There's something about Tiffany Smiley... Washington state's GOP Senate candidate has a certain je-ne-said-quoi and the kind of moxie that people find very appealing in a candidate and a spouse. She has an IT factor that even Democrats can see -and fear.

  

There's something about Tiffany Smiley... Washington state's GOP Senate candidate has a certain je-ne-said-quoi and the kind of moxie that people find very appealing in a candidate and a spouse. She has an IT factor that even Democrats can see -and fear.

Well, it would indeed be an understatement for me to say this afternoon that I will, literally, have a FLOOD of very interesting, compelling and worthwhile pieces for you to read and ponder here on the blog over the next four weeks before the 2022 General Election finally arrives. Not only issues and races here in South Florida, the Sunshine State, but emerging ones or under-the-radar developing trends or personalities across the USA that you should be keeping your eyes on.

Today I'm sharing a few words about Tiffany Smiley, the GOP Senate candidate from Washington state. She is a remarkable woman whom I had only heard positive words about this summer. She upped that estimation by making a VERY positive first impression on me when I finally heard her LIVE. Apparently, judging by the polls coming out of distant Washington, with Seattle being a nice 3,300-plus miles drive from Miami, many other people across the country over the past week are NOW thinking about her prospects a LOT more seriously. People I know and respect and who are, themselves, about as devout and informed a news junkie and political addict as myself.

That sort of positive reaction makes me think my intuition about Smiley is correct and that the dynamic of the race is changing in her favor.

If you follow me regularly on my popular Twitter platform, @hbbtruth, you know that I've shared dozens of tweets and articles about interesting political personalities around the country I have "discovered" over the past year or so. Mostly novice candidates who have interesting or original backstories, and not the usual career politician or political family's latest legacy project, which I am no fan of for either Democrats or Republicans.

That said, in my opinion, Tiffany Smiley has made what I believe is by far the best candidate media appearance I've seen or heard in 2022, via the nationally-syndicated Clay Travis and Buck Sexton radio show this past Wednesday.

(Keep in mind that I have not watched C-SPAN in many months, which is something I thought I'd never say back when I used to watch 10-15 hours of it a week, so...)
 
Tiffany Smiley Is Winning Her Battle with Woke Seattle Corporations
Transcript of her October 5th appearance and links to some selected campaign videos therein.
https://www.clayandbuck.com/tiffany-smiley-is-winning-her-battle-with-woke-seattle-corporations/

In my informed opinion, Tiffany Smiley was, by turns, articulate, friendly and engaging, reasonable, calm and is genuinely interested in solving problems, not having problems that she can use to raise money from, a common trap among new GOP members who want to fit in.

She definitely did NOT sound like a jaded DC GOP political consultant captured by one of the usual interest groups that have long dominated the Republican Party at the national level, to the dismay of the GOP voters across the nation who believe in solutions, not endless policy debates about ten-point plans that take... five years. Yes, she sounds like an old-fashioned problem-solver.

(Keep in mind you newcomers to the blog that when I first moved to Washington, D.C. in the Winter of 1988, driving up on Super Tuesday in March after voting in the Florida primary, my first home there was just 5 blocks due east of the Capitol Building itself, and less than 200 feet from the sweet house of New York Senator Pat Moynihan.

I lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area for almost 15 years, spending LOTS and LOTS of time every week on Capitol Hill. So much that I knew many of the most veteran Capitol Police officers by name AND face, knew all the Hill building/walking shortcuts, and sort of had a working mini-directory in my head for members and committees and staffers. I could tell you which House cafeteria was best at certain times of the day -too crowded versus too empty- and which Library of Congress copier machine in each of the three LOC buildings east and south of the capitol were dependable, and which ones were a lot like slot machines that would just cause you to lose your money with no chance of a payoff.)

I first met then Washington state Senator Patty Murray in 1992 while she was the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate for Washington state running against GOP House member Rod Chandler, a largely-unknown member outside of the Pacific Northwest, in the year after Incumbent Democratic Senator  Brock Adams chose not to run for re-election because of a very ugly sexual assault scandal.

Back in 1992, among other things, I was doing some work at Roll Call Newspaper, the twice-weekly tabloid-sized newspaper owned at the time by the former Chairman of the SEC. It covered Capitol Hill alone until The Hill came along years later. One afternoon it somehow fell to me to keep Patty Murray, the so-called "Mom in Tennis Shoes" amused and entertained for a bit while she waited for her important interview with Charlie Cook for The Cook Political Report.

This was back when he and his team of political campaign experts used to also be located in the same suite of offices as Roll Call, near Union Station, off of NE 1st Avenue, just a few blocks from the three Senate Office buildings: Russell, Dirksen and Hart.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, long story short, for decades Charlie Cook's analysis of a candidate's responses to his questions and their strategy/race tactics could literally change the popular perception to the national and state news media of what that candidate had been doing and saying for months, OVERNIGHT, if he was positively persuaded by what they had to say.

The reason for that is that important and well-heeled donors in both parties subscribed and paid real money to The Cook Political Report, and had learned to implicitly trust his judgment in 1,001 ways that they did NOT trust regular newspaper reporters or columnists, no matter how well-regarded.

His opinion could change the perception of a race from uncompetitive blowout to lean R or lean D to toss-up.

Well, long story short, Murray won her 1992 election and has been in the U.S. Senate for 30 years, 5 terms already.
Which is quite a lot for a female senator, though few will say that aloud, and of course, that brings on all sorts of questions about her energy levels and her ability to do the job as well as she once did, just as would be true with male senators who have been around as long as Murray.

Are they going thru the motions and cutting corners and tuning different POVs out?

But not every 30-year Senator has someone running against them with the kind of positive qualities, natural appeal and charism as Tiffany Smiley, while Murray is saddled with a a president of her own party polling in the mid-thirties range even in a Democratic-run state like Washington.

For months, even the Democratic-leaning Seattle Times' poll showed that more than twice as many Washington voters said they strongly disapprove of Biden’s job performance than said they strongly approve of him.

If you were to ask me who my super-strong political intuition feels is the most-likely Republican Senate candidate to wage an amazing upset over a longtime Democratic Party incumbent, I would say Tiffany Smiley.
IF she gets the kind of money she needs right now to make the moves that are necessary to win.

I really DO hope that is the case.

I strongly encourage you to not only listen to her interview above, but also read these two pieces from the past month.

Yahoo! News
Tiffany Smiley Would Be the GOP’s New Star, but She’s in the Wrong State
By Eleanor Clift
September 17, 2022

https://news.yahoo.com/tiffany-smiley-gop-star-she-000346765.html

Wall Street Journal
Corporate dirty pool in Seattle
How the Seattle Times, Starbucks, and Seattle Seahawks are going after Tiffany Smiley... to the benefit of Patty Murray.
Potomac Watch column
by Kimberly Strassel
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=134925755951584&set=ecnf.100063465825750

Campaign Website: https://www.smileyforwashington.com/

Campaign Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SmileyForWashington

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SmileyForWA/with_replies

Latest tweets about Tiffany: https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Tiffany%20Smiley%22&src=typed_query&f=live

Dave 

David B. Smith  

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