Obama to campaign hard in Democrat-leaning state

It's been 24 years since Washington state went Republican in a presidential election, but Barack Obama's top campaign staffers aren't taking the Evergreen State for granted.

A chief Obama strategist told statewide media Monday that the Democratic Illinois senator likely won't win the presidency "without a vigorous campaign in Washington state."

The comment, from Obama national political director Patrick Gaspard in Chicago, came during a statewide conference call with reporters. State campaign director Carol Albert also participated in the call from Seattle.

"We have put together a new type of campaign, one that puts change right in the hands of people in Washington state," Albert said.

It's the same plan the Obama campaign is using in other states: a growing network of volunteers forged by a combination of old-fashioned grass-roots efforts and Internet technology. There are 18 field offices, including the Yakima Democratic Party office at 1101B W. Yakima Ave., from which volunteers will make campaign calls and organize events.

And, there's the networking Web site www.mybarackobama.com, a new tool in grass-roots campaigning. The site allows supporters to participate in Obama's "neighbor to neighbor" program, through which they can get lists of voters in the area to contact.

Albert also touted the state Democratic Party's $95,000 Latino Vote Project, which has paid staffers in Yakima and the Tri-Cities working to get out the Latino vote on behalf of candidates up and down the Democratic ticket.

Obama's opponent, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., however, is not ready to concede the historically Democratic state. Although he's unlikely to have as many as Obama, McCain's campaign is still setting up offices in Washington and has had volunteers working for months now, said Rick Gorka, a spokesman for McCain in the western United States.

Gorka, speaking from his office in Nevada, said he's confident McCain's history of working across the political aisle and his support of gun rights and other conservative causes appeal to voters.

"Obama's using these huge numbers of offices because he has to. ... He has to spend an incredible amount of resources," Gorka said.

* Pat Muir can be reached at 577-7693 or pmuir@yakimaherald.com.

Vote Smart bus in Yakima today

Project Vote Smart's national bus tour will make a stop in Yakima today to showcase the culmination of 16 years of work developing the "voter's self-defense system."

The system is a nonpartisan, grass-roots effort to provide accurate and unbiased information about political candidates. Project Vote Smart aims to strengthen the "most essential component of democracy -- access to information."

The bus will be at Top Food and Drug, 2203 S. First St., from 2 until 6 p.m. The Yakima stop is hosted by the League of Women Voters of Yakima County.