Opinion - Top opinion

POSTED: Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Statewide voter anger left at town halls and TEA parties

What happened to the angry voter?

Over the summer when town hall meetings turned passionate and the economy remained troubled, it looked as if 2009 would be another year of the outsider.

These come around in cycles, often when the economy is weak and voters grow frustrated. When people are broke, they are sensitive to perceptions that government is too big and too expensive. And when issues that were supposed to be resolved continue to be irresolvable, a lot of voters think it's time to toss the bums out.

There was plenty of evidence of voter anger, and not just at those health care town halls and TEA Party rallies. In August, two outsiders prevailed over a batch of insiders - including the incumbent - in the Seattle mayoral primary. A former TV anchor and novice politician survived the King County executive primary and was showing well in opinion polls against a longtime office holder.

And Tim Eyman showed his skills at reading the mood of voters by coming in with another tax-cutting initiative just as voters were reacting to government expense and inertia. Most politicians were resigned to Initiative 1033 passing, as were the businesses and unions hit up to pay for yet another anti-Eyman campaign.

In Tacoma, Jim Merritt positioned himself as the outsider against incumbent Councilwoman Marilyn Strickland. City Hall doesn't listen, Merritt said repeatedly.

"I do not believe in 'good-old-boy' ties," one campaign mailer said. The metaphor for his campaign was the unfilled pothole.

Strickland embraced her incumbency, even though she was elected just two years ago. She preached consensus and teamwork and even found herself having to defend decisions made before she joined the council. One mailer showed eight of the nine city council members standing behind her. The headline said "All Those in Favor Say Aye!"

The election of 2009 had striking similarities to 1993. That year voters passed the spending limitation Initiative 601 and tipped their hand that 1994 would be a terrible year for insiders.

In 1993, an incumbent county executive was tossed out in King County and an incumbent mayor was defeated in Tacoma.

The similarities between the two elections were obvious, at least until the votes were counted.

So what happened? While little polling was done in Tacoma, the statewide and Seattle-based polling showed a movement in the final weeks of the election. Dow Constantine went from behind to well ahead and won easily Tuesday.

Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan, the two newcomers in Seattle, are even. So are Merritt and Strickland in Tacoma.

And Eyman's I-1033 got trounced, marking one of the few times in recent (and not-so-recent) state history that voters were offered a chance to lower their taxes and said no thank you.

The only indication that this election bodes ill for incumbents - specifically majority Democrats - came in races elsewhere. Both Virginia and New Jersey replaced Democratic governors with Republicans.

Up here in the corner of the country, however, voter anger subsided somewhere between Labor Day and Election Day.

There are plenty of theories. The health care debate has subsided. The loudest campaign messages on I-1033 came from the "no" side which had more money than Eyman.

The theme of the advertising - complete with concerned looking moms, anxious children and depressed senior citizens - was "Times are already tough. I-1033 will make things worse."

Still, not many were predicting in the spring and summer that this would be a bad year for such an initiative, regardless of the strength and wealth of the campaigns, pro and con. Eyman has been outspent before and still prevailed on Election Day.

Should incumbents read the results as an endorsement?

Some will, because they always do. It might be wiser, however, for them to see 2009 as an electoral bullet dodged. Just because angry voters didn't make up a majority doesn't mean there still aren't a lot of them out there.

Peter Callaghan writes for The News Tribune in Tacoma. E-mail him: peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com