After all of the long hours, canvassing, phone calls, tears, endorsements, the day (or night has arrived) where we hear whether or not we’ll have a county council that will oppose the Cherry Point coal terminal, protect local water quality, and supports workers, or one that will continue to keep Whatcom County out of alignment with the Growth Management Act, destroy workers rights and continue to degrade our environment.
I’m at the local Veterans for Foreign Wars building, where the Whatcom Democrats are holding their election night party. The place is packed, and the local establishment is out in force. Elected officials, party activists, and political stalwarts are here, including Bellingham Mayor Kelli Linville and 40th State Senator Kevin Ranker are about, and no matter what happens, it’s going to be a fascinating night.
[8:03] “It’s going to be a good night”, said Lisa McShane, one of the principals at Lehman McShane Strategies, a local political consulting firm and one of the architects of the progressive county council slate. The polls have just closed, and everybody is hoping the results will justify this prediction.
[8:09] While everyone is waiting for the results, Riley Sweeney, local political blogger and vice chair of the county Democrats, stood up in front of the crowd to play “Who Said What: A Local County Conservative Candidate or a National Tea Partier”. Maybe other people could tell, but I couldn’t see much difference.
[8:16] “I just want Initiative 522 to pass”, said Edgar Franks, Affirmative Action Chair for the 40th Legislative District Democrats. This just came as statewide initiative results started coming in for the initiative. We still have a long way to go on it, so no doubt these results will switch.
[8:27] County results are in! The crowded erupted into applause as the results were read:
Barry Buchanan: 54.81 %
Ken Mann: 55.55%
Weimer: 56.87%
Browne: 54.30%
It’s a momentous night indeed, as the progressive slate is in a solid lead and will likely stay there.
[8:28] The campaign staff is in tears as the results came out, joyful for the end of what has been a grueling campaign.
[8:35] “I think it means that you can win. If you stand up and fight back, you can win,” said Matt Petrinyi ecstatically about the import of the county council election results. Matt is a local anti-coal activist who devoted months of work to the county campaigns.
[8:55] Mike Estes, chair of the Whatcom County Democrats, helpfully explained the role the party played in the campaign: “We early on planned this campaign for the four county races. We raised over 180,000 as the party, and as outside money came in, we kept up the ground game and we tried to bring the national conversation back to here. In these non partisan races we needed to label the Democrats and Republicans in the race. As the shutdown happened we were able to label our opposition on Tea Party Republicans. We made this a referendum on Tea Party Republicans and on climate change.”
Tea Party Republicans are a dying breed, at least in the northwest corner.
[9:05] “Going to work everyday with such passionate, amazing people, didn’t make it seem like work,” said Karlee Deatherage, field director for the Whatcom Wins! campaign (which coordinated all four county council candidates), and the backbone of the effort. Work she sure did for the past few months, and tonight it paid off.
[9:16] With preliminary results out and the night one, people here at the VFW building have started petering out. It seems like no new revelations will come out from the North. We’ll make sure to keep you updated if anything noteworthy pops up.
I am overjoyed that we are finally getting rid of this Tea Party gang, they have done the people of Whatcom county a great disservice, these last few years. I worked a little behind the scenes to get out the vote among young people through my daughters and nephew. They were on their friends to vote. Every little bit helps. Thank you all at NPI for all your tireless work. We can change this world if we just keep working. Thank you all.