STROKING THE BASE - Sims Veers Left at Democratic Convention

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STROKING THE BASE
Sims Veers Left at Democratic Convention
by Sandeep Kaushik


RON SIMS: Eying Eyman -- and the
liberal electorate

The lights dimmed in the crowded hall at the Sheraton Tacoma, where last Saturday 1,500 of Washington State's Democratic activists expectantly awaited rallying cries from the first of the party's gubernatorial candidates. Confetti and streamers fell. A spotlight played over the crowd. To the sound of martial drumming, a small army of Attorney General Christine Gregoire's foot soldiers, hoisting tall poles adorned with Gregoire placards like battlefield banners, streamed up to the stage, where their queen looked on with a we-are-well-pleased expression.

But King County Executive Ron Sims was clearly determined not to be outdone by his opponent's pageantry. When his turn came, a throbbing tribal beat, more African juju than Scottish war clan, filled the auditorium. The audience began to clap rhythmically as a crew from the Alpha Phi Alpha step team performed a synchronized hiphop dance routine. Two elaborately costumed ranks of young Asian women--the Filipino Youth Activities Drill Team--marched into the hall in regimented lockstep, followed by a large posse of Sims partisans. Their chieftain, standing at the podium, raised his fist in the air, gyrating it wildly.

In the battle of the floor shows, Sims won. Indeed, if you knew nothing about the governor's race except what transpired in the room, you would have exited thinking Sims was the frontrunner, Gregoire his pesky opponent. Sims roused the unrepresentative crowd of hardcore Democratic partisans with a barn-burning speech that deployed the emotive cadences of Baptist pulpit tub-thumping in the service of triumphalist liberal rhetoric.

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