Sharon Lambert has owned the Sport of Kings Barbershop for 27 years. She says it’s mostly her older customers who talk politics these days. And Lambert is confident most of them are pretty conservative.

But just like the assessment from national pundits and pollsters, Lambert’s more hands-on interaction with voters find little consensus among Republicans about a favorite for president.

“Pretty much everybody is up in a quandary as to what’s happening. Romney is the one I hear the most about, I guess. But I’m not getting a real pulse. … As soon as you think you have a favorite, they go and do something stupid.”

Lambert and Bandit.

This is fairly conservative territory. George Bush won Kittitas County twice. But it hasn’t always been so red. Bill Clinton won the county by a bit in 1996 and by a bunch in 1992. This piece of the state from the Cascades to the Columbia is something of a mixing zone between the deep blues and reds of Western and Eastern Washington.

With the experience now of hours in Ellensburg I’d say people here are a bit less enthralled with the presidential campaign then those in the big cities. Lambert says there’s a good reason for that.

“Those of us over here figure no matter what we do, it won’t make any difference. It seems like it’s up to Seattle.”

Lambert also figures that with the Electoral College choosing the president no one in Washington state really gets much of a say.

“I hate the electoral votes. It just makes you feel it doesn’t matter.”

Lambert voted for Bill Clinton and says she’s an independent who “votes the person, not the party. I’m not hard core anything.” But her Clinton ties don’t seem to carry over to Hillary Clinton. And she thinks the excitement surrounding Clinton and Barack Obama may not be lasting.

“I’m not sure our country has progressed enough to elect a woman or a black.”

Down the icy street at the Dakota Cafe, Kelley Cook is plenty excited about Hillary Clinton. With her quick and easy laugh she tells me that when people notice her recent haircut she asks, “Oh, do I look like Hillary now?”

Cook and her husband, Mitch, own the cafe. I’m there now working on my bottomless cup of coffee and borrowing a bit of their bandwidth. Cook is something of a fish out of water. She describes Ellensburg as “right-wing” and heavily influenced by Christian conservatives. She's a Democrat who will be relieved when George Bush leaves office.

Cook was raised in White Center. She went to college at Central Washington University just down the street. Her parents retired here and 10 years ago she and Mitch followed to open their business.

She’s unabashedly supporting Clinton. Actually, I guess it’s somewhat abashedly because Cook as a business owner in a small town she doesn’t want to offend anyone and won’t put up any campaign signs, either here or at home.

“For me, this is historical. We could have a woman president. Why, in what is supposed to be the most progressive country in the world, hasn’t that happened?”

As for Clinton herself, Cook says:

“She’s just so intelligent. I think she has demonstrated, with Bill’s shoddy past, that she has staying power. She persevered, and a lot of women have faced that, but unfortunately I think she gets dismissed because she is a woman.”

I asked her if people are excited about the campaign. But she says that given that most here are Republican who assume a Democrat will win in November:

“I think it’s more dread then excitement.”