The-Ave.US

This Saturday I attended a Seattle Obama organization rally.

I do not think many Romney supporters would have been comfortable there .. too Christian for them!

The best part was the church … MLK Memorial Baptist in Renton.  The singer (to the left) was awesome!

Rev. Herbert J. Carey

The church folk were terrific, making everyone feel welcome. This was good because as a non Christian I am always uncomfortable at political meetings held under the power of the cross!  Non Jews may not understand, but Christians have a way of making us others very uncomfortable … not so here!

The other great thing was Deval Patrick.  The Governor of Massachusetts was the invited speaker.  I was greatly surprised.  This man is impressive.  Deval Patrick gave the Barack Obama speech but with a personal relevance I have not heard even from the the President.

Deval Patrick has amazing  cultural depth. He reached into his own origins … from the slums of Chicago to the Coca Cola corporate lawyer offices.  Patrick talked to a very divers crowd with Euro Americans, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics … teachers, Microsofties, UW Profs, …. somehow he brought everyone together in this Black church.

If I had to sum up the speech it had to do with opportunity …. opportunity for education, opportunity to achieve.  Patrick even hit the unique Seattle issue of opportunities for educated immigrants working at Microsoft and Boeing.  Any hard working American would recognize this theme.

The other speakers were Ron Sims and Chris Gregoire.

Ron and Chris were .. as always .. more geeks than politicians lacking the rhetorical power Patrick showed. I value the Seattle geeks but wish they had Deval ‘s charisma!

Chris Gregoire and Ron Sims applaud Duvall Patrick

The contrast between Patrick in a Black Church and the usual Seattle politicians  gave me pause,  Was this meant as a a get-out the vote meting for the “Black” community? Did the Obama campaign bring Patrick here because of his skin?

If this was “get out the black vote” rally, I think the Obamas misunderstood Seattle.  Deval Patrick would have been great speaking in Redmond!

Why is Seattle so damn segregated when it comes to politics?  The Dems pushed for reorganizing our local congressional map to create a district for “people of color” … including this church!  Weirdly, the Democrats seem to think Somalis, African Americans, Sephardic Jews, Asian immigrants, Microsoft workers, and Costa Ricans all share some property.  I wonder what that might be?

For that matter where was Adam Smith?  Congressman  Smith was redistricted so he now relieves Dave Riechert, a Republican, of the need to win votes from Renton.

Oh well, I doubt that Mr. Romney or his campaign will show up at this church.

I was less than impressed with the campaign representative.  He gave a speech that I would call too organized.  There was a whole spiel about “snowflakes” as a model for organizing ….zzzzz.  This reminds me an awful lot of 2008 when the Obama campaign parachuted into Seattle and piggy backed on Gregoire’s campaign.

First, as a political junkie … there was NO junk.  No buttons, no yard signs .. not even stickers.  The campaign made me wish I had invested a few hundred dollars in stuff I could sell!

So I left without campaign swag. 

I also noted that few if any of the local political press were present.  Deval Patrick deserved a better crowd!  There were a few photographers, but no one i recognized.  Certainly the usual Democrats from the Stranger, the PI, and the blogs were absent.

So, I left with no idea how I could help.  There was no effort at creating a local Obama community, no effort to work on local campaigns other than governor and little understanding of the demographics west of the Cascades.