We begin today with a fascinating profile of Christine Gregoire, Washington attorney general and the favorite to win the Democratic nomination for governor. Just before she was to join the Kappa Delta sorority at the University of Washington in 1966, Ralph Thomas reports, she learned it was a white- and Christian-only sorority.
She joined anyway.
"Gregoire says she considered walking away, but as much as she disagreed with the policy, she decided she couldn't do anything about it by quitting. Instead, she dived into sorority life, became Kappa Delta president at UW, and after graduation tried to persuade the sorority's national conference to drop the rule. 'That was always her motto: 'If you see something wrong with the system, change it from within because you can always do more good that way,' ' said Annette (Faber) Slaybaugh, a sorority sister who remains a close friend."
"King County Councilman Larry Gossett, who was president of UW's Black Student Union at the same time Gregoire was president of Kappa Delta, says Gregoire's brand of activism was a toothless response to racism. 'If we had listened to the kind of logic that Christine Gregoire was putting forth, it would've been another 20 years before we saw any significant gains,' said Gossett," who supports Gregoire's Democratic opponent Ron Sims.
Aside from being all white and all Christian, this is what Kappa Delta was like, Thomas reports:
"The sorority had a strict curfew, a drinking ban and a 'beau room' downstairs, the only place in the house where boys were allowed. At the time, members had to wear skirts or dresses on campus. Gregoire served as 'standards chairwoman,' helping enforce the house rules, moved up to secretary/treasurer, then president her senior year. As president, she oversaw day-to-day operations and had to play the dual role of personal counselor and chief enforcer to the sorority's 100 or so members."
After she graduated, Gregoire offered a resolution at the sorority's national convention that would have ended discrimination. It didn't make the ballot, and the discrimination continued for many years, though, oddly, no one seems to know when it ended precisely. (This evasion by the national sorority people was particularly galling to this reader. They don't write these things down? Admit your shame and move on.)
More pressing, however, is how this story, which is sure to get a ton of TV play today, will impact the race. Will it drive up African-American turnout for Ron Sims? If Gregoire wins the primary against Sims, will liberals, blacks and Sims supporters stay home, unexcited by a Gregoire candidacy?
In other words, will Democrats be unexcited by Gregoire's brand of incremental, within-the-system leadership and change? And will a low Democratic turnout for the governor's race affect the senate, presidential, 8th and 5th Congressional and state house and senate races? Or, will moderates and conservatives like Gregoire's nonconfrontational leadership style, as evidenced by this episode from Kappa Delta?
Stay tuned.
Swift Boat Controversy
The New York Times reports that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry is releasing an ad accusing President Bush of being behind the recent attacks on Kerry's Vietnam service record.
Last week The New York Times documented ties between longtime Bush backers, Karl Rove -- his chief political adviser -- and the anti-Kerry swift boat group. The Bush campaign calls the charge libel and has sent a letter to local TV affiliates who are thinking of selling airtime for the ad.
This campaign is getting very ugly, very quickly. Sen. Bob Dole got in the act, calling Kerry's Purple Heart wounds "superficial" and suggesting Kerry ought to apologize to Vietnam vets given his Senate testimony 30-some years ago, when he said war crimes were rampant there.
Dole: "I mean, one day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons. The next day he's standing there, 'I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran.' ''
Who sent out Dole (long known as a Republican hatchet man)? Who provided the talking points? Interesting questions, unasked by Wolf Blitzer on CNN last night.
Dole went on to say he thinks Kerry is currently winning the race.
Here's an unnamed Democratic strategist: "When you're basically running on your biography and there are ongoing attacks that are undermining the credibility of your biography, you have a really big problem."
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