2008 Payback
posted by on July 14 at 13:45 PM
Michelle Obama, undoubtedly not looking like this, will be in Seattle this Thursday to headline a fundraiser for Gov. Christine Gregoire.
Why? Well, you may remember that during the primary campaign, way back when we were tallying up superdelegates and prominent state surrogates, Gov. Gregoire broke with the two other top female elected officials in this state—Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell—and announced, ahead of our Democratic caucuses on Feb. 9, that she was endorsing Barack Obama.
It was a coup for Obama and smart politics for Gregoire. If her current rematch against Dino Rossi is going to be anywhere near as close as Gregoire vs. Rossi Round 1, then Gregoire will need to up her take of votes in liberal Seattle, and what better way to do that than by throwing her arms around the candidate Seattle was swooning for long before the rest of the country?
The huge Obama rally at Key Arena on the eve of our caucuses featured Gregoire prominently, it was undoubtedly the biggest political crowd our governor has ever spoken to in this city, she gave one of the best speeches I’ve seen her deliver, and the audience ate it up.
It also established an IOU with the Obama campaign, one they’re paying back—or beginning to pay back—this week. It may be too cynical to cast this as a purely financial transaction, but if you’re wondering how much Gregoire’s endorsement was worth to the Obama campaign the answer, so far, seems to be about $320,000.
That’s how much Michelle Obama will raise for Gregoire if the 1,600-person venue the campaign has reserved for Thursday is filled to capacity with people paying the required $200/head.
We won't support ball-less NO-Bama and will re-defeat him in November!!!
oh, give it up, @1.
every dollar goes to Gregoire.
"IOW" "payback"?? that's new politics.
Got it.
Oh and "she broke with other 2 women leaders" is a bit strong. She went for Obama, they didn't, they don't have some kind of mutual pact to break from.
Finally: yes it is too cynical to cast this as a purely financial transaction. This kind of payback, loyalty, favor bank stuff happens all the time and it's how pols get things done an dthey generally only help other pols that they um, like, policy-wise 'n' stuff.
What's too cynical is that when people like the Clintons do this fairly successfully for about 30 years some people then stick their noses in the air and go "ohmygod that's so old politics we want change" and then the change turns out to be....the same politics. Well, know maybe it's not cynical, that's not fair, it's only cynical for some, for others it was maybe just stupid, or naive.
Payback, IOU, change.
Got it.
Unity y'all.
What would really fucking help btw is to get someone to make B Baird change his position on the war so then when Barack needs votes Baird isn't going to vote with the pro war side. I'd like to see some payback there.
Fuck off and go back to NoQuarter, Susan. You're not fooling anyone.
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