Obama team warming up Washington action

• Published August 11, 2008

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Strategists with the Obama for president campaign told Northwest reporters this morning that they plan an all-out “neighbor-to-neighbor” effort to get out the vote this fall in Washington, including the community campaign offices they’ve opened in 18 cities including Olympia and Tacoma.

The Democrats’ national convention runs Aug. 25 to 28 in Denver, and the Barack Obama crew says it plans 191 "grassroots" events around the state in conjunction with the convention. Already the campaign reports 230 active grassroots groups in state.

Sen. Obama’s national political director Patrick Gaspard also said the campaign believes that economic concerns felt strongly in other parts of the country also resonate strongly here for Washington voters. He mentioned high gasoline prices and foreclosures.

But that weak-economy approach conflicts with the tone and trajectory of Gov. Chris Gregoire’s re-election campaign in some respects. Gregoire has taken pains for months to tout the relatively better condition of Washington’s economy compared with the rest of the country. And her first campaign ad issued a couple of weeks ago touted the state's creation of more than 200,000 jobs during her four-year watch.

Based on recent polling, one could surmise Obama has it made in Washington — with leads of 12 percentage points over Republican John McCain in the recent Rasmussen and Elway polls and 11 points in the Republican-oriented Strategic Vision poll. But Gaspard suggested the campaign is going to run full bore in this state.

"Washington state with its 11 electoral votes is essential to our national election strategy," he told reporters. "We expect to run a broad and deep campaign that is governed principally by the tremendous grassroots energy we already have experienced in Washington."

And he suggested the effort is one that will live long after the campaign is over.

We'll have to see how it plays out, but Carol Albert, the campaign's state director, promised an effort that will link up volunteers at the neighborhood level using the Internet, www.barackobama.com and MyVote, as well as door-to-door campaigning.

She described it as "connecting people and empowering people on a massive scale."

These are the 18 communities she listed: Auburn, Bellingham, Bellevue, Everett, Gig Harbor, Graham, Mount Vernon, Olympia, Tri-Cities, Seattle, Silverdale, Spokane, Stanwood, Tacoma, Vancouver, Walla Walla, Wenatchee and Yakima.