I know everyone else on earth has already written about Republican Susan Hutchison’s press conference this afternoon—a rare sighting of the King County Executive candidate—but I’ve been drinking Manhattans until just a few minutes ago.

Hutchison summoned cameras and reporters to the unlikeliest of locations for an unamplified speech: the corner of 3rd Avenue and University Street, AKA, the loudest bus corridor in all of Seattle. Every time she would begin a sentence, a bus—or two or three or more buses—would roar past, drowning her out. Here’s an example of my notes: When asked to clarify her plans to trim staff in the executive’s office, she said, “There are about 30 in the executive office, but I can’t tell you how many of those [BUS!!!].” One assumes she was explaining that she didn’t know how many staffers she would cut. But who knows? The location was an ideal metaphor for Hutchison’s campaign, which has attempted to obfuscate her right-wing leanings, hide from the public, and, when she does show up at public forums, avoid speaking as much as possible. Today, she finally announced her grand plans for fixing King County’s budget problems—and she picked the one place in Seattle where you couldn’t hear her.

Hutchison led her manifesto by talking about a state audit released last week that found the county lacked adequate mechanisms for accountability, tracking construction projects, and managing revenue. The news is so old, in campaign timelines, that it may as well have been etched into tablets. She wants the county to increase reporting and beef up the county auditor’s role. By repairing inefficiencies in government, Hutchison posits, we would reconcile the county’s massive shortfall of the general fund—over $50 million next year. When asked if that was enough—if this would require cutting human services or raising the sales tax—she took a defensive tone and suggested a public vote on a human services tax levy. This is the same sort of pennywise-pound-foolish, right-wing thinking that the county has long dismissed. Voters probably don’t want to pay extra on health care and other services for the poor, if you ask them. But providing preventative care and housing up front avoids exorbitant payouts for emergency services down the road.

Democratic candidates for King County Executive Larry Phillips and Dow Constantine showed up at the press conference, too. “I’m not in the habit of attending other candidate’s press conferences,” said Phillips. “But Susan won’t come out and debate the issues.” She has skipped the previous nights environmental forum, which she explained by saying she had “personal commitments.” She also denied that giving thousands of dollars to Republican candidates (such as the $2,075 to Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi) in years past indicated she is a Republican. “I’ve never given huge sums to candidates,” she insisted.