A lone Democrat makes last stand in Chelan County
If Hunter loses his re-election bid Tuesday to the Chelan County Commission, there won't be a Democrat left in county government for the first time in 50 years.
Just as the state's urban cores have become solidly Democratic, Eastern Washington is firmly in the control of Republicans.
Only a bit more than 1 percent of the state lives in the nearly 3,000 square miles of Chelan County. But one-party control here would be a stark symbol of the state's partisan regionalism, which is already split east-west along a deeply divided political landscape.
Tuesday's election is sure to harden that division. There are just two Republicans running in Seattle, a long list of Republicans running unopposed in Eastern Washington and a gasoline-tax proposal that could split along the Cascades.
For the most part, the political parties are more interested in putting money into a very few races seen as winnable in swing districts than in trying to reverse the trend that has split the state along partisan lines.
And with the Legislature held by Democrats by the slimmest of margins, that strategy makes any major shift of power unlikely.
In Chelan County, Democrats are already hard to find in the courthouse: The auditor, assessor, clerk, treasurer and sheriff are all Republicans, and none faces general-election challenges. In her office, the same goes for Dr. Gina Fino, the county's elected coroner. (She used to be a Democrat but switched last year, ending the Democratic lock on the job.)
"I really was very much supported by the Democratic Party," Fino said the other day. "But it felt really strange being a Democrat in Eastern Washington."
It's getting stranger.
There are four Democrats in the Legislature from Eastern Washington. Three are from a bit of Spokane that — with the addition of a statue of Vladimir Lenin or a rocket — could pass as Seattle's Fremont neighborhood.
Democrats have been dropping from county positions like overripe fruit.
"It just became socially unacceptable to be a Democrat," said Jim Lynch. He is a 76-year-old recently retired attorney, former Wenatchee mayor, former judge, former county commissioner, and — don't let this get around — unreconstructed, unabashed, old-fashioned Democrat.
"At a party, when I tell people I'm a Democrat, they have one of two reactions," Lynch said. "Number one, they immediately terminate the conversation and walk away quickly, or they look over their shoulder to make sure no one is listening and then they say, quietly, 'I agree with you.' "
Democrats who do enlist for the fight do so largely without party support.
"The state party did send two $500 checks," Hunter said. "But mostly I get sympathy.
"I tell them (the party), 'I can't give you a majority of the commission, but I can win.' "
News rallies some
The fruit business — his company sold supplies to growers — brought Hunter to north-central Washington in 1976 from North Carolina. He has a touch of something Southern in his voice, and he has the right silver/gray hair and square jaw for campaign photos.
He first ran for office in 1988, winning a seat on the Cashmere City Council. Cashmere, he said, is the most conservative city in this conservative county.
It was a nonpartisan race, but he said everyone knew he was a Democrat. He served two terms and then one as mayor.
In 1999, he was elected to the three-person County Commission, unseating a Republican incumbent. Hunter was part of a movement to moderate a County Commission that had been sanctioned by the state for ignoring growth-management rules and generally running to the right.
Part of Hunter's campaign pitch is that he provides the only partisan balance on the commission. Really, in county government at all.
He said that since The Wenatchee World recently pointed out his defeat would mean no Democrats in office for the first time in 50 years, it rallied Democrats — 40 showed up for a meeting last week — and some moderate Republicans. They told him, privately, they wanted him on the commission to balance more conservative Republicans.
If Hunter loses, the all-Republican county government sworn in this January would be the first without Democrats since 1953, agreed election director Skip Moore.
GOP is mainstream
Keith Goehner, a pear grower, is the Republican trying to unseat Hunter. Goehner, making his first partisan run for office, doesn't worry about Democratic balance.
"Republicans are a reflection of the mainstream thought in the area," said Goehner, a former Dryden school-board member.
Goehner said that's because Democrats are identified as supporters of more government, which conflicts with the "independent spirit in the rural area."
The Chelan County Republican Party chairman, Del Vanderhoff, summed up the Democratic platform this way: "They're pushing for unionism and PAC (political action committee) moneys and supporting removal of the dams and supporting same-sex marriages."
But the big fights here are over land use and natural resources.
"We're just getting hammered by this Endangered Species Act," said Vanderhoff.
He also said the state growth-management and shoreline-protection laws "are out of balance" and wreaking havoc on growers.
Democrats unable to rebuild
No one here knows for sure why Democrats have been disappearing. In the 1980s, they had strong presence in the east.
"I remember thinking Republicans needed a special permit to drive through Grant County," said House Minority Leader Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee.
He can list 10 or 12 areas that once sent Democrats to Olympia. But the Republican landslide in 1994 wiped out most, and Democrats have been unable to rebuild.
Lynch, the retired attorney, thinks the change started in the 1980s, with the appeal of Ronald Reagan. Southerners who had trekked to Washington's fertile ground in the Depression felt the tug of Reagan's message and gave up their New Deal roots for the Republican revolution.
Lynch is Hunter's campaign treasurer. While his political career is past, he wants to save the last Democratic voice in Chelan County.
"Sooner or later, a bad thing is going to happen because there won't be anyone to point the finger," he said.
Even some Republicans worry.
"I think the two-party system exists for a reason, particularly in terms of local county government," said Fino, the coroner. "Now that we have a Republican-exclusive government, I think it's much better to have those opposing voices represented. The party may fall into a sense of complacency just because no one will argue with anyone anymore."
GOP chief Vanderhoff joked: "I thought of sending the Democrats a little contribution. It would be helpful if the Democrat Party was organized and had some people to run so we could have the debate we should be having."
Instead, that debate happens among Republicans. The two-party system in Chelan County is now Republicans and more conservative Republicans.
Hunter said he feels a bit of an extra burden, now that he is the last Democrat standing. But he's counting on Democratic and moderate Republican voters to preserve his voice.
"We do a lot in this area to protect endangered species," he said.
David Postman: 360-943-9882 and dpostman@seattletimes.com.