“Fifty-one percent,” said I, the new campaign manager. “We will win this political campaign with 51 percent of the vote.” Being so confident was a wondrous revelation in itself. And just two weeks ago I had been ready to give up on everything, completely.

Grant Cogswell—poet, punk-rock fan, grassroots activist, monorail proponent, and insurgent Seattle City Council candidate—laughed, liberated and terrified.

We stood on the edge of a Seattle beach in late June and watched the sun go down over Puget Sound. Young lovers and old couples stretched out behind us on beach towels and cotton blankets while high-school kids, failed dot-commers, and college students on break stood around bonfires and got drunk on cheap beer. The pessimistic skies of late spring had given way to the frothy innocence of summer. It was a new season of exuberance and it was laden with import. This was the summer of 2001, and less than two years ago the World Trade Organization protests had stirred the global consciousness. In Seattle even something as modest as a grassroots city council campaign felt momentous, a genuine step toward a new form of political activism, liberation, and enlightenment.

Seattle: Here was a place in America where progress was still possible. The city had not yet yielded to social numbness, television-embalmed apathy, or right-wing fundamentalist incoherence. The keen edge of liberalism still thrived here.

We climbed into my car, a thrifty little ’95 Geo Prizm, and were off.

One of the first campaign stops was the University District, where the King County Young Democrats were having a straw-poll endorsement meeting. We were confident. What young political junkie wouldn’t be swept up by Grant’s brash idealism? The KC Young Dems were meeting in the University Heights Center. There were about a dozen Young Democrats present—and twice as many candidates. The Young Dems were hustling about, setting up tables and refreshments, handing out nametags, and rubbing elbows with the candidates. Grant and I busied ourselves putting up campaign posters, then we tried to look engaged and engaging.

We stood in the center of the room armed with what we hoped were thousand-watt smiles. Nothing happened. Grant wandered away from me on the theory, I’m sure, that we’d be more effective working opposite sides of the room. I kept smiling and tried to devise a plan, a way to corner a Young Dem without being too obvious or desperate. But they were moving too fast. I tried tugging one on the sleeve, but she was gone before I could reach her. I couldn’t tell if she had seen me or not.

I didn’t understand the purpose of all this bustle. There weren’t that many people in the room. Then I saw Greg Nickels enter the room. Nickels was a county council member who had been running for mayor since January; a lot of people thought he was going to win. He was a colorless public official with no intelligent proposals of his own, whose campaign consisted of nothing but clichés about the strength of Seattle’s neighborhoods. What repelled me about Nickels was how, as a young man, he had dropped out of college to pursue a career in politics. Wasn’t college the best place to test your political ideas, and wasn’t politics merely the process by which the best ideas were fought over? Why would anyone vote for someone who so nakedly put ambition before education?

As I watched, four Young Dems ran to him like groupies hoping for a backstage pass. The volume in the room doubled. Nickels beamed.

Realization dawned, and I felt exposed in my naiveté. The Young Democrats were swarming only some of the political candidates—the well-moneyed incumbents and the veterans of the local Democratic machine. Nickels was a winner, someone who had more authority than anyone else in the room and would soon have even more. Every one of those Young Dems probably wanted to do him a favor, maybe several, to make sure they were remembered by their first names.

A Young Democrat brushed my shoulder on his way to the Nickels mob, and as I fought down a rising nausea I lunged for his polo shirt. I let go just as quickly. His expression was disturbing in some unspeakable way: His eyes were shiny and glossy, but not open. So transparently… political. My hopes of finding kindred spirits in this place evaporated.

“Hellooooo!” Pat Griffith, a school board candidate, pounced on me, eager to impress, wearing glasses suitable for a parent/teacher conference. I hastily told her that I wasn’t a Young Democrat, and she looked downcast. But then she relaxed and we talked about the usual things candidates and their managers talk about, like who had the best yard signs and how to survive the stress of the campaign trail. We were both relieved to appear occupied.

I struck up a few more conversations with some other candidates, and even shook the flaccid hand of City Council Member Richard Conlin, who was in the process of blowing $85,000 on the primary, an astounding sum for a city like Seattle. I was wedged somewhere between contempt and jealousy, though, when I saw Conlin pigeonhole a baby-faced Young Dem for a few words. How come I can’t do that? Why can’t Grant?

Only one candidate in the room didn’t seem to care about any of it. He came in, sat down, adjusted his custom-made suit coat around his shoulders, didn’t put up campaign posters, and never looked around. His indifference to the system was enviable and horrifying. He was Richard McIver, Grant’s incumbent opponent.

It didn’t make any sense. McIver was the least visible incumbent running for reelection, and his ties to the local Democrats were not particularly strong. I wondered why he seemed so unconcerned. I ticked off the possibilities in my head:

(1) McIver is old and has made peace with himself.

Doesn’t care for ass kissing.

(2) He is black and knows he’s well positioned to win

with liberal white voters

(3) He knows Seattle incumbents never lose.

(4) Sound Transit has already promised to make him a

well-paid lobbyist if he’s voted out of office.

(5) He knows something we don’t.

But then I realized that I had gotten lost in reverie in the middle of a crowded room. I panicked. I’m alone! Looking pensive and solitary! Without anyone nearby!

Grant came up to me.

“I gotta talk to you,” he whispered. He looked like he wanted to grab my arm.

Grant told me that someone had placed the text of a television news story, in which he had been quoted, on the front table next to our campaign brochures. The story had aired the night of the 2000 election; a TV reporter had been cruising the Washington State Democratic Party’s election party, looking for something unusual, and had come across Grant—and Grant had been happy to shoot his mouth off for the camera.

“We didn’t leave the Democratic Party,” he had said. “The Democratic Party left us.” The reporter also noted that Grant was wearing a Ralph Nader button.

In other words, it was now public knowledge that Grant was seeking the endorsement of a group of people he had openly insulted the year before.

“Don’t turn around,” he said, voice still low. “I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to say when I get up there.” He sat down to think and I walked over to look at the offending document. I tried to be discreet. Sure enough, the story was right next to our quarter-page flyers, a hastily printed computer document, with the offending quote highlighted in yellow. I wanted to pocket the document, to run into the bathroom and eat it, but Grant had specifically told me not to touch it. I couldn’t think of anything better to do, so I joined him back at his seat near the middle of the room.

It made perfect sense for someone like Grant to have adored Nader in 2000. He was a lone figure in politics, a man who dared to challenge a system that was only interested in raising money for itself. Not even the Democrats had thought that George W. Bush, the GOP’s “uniter,” would be as right-wing as he was starting to appear. The stakes in 2000 just hadn’t seemed that high.

A young woman sat down on the other side of Grant. To my surprise, she recognized me. It was Selena Davis, a part-time aide of Judy Nicastro’s, a freshman city council member whose narrowly successful campaign Grant had worked on in 1999. I had met Selena the year before, when she had considered moving into a room in my house. She had seemed poised and mature for someone in her early 20s, and she had told me at that time that she was interested in politics, but I hadn’t realized that had meant joining these sycophants. I forgot our predicament and started to chatter away.

But she cut me off.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Grant. “I didn’t realize who you were. I’m not supposed to be seen with you.” Then she got up and moved to a seat toward the back.

The meeting came to order. The president of the King County Young Democrats noted with pride how many candidates were present—the packed room was now about 60 percent candidates, 20 percent campaign managers, and 20 percent Young Dems—so she had to regretfully inform us that candidate speeches would be strictly limited to two minutes.

The first person to go up was Dave Reichert, the King County Sheriff seeking reelection. Tall and iron haired, he looked like a deputized extra from Gunsmoke. He gave a forgettable song and dance about how it was good to be the people’s sheriff. Then he entertained questions.

“Are you a Republican or are you a Democrat?” someone asked, rather archly.

Reichert responded with evasive condescension “This is a nonpartisan race,” he said, and added that he didn’t think it was a good idea to be inserting politics into such a vital law-enforcement post. The Young Dems badgered him again about his party affiliation—and Reichert evaded them again. The longer I sat through this clumsy attempt to root out the sheriff’s political bent, the more I longed to start laughing at everyone in the room. I realized in that moment how deeply six years’ experience as an alternative-weekly reporter had affected my personality: I didn’t know how to behave at public meetings. I had learned to snicker or talk out loud whenever I found something funny or irritating.

“Are you a Democrat or are you a Republican?” someone repeated.

It was no secret that the sheriff held predominately conservative values. But who cared? Wasn’t his job to enforce the law? Wouldn’t the time be better spent asking about more relevant issues, such as “What do you feel are the sheriff’s department’s biggest priorities in the coming year?” or “How do you feel about racial profiling?” or even “Why haven’t you caught the Green River Killer yet?”

More important, what were they going to do to Grant when his turn came?

We were only eight minutes into the meeting and I was already about to implode. I squirmed. My face grew flush and hot and I started to make small mewing noises. To salvage a little self-respect, I forced my vocal chords to change the noise into a sentence. “Ask him if he voted for Gore or Bush,” I bleated.

Four or five people heard me. Grant scowled at the chair in front of him. I bit down on my tongue as hard as I could. It hurt.

Grant’s turn came. He moved to the front of the room. With only 120 seconds to establish his political worldview and describe his ideas for change, he plunged into it by criticizing McIver and light rail, and promoting monorail, the mass-transit system he had advocated since the mid-’90s. He tried to save his explanation about the Nader quote for last.

“Time!” someone called.

“…and I really wish someone would ask me about that little piece of paper that’s up at the front table there.” He tried to cover his frustration with a grin, but he could only manage a contorted scowl.

No one, however, asked about the little piece of paper that was on the front table. Everyone was looking at Grant and smiling, for a host of different reasons. As soon as his turn was over we fled. We found out later that he didn’t get a single vote in the straw poll.

And then things got worse.

At the 11th District Democratic pre-endorsement picnic, Grant frantically trailed Paul Elliott, our opponent’s campaign manager, as he showed the quote to that district’s members. Between bites of hot dogs and corn on the cob, the Dems nodded disappointedly. Nobody asked Grant about his policy ideas, and Grant lost the endorsement.

At the 36th District Democratic meeting we didn’t see it either coming or going. News of the quote had gotten there ahead of us, having spread like an airborne virus, and Grant lost the endorsement.

They were openly hostile in the predominately black Central District, home of the 37th District Democrats. The revelation of Grant’s Nader support was followed by yelling and shouting—“Ralph Nader is not welcome here!” Nobody asked Grant about any of the issues, including how his ideas might affect Seattle’s minorities. Grant lost the endorsement.

At the 34th District Democratic endorsement meeting, Grant’s frustration began to show.

“This isn’t working,” he said. “We have got to do something before we lose another endorsement. I’ll take this side of the room, and you work that side over there. We need to talk directly to the individual district members.”

Scouting around, I spotted what appeared to be a friendly, elderly couple. “Excuse me,” I said. “I’d like to tell you a little bit about my candidate, Grant Cogswell.”

“Who?” the old man rasped.

“Grant Cogswell!” I shouted, noticing his hearing aide. It was behind the oxygen mask.

“Oh. Who’s he running against?” the man asked.

“Richard McIver!”

“Is that the colored guy?!” he shouted. “No! We can’t vote against the colored guy! There needs to be at least one of those!”

Stunned by this inverted bit of political correctness, I sat down and contemplated the ends of my shoes. Here was a side of Seattle I didn’t see very often. Before I could stand up again, the meeting was called to order. Grant lost that endorsement too.

There was no particular reason to suspect that anything worse than usual would happen at the 46th District Democrats, an organization located in the north-central part of Seattle. I knew nearly nothing about that area of town, except that it was less dense than Capitol Hill and more centrist in its politics. I assumed that it was also wealthier. Grant’s girlfriend Tara hopped in the car with us and we headed north together from Capitol Hill.

Once there, in a cafeteria-type room in a generic meeting hall, we learned that the candidates were not allowed to speak for themselves. At least one member had to give a speech for the candidate, with another member seconding the endorsement speech with a shorter speech. It felt like we had stepped into a low-rent country club.

Cleve Stockmeyer, a maverick attorney and veteran monorail activist, volunteered to speak for Grant. He made a ringing speech, arguing that Grant was a candidate with a vision. “Isn’t it time we had somebody who pushed for big ideas for a change?” he asked. Stockmeyer pulled the crowd gently toward us.

McIver had state Senator Ken Jacobsen, who was experienced in the hardball politics of the Olympia legislature. Jacobsen didn’t mince words. He went right for Grant’s throat.

So what, Jacobsen said, if McIver wasn’t a big-idea man? He fixed potholes and that counted for something. Pointing at Grant, Jacobsen said. “If Gore hadn’t been in Washington and Oregon trying to get the votes of those who voted for Nader, he would’ve been in Florida winning votes there.” He added: “Make no mistake—these people put George W. Bush in the White House, and now it’s time for payback!”

The applause was thunderous.

“Why the hell are we going through all this, anyway?” I asked Grant the next morning at Victrola Coffee and Art, our de facto campaign headquarters. “This is totally pointless. We’re investing all this time appealing to a group of people who are so overwhelmed with pettiness that they can’t even ask you questions about real issues. This is a city council race, for fuck sakes!”

“Because this is how things are done,” Grant said tightly.

We tried to create an independent speaking tour for Grant. We didn’t have much success until Grant received permission from the owner of a popular outdoor theater to talk to his patrons for 10 or 15 minutes before The Wizard of Oz began. There would be several hundred people in attendance, more than all of the District Democratic meetings combined.

I didn’t drive Grant that night; I was too busy crunching some voter statistics we had just received. So Grant and Tara borrowed my car. Tara drove while Grant tried to think about what he would say to all of the families that he would be standing in front of.

They got to the theater with plenty of time before sundown, only to discover that the theater had moved the year before, and neither of them had any idea where it was now located.

Our volunteer coordinator called Grant’s cell phone, gave Grant the correct address, and urged him to hurry. The movie was going to start in five minutes, with or without him.

Grant, thinking that the theater was just around the corner, abandoned Tara and the Geo and broke into a run, but he was wrong. He screamed into his cell phone for directions, and Hal yelled back, until neither could understand the other. Grant was drenched in sweat, but he kept running.

“Christ!” Grant said. “You know, just forget it. Forget it! I’m not going to be able to give a good speech even if I got there now!” He hung up on Hal.

Grant looked up to see Tara approaching him in the Geo. Not knowing what else to do, he took his anger out on my car. He planted his foot right into the car’s fading red metal, throwing his whole body into it. He kicked it five or six times in all.

The frame of my Geo gave with an abrupt popping noise. Tara yelled and Grant stopped, suddenly conscious of what he was doing. He thought the car would elastically retain its shape, the way a crushed plastic two-liter bottle of Coke pops back when it’s filled with enough air. The Geo’s rear cheek, however, never undimpled. It was a low moment in the campaign. We could never have anticipated how much worse things were going to get.

Excerpted from Zioncheck for President: A True Story of Idealism and Madness in American Politics by Phil Campbell.

Phil Campbell will be reading at the Elliott Bay Book Company Fri Oct 21 at 7:30 pm.