Why Hillary Clinton has tanked twice in Washington's Democratic caucuses



less Hillary Clinton finally met the folks and worked a rope line last Tuesday at the Boeing Aerospace Machinists' hall in Everett. It was too late. The presidential candidate had kept her appearances here too private, for too long. Hillary Clinton finally met the folks and worked a rope line last Tuesday at the Boeing Aerospace Machinists' hall in Everett. It was too late. The presidential candidate had kept her appearances here too ... more Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Why Hillary Clinton has tanked twice in Washington's Democratic caucuses 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Not since Franklin D. Roosevelt was pushing construction of Grand Coulee Dam, and creating Olympic National Park, has any President paid as much attention to the Pacific Northwest as Bill Clinton.

The 42nd President came to the region 13 times during eight years in office, hosting Asia-Pacific summits and devoting days to the Northwest's forestry crisis and growth of its export economy. Hillary Clinton launched a health care caravan in Seattle and Portland.

The Clintons' courtship has come to a rough end -- twice.

Barack Obama overwhelmed Hillary Clinton in Washington's 2008 Democratic caucuses, and trounced her in the Oregon presidential primary.

Sen. Bernie Sanders won a landslide 72-percent victory Saturday, in a 2016 contest that saw Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton campaign in the state, and Clinton offices open even in such Bernie hotbeds as Bellingham.

How come?

After 25 years in presidential politics -- dating from a 1991 National Governors Association Conference in Seattle -- the Clintons have lost all trace of freshness. It could be seen in caucus discussions on Saturday.

"The people speaking for Bernie spoke of change and hope, while Hillary supporters spoke of foreign policy and electability," said Zak Meyer, a Western Washington University student, who came home to caucus in Seattle.

Big money's top-heavy role in politics has also resonated in Washington, as much or more than any place else in the country.

The Seattle City Council has called for overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous 2010 Citizens United decision, which threw open the doors to unlimited spending. Washington will vote on a repeal initiative this November.

Bernie Sanders caught this wave with vociferous, unceasing denunciations of billionaires' role in picking presidents and "owning" Congress.

The response: Seattle leads the nation in small donations to Sanders' campaign. When Sanders threw a fundraiser last August, it was a low-budget, $200 affair at the Comet Tavern.

By contrast, the Clintons have conspicuously gamed the system, engaging in the game of pay-to-play politics. Hillary Clinton's first, private appearance here came last June, a $2,700-a-person event at the Madison Park Home of Janet Wright Ketchum.

It was in keeping with other appearances in recent years.

Even when holding her first public event in Washington since 2008, Clinton spent time in a fundraiser hosted by Costco co-founder Jeff Brotman and wife Susan at which bundlers had raised up to $50,000 for the campaign.

Bill Clinton was memorably with the folks on visits here. He held giant Pike Place Market rallies, embarked on a bus tour through Southwest Washington. He spent hours of rope lines. With a microphone in his bus, the 42nd president even said, "Thank you for coming!" to a black lab sitting beside the highway.

Hillary Clinton has never mixed it. She is known for walking out of fundraisers, ignoring knots of neighbors, getting into a waiting SUV and staring straight ahead. The quick exit has been a Hillary trademark.

What was missing? The opportunity to connect.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi raises money in Seattle. She has, however, taken time to hold well-received forums on family and parental leave, and on the federal Equality Act that would forbid discrimination against LGBT citizens.

Hillary Clinton believes in these causes, has worked them since becoming involved in the Childrens Defense Fund nearly 40 years ago.

Clinton is, by her own admission, not a natural politician.

When forced, she's good at it. Clinton is lucid and vastly knowledgeable on such topics as climate change and its disastrous likely impact on America's coastlines from New York's Long Island to Puget Sound.

She has always been the more private and secretive Clinton, unlike her husband who cheerfully answered questions about his choice of underwear.

The nation has seen that secrecy spawn controversies from the family's money-losing Whitewater land investment in Arkansas to the use of a personal email at the State Department.

Washington has a history of savoring the new Democratic flavor of the moment. The state's Dems have embraced Howard Dean (2004) and both Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown when they ran against Bill Clinton in 1992.

All faded. With his pungent personality and powerful, unchanging speech, Bernie Sanders did not.

Sanders cared enough to come, starting in August and closing the deal with giant Palm Sunday and Good Friday rallies before the caucuses on Saturday.

Sanders showed why he is the most disciplined candidate of campaign 2016.

The 74-year-old Vermont senator stuck to his populist themes, evoking thunderous applause in pledging free public college tuition and declaring health care to be a right.

Ultimately, more than 230,000 people turned out for Saturday's caucuses, almost reaching the all time caucus turnout -- anywhere -- of 246,000 for the Obama-Clinton contest in 2008.

The caucuses yielded just 7,136 precinct delegates for Clinton, and 19,145 for Bernie Sanders, a candidate who started 11 months ago at 3 percent in the polls. He bested not only Clinton, but supporters including all eight Democrats in Washington's congressional delegation.

The Democrats' super delegates, and Hillary's own campaign, should take a long hard look at how the courtship of Washington ended in such rejection.

What does it say for Hillary Clinton as a general election candidate?