Wanted: More presidential campaign visits to Tacoma. Was Bernie’s visit a precursor?
Regardless of whether you “Feel the Bern” or prefer a different presidential candidate in this year’s elections, South Sounders should find a spark of hope in Monday evening’s appearance by Sen. Bernie Sanders. It’s gratifying that the Sanders campaign, while focused on the next nominating contest in Nevada, cleared time in his schedule for a rally at the Tacoma Dome.
For the Democratic frontrunner du jour to skip Seattle (except for the airport) and choose Pierce County as his 2020 Washington state launch pad is a welcome development in this primary election season. Sanders has unrivaled liberal street cred and a deep fundraising base in the Seattle-Bellevue metro area. He leveraged those strengths to defeat Hillary Clinton in Washington’s 2016 caucuses and thereby win the majority of our state’s Democratic delegates.
By looking farther south this time, perhaps Sanders took a cue from Michelle Obama, who sold out the Tacoma Dome a year ago in the only Washington stop on her national book tour. Perhaps the democratic socialist firebrand knows he must expand his audience.
Or maybe this was just the biggest venue available. Either way, we’ll take it.
“I suspect that Sanders feels pretty strong in Seattle, so this is, in a way, a play beyond the big city,” David Sousa, a University of Puget Sound professor of American politics, told me in a weekend email exchange. “He’ll have to run well down here in a general election to carry the state, and at this point he might actually be looking ahead.”
For me, the amusing irony is that Sanders chose Presidents Day to visit Tacoma, a city that’s lately drawn scant attention from presidents and would-be presidents alike.
In the last 15 years, we’ve had more visits from the president of China than the president of the United States.
Donald Trump hasn’t set foot in Tacoma, not while in office nor while running for his party’s nomination, despite the TNT Editorial Board’s playful encouragement for him to come. Ditto Barack Obama. The last commander in chief who swung through the South Sound was George W. Bush, and he was only here to pump up the troops at JBLM.
Go back further in history and Tacoma regularly pops up on the presidential map. Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Warren Harding all thrilled crowds at Stadium Bowl. John F. Kennedy practically shut down the city when he spoke at Cheney Stadium in 1963. Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman and Richard Nixon all took the stage at the UPS Fieldhouse.
As for the candidates, many have held local events over the years, though top-tier appearances have been fairly rare since 2000. Hillary Clinton spoke in 2008 at the UPS Fieldhouse and in 2016 at Chief Leschi School for a visit geared to the Puyallup Tribe. John Kerry had already won the Democratic nomination when he stumped in the Tacoma Dome parking lot in August 2004.
As for Sanders, he held his biggest Washington event four years ago at Seattle’s Safeco Field, while also staging rallies in Vancouver, Yakima and Spokane (twice).
What’s different this time isn’t just that the Democratic frontrunner came to Tacoma, but that he did it more than a month earlier than his 2016 Washington barnstorming before the March 26 caucuses.
The reformatted 2020 election cycle is great for Washingtonians for two reasons. First, legislators finally listened to Secretary of State Kim Wyman and moved up the presidential primary date to a spot of national relevance, from the fourth Tuesday in May to the second Tuesday in March.
Second, Democrats agreed to switch their process for awarding delegates to the primary, which is more inclusive than the caucus system — and less prone to technical disaster, as we learned from Iowa.
Can Sanders sustain his early Iowa-New Hampshire momentum through Super Tuesday and Washington’s primary a week later? That’s a good question. Historically, ideologues like him fare better in a neighborhood caucus environment, dominated by hardcore activists, largely ignored by average voters. While Sanders outpolled Clinton 3-to-1 in the 2016 Washington caucuses, she beat him by more than 38,000 votes in that year’s meaningless Democratic state primary.
But don’t underestimate the scrappy 78-year-old. In light of the early struggles of Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, some envision a scenario in which Michael Bloomberg is all that stands between Sanders and the Democratic nomination by the time Washington’s March 10 primary arrives.
Sousa, the UPS professor, sees that as a possibility. “This would be a strong state for Sanders,” Sousa said, “and it seems wise of him to visit and to lay in a little seed corn a few weeks in advance of the contest.”
It would be wise for other candidates to prepare for Washington’s early electoral harvest, too, including President Trump. Wiser still if they visit Pierce County, a place with a growing population and a complex voting base, consistently supporting Democrats for president, but not as fervently as they support $30 car tabs.
We also have the hottest housing market in America; tens of thousands of tech-sector employees may work in Seattle, but more and more of them are living — and voting — in the South Sound.
Call me a dreamer, but after Bernie Sanders’ well chosen Tacoma rally, there’s reason to hope the City of Destiny will again become a destination for those who lead our country, and those who aspire to lead it.
Reach TNT editorial page editor at matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com or (253) 597-8472.
This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 5:30 AM.