Cantwell, and the Democrats' Iraq disaffection

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

SEATTLE - Fortune is smiling on Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell: there’s no Ned Lamont in the state of Washington.

Like her Democratic colleague, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Cantwell voted to authorize President Bush to use military force in Iraq; like Lieberman, she has rankled many Democrats in her state by continuing to support the Iraq deployment.

But unlike Connecticut, where Lamont beat Lieberman in the Aug. 8 primary, there was no wealthy anti-Iraq war Democrat here who was willing to invest $4 million of his own money to defeat Cantwell in the Sept. 19 primary.

“Boy, if there had been,” Cantwell would have been in jeopardy, said Democratic National Committee member and long-time Washington state Democratic leader Karen Marchioro.

“You could have a fundraiser with all the Microsoft people who must be kicking themselves by not seeing what happened in Connecticut (with Lamont’s defeat of Lieberman). How many people are just saying, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’”

Interactive 2006 key races The races to watch.

Cantwell does have a poorly-financed Democratic primary opponent, Hong Tran, but the senator is expected to win easily and then go on to face Republican candidate Mike McGavick, a former Senate aide and ex-chief executive of the Safeco insurance firm, in the November election.

Despite some grassroots Democratic frustration with Cantwell over Iraq, “people do not want to lose this seat. It’s too scary,” Marchioro said. “People are beginning to figure out that they’re not going to gain anything as far as the war, or anything else” if Cantwell loses to McGavick. “Maria is beginning to pick up here.”

Lukewarm electorate
This state’s electorate has never been passionately fond of Cantwell – she won her seat six years ago by a mere 2,200 votes, or less than one-tenth of one percent.

But she touts her work on battling Enron’s treatment of Washington state utility customers, her pro-environmental protection record and her provision in last year’s energy bill that subsidizes cellulosic ethanol (produced from things such as forestry residues, trees and grasses.)

Some observers have pegged the Cantwell race – and the New Jersey race where Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez faces a credible challenge from Republican Tom Kean Jr. -- as the only two Senate contests out of all 34 this fall where the GOP could take away a Democratic-held seat.

But how good are McGavick’s chances really?

He seems to have chosen the worst possible year to run in a state which Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry won two years ago by more than 200,000 votes: a year in which the Iraq war and President Bush are unpopular.

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