(Washington) "State could turn into big player"

Seattle P-I:

New front-runners might give our caucuses more sway--Whatever else they mean, the deck-shuffling results of the Iowa caucuses greatly increase the chance that Washington state voters might actually play a role in February in determining who gets nominated for president, both Democratic and Republican state party leaders said Friday.

And Thursday's big winners -- Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat Barack Obama -- could find that the support among religious conservatives (in Huckabee's case) and young voters (for Obama) that boosted them in Iowa could fuel their campaigns in Washington as well.

Both GOP state Chairman Luke Esser and his Democratic counterpart, Dwight Pelz, said the victories by Obama and Huckabee make it more likely that multiple candidates in each party will survive Super Tuesday on Feb. 5 -- and that they'll campaign in Seattle and around the state in the days leading up to Washington's caucuses on Feb. 9. Republican candidates, at least, may also come back for a campaign swing before the state primary on Feb. 19, Esser said.

The once-presumed front-runners in Iowa -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on the Republican side and Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York -- fell short in the Thursday caucuses, with Romney trailing Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, and Clinton finishing behind both Obama, a senator from Illinois, and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. Romney's stumble may have created an opening for two Republicans who campaigned little in Iowa -- Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani -- heading into the New Hampshire primary Tuesday.

"I tend to think it's going to be wide open for quite some time, that we're going to see different candidates winning different states and it's not going to settle out for quite some time," Esser said.

Pelz said much the same thing.

"I don't think it will be settled by Super Tuesday," Pelz said, "and we're the next big thing -- so I expect Democratic candidates to be out here campaigning on February 6th, 7th and 8th."

More than 20 states will conduct primaries or caucuses Feb. 5. Had Romney and Clinton won Iowa, the conventional thinking was that they could roll into Super Tuesday in the lead and lock up their nominations then.

Washington Democrats will look to their Feb. 9 caucuses in selecting 78 of their 97 delegates to the national nominating convention, with the balance going automatically to public officials and party leaders, along with two slots to be filled by Pelz.

The GOP will draw on the caucuses for 18 of its 40 national delegates. Esser and two other party leaders will fill three slots. The rest will be determined by the Feb. 19 primary, which the Democrats will ignore as far as delegation selection goes.

Three smaller states will also select delegates on Feb. 9: Kansas and Nebraska, with caucuses, and Louisiana, with a primary. Two smaller states -- Hawaii, with Democratic caucuses, and Wisconsin, with a primary -- take that step Feb. 19. That should give the Washington state events a relatively high profile.

Neither Esser nor Pelz is endorsing a candidate. A months-old poll showed Giuliani with a plurality of support among Washington state Republicans, Esser said. Although Pelz isn't aware of any party polling, he said most Democratic gatherings he attends in the state seem to divide evenly among Obama, Edwards and Clinton.

In Iowa, evangelical Christians are credited with giving Huckabee, a Baptist minister, much of the support that has boosted him from nonentity a few months ago to front-runner today. That bloc is less significant in Washington state Republican politics, Esser said, but it's not nonexistent.

Huckabee's Iowa win could galvanize the Christian right in Washington, some conservative leaders said.

"I think the fact that he has been somewhat fearless will be encouraging to evangelicals in this state," said the Rev. Alec Rowlands, president of Sound the Alarm, a group of clergy and business people that takes conservative positions on social issues.

"But if he were to become the front-runner nationally, the very thing that endears him to us would put him in the crosshairs of Democrats and many liberals."

Rowlands, who was pastor of a church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for seven years before coming to Westgate Chapel in Edmonds, said caucuses reward candidates with good organizations and committed supporters. But beyond that, Huckabee won because he took unabashed stands on hot-button issues such as abortion as well as poverty and the environment, Rowlands said.

Huckabee's win demonstrates the motivation of evangelicals to muster for the caucuses, said Larry Stickney, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington.

"I think that bodes well for Washington," he said. "I hope so, because we've had terrible turnouts in the past couple of years."

Though Huckabee "may not be the perfect conservative," he attracts Christian conservatives because "the pro-life, pro-family and religious-freedom issues are very much the values in voters' minds these days," Stickney said. His institute in Lynnwood is the state affiliate of Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based national ministry that takes conservative, biblical positions on social issues.

Neither Stickney's nor Rowlands' organization has made an endorsement in the presidential race.

For Obama, overwhelming support among younger Iowa voters apparently pushed him to the top -- and that trend may hold for him in Washington as well. At a recent meeting of the University of Washington Young Democrats, Obama easily finished first in an impromptu poll, Young Democrat member Matt Gilchrist said.

"What grabs me is his youth," Gilchrist, a senior, said (at 46, Obama is 14 years younger than Clinton and seven years younger than Edwards). "I think it's good to have fresh ideas and voices. And his way of speaking -- he really energizes people."

Kelly Drake, a Ballard resident and member of the King County Young Democrats, helped coordinate caucuses Thursday in Iowa, where she attended school.

"(Obama) is very aggressive in terms of getting out the young vote," Drake said. "I think that's something a lot of young voters respond to. It's like, 'Hey, we finally matter.' "

Seattle Pacific University student Troy Underbrink identifies with the GOP, but said he's happy with the results on both sides in Iowa.

While Romney is his first choice for president, Huckabee is a close second. And if a Democrat does have to win the November election, Underbrink said, he'd prefer Obama to Edwards or Clinton.

"I would be very happy if he won the nomination over Hillary," Underbrink said.

"At the same time, I don't particularly want him to be president."

Barack Obama