With the Washington caucus coming up this Saturday, and after the results of Super Tuesday, the candidates are starting to focus some attention on this area of the Pacific Northwest.
Here in Seattle, we're starting to see advertising for the candidates. In the past two days, I've seen a few Obama ads and one Ron Paul ad (Paul will probably do comparatively well here, as there seem to be enough small-l libertarians around and other protest voters). I haven't seen any Clinton ads, or any for any of the Republican candidates, but this may be more a reflection of my viewing rather than a substantive representation of ad buys in the Seattle-Everett-Tacoma MSA.
What stands out in my mind are a pair of campaign events.
First, tonight, at 8 p.m, Hillary Clinton will be hosting a "Solutions for America" rally at Seattle's Pier 30 Event Center. This space accommodates up to 6,000 attendees, and has on-site parking for 1,700 vehicles.
Tomorrow, Barack Obama will be hosting a special Stand for Change rally at Key Arena, with doors scheduled to open at 11 a.m. and the event set to begin at approximately noon. Key Arena has execrable parking, especially on weekdays, with a two-hour cap on on-street parking and where there will be significant competition for what spaces are available from area businesses. Depending on how it's configured, though, the Key will seat in excess of 15,000.
I'm guessing that the Obama campaign, even for a weekday event held during business hours, is planning to draw well in excess of 6,000- even if the upper bowl seating area is blocked off, there should be capacity for 7,500 or more, and there are other venues in town which are available were the projections for a smaller audience.
Before questions of bias are raised, I was planning to caucus for former Senator Edwards before his withdrawal, and, although leaning toward Senator Obama, I'm still uncommitted. I'll try to attend both events, and will comment on impressions of the assembled throngs, but based on polling, there seems to be a comparable Obama edge as there has been in other caucus states- recent KING5 TV poll conducted by Survey USA showed 53% Obama support to 40% for Clinton, with the remaining 7% undecided.
Edited, 11:23 p.m., after the Clinton event:
Oh, my gods, but the Clinton campaign does itself a significant disservice by not coming close to running on time. If you schedule a campaign event for, say, eight o'clock, at least have someone, even if it's just a local volunteer coordinator or junior campaign staffer in the advance crew, prepared to talk to the audience until you're ready to proceed with the more important speakers. Leaving a room to largely buzz amongst itself for eighty minutes with only a ten second announcement over an hour in that things will be starting in about fifteen minutes.
Great t'underin' Esus but that's a long time to keep people waiting. The 'official' capacity of the building was 6,000, but they didn't have all of it. I'm guessing the main room was set to accomodate about 2,500. Getting there about starting time, we got shuffled off to an overflow area with probably another five hundred to a thousand.
Senator Clinton herself comes across as very self-confident and self-assured. She knows her material and presents it very sincerely. I'm left with no doubts that she could handle the job and do so well; but as far as 'closing the deal' or converting someone leaning toward another candidate, not so much so.