living doing makeup for weddings and other events. She says that before Obama came along, she spent much of her spare time watching the Food Network.

Now, she says, she is usually glued to channels such as CNN and C-SPAN, trying to keep up on the latest news about Obama and the presidential race.

Obama also is making a big impression on her 13-year-old son, Chance — who, like Obama, is half African American. Chance went with her to see him speak last summer in Seattle. Now he goes to school with an Obama sticker on his notebook and wearing one of his two Obama T-shirts.

"If Barack Obama wins, it will be a great thing, because I won't feel like a fraud anymore when I say that we live in the greatest country in the world," Pattalochi says.

Kelly Drake, vice chairwoman of the King County Young Democrats, says Obama's message is resonating with young voters because he is convincing them they will have a say in fixing the country.

"He uses 'you' and 'we' in a very, very active way — 'We can effect change. You can do this,' " Drake says. "As opposed to — 'When I'm in office, I'm going to do this for you.' "

Jones, the political scientist, compares Obama's dream-big rhetoric to that of Bobby Kennedy in the late '60s. Pattalochi agrees.

"I always thought it was kind of silly how people romanticized those politicians," she says. "Now I understand. ... He inspires me to want to be a good person and to make this world a better place."

Molly Meggysey, a 30-year-old executive assistant from Seattle, says she too recently experienced a political epiphany, when she first saw Ron Paul on a YouTube video.

"He was just so genuine, so logical," Meggysey says. "And he was saying all the things that I've been thinking."

She says Paul is the only candidate who has the backbone to get the U.S. out of the war in Iraq, put an end to illegal wiretapping by the government and restore the balance of powers called for in the Constitution.

Meggysey, who used to consider herself a Democrat, says that before discovering Paul she had become thoroughly jaded about politics and had decided to "tune it all out."

Now, she is helping organize sign-waving and caucus-training events. Because so many Paul supporters are like her — people who had lost interest in politics — Meggysey says she has been working to make sure their voter registrations are up to date.

Jones says that aside from coming across as a "fresh and honest voice," Paul is appealing to a lot of people because his libertarian platform calls for keeping the federal government out of most social issues.

Many people "are sick and tired of having social issues crammed in their faces," Jones says.

For Farr, however, social issues such as abortion and gay marriage are largely what drew her to Huckabee.

"I see a lot of changes happening, for instance, the homosexual agenda," Farr says. "Things like that where I feel I need to have a say in what's going on."

Since becoming a Christian in 1996, Farr says, she had been "kind of under an impression that Christians just stayed out of politics." But she says Huckabee's campaign has set her straight on that.

"He's not afraid to speak about his faith," Farr says. "Like he says, you don't just tuck your religion in your back pocket. It's part of you."

Farr and her husband, an Army officer at Fort Lewis, home-school their children. Now she has turned their home into a makeshift campaign office. Farr, who recently became a Republican Party precinct-committee officer, spends hours online organizing Huckabee Meet-up groups and keeps stacks of her Huckabee placards, fliers and stickers in an old Pampers diaper box.

For newly impassioned voters like Pattalochi and Farr, there's a lot at stake these next several weeks.

If Huckabee doesn't win the Republican nomination and make it onto the November ballot, Farr says she might still vote but knows her heart won't be in it.

And if Obama doesn't make it through?

"I don't think I'll vote," Pattalochi says. "Because I know nothing will change."

Ralph Thomas: 360-943-9882 or rthomas@seattletimes.com

The information in this article, originally published January 15, 2008, was corrected January 15, 2008. The original story had the age of Tricia Farr incorrect. She is 38, not 31.