Basin Democrats prepare for their big night

Sold out dinner on Friday, state party meeting on Saturday mark milestone weekend for party faithful in Basin

MOSES LAKE — Although some questions remain unanswered, Basin Democrats are preparing for one of their biggest weekends of the year.

The state party's central committee will hold their quarterly meeting in Moses Lake this Saturday at the Hallmark Inn Hotel, but not before celebrating their candidates and their platforms with a fund-raiser on Friday night.

The 1400 building of Big Bend Community College will be the site of the sold-out dinner, where about 200 followers of the Party of Jefferson will listen to a lineup of speakers that, although as yet unconfirmed, is no less impressive for an area known as a Republican stronghold.

Ellen Webb, chairperson of the Democrats' Get Out The Vote initiative said that some of the names being shuffled include those of former Gov. Mike Lowry, state Supreme Court Justice Mary Kay Becker and either one of the two main gubernatorial candidates during the past primary elections, Ron Sims and state Attorney General Christine Gregoire.

Confirmation of these names was put on ice until scheduling issues were resolved, Webb said.

One of the few names confirmed to attend is that of Paul Berendt, the party's state chairman, as well as many Democrat activists and politicians from the Basin, including Brenda Teals and Tim Snead. Democratic candidates such as Dale Hubbard will talk as well.

Teals will offer a few introductory remarks about the history of the party in the Basin and the importance of Democratic policies in the construction of the dams.

Webb underscored the importance of the content of Teals' speech, saying the roots of Grant County are eminently Democratic.

"There would not even be a Grant County if it wasn't for the Democrats," she said, mentioning the dam-building policies of the Democratic administrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the furthering of these guidelines during the Johnson administration.

"Many people around here forget that, but many people got behind the dams," she said.

Teals said she was happy to put Moses Lake on the state Democratic Party's map. This is the first time the party holds its quarterly meeting in Moses Lake

Teals said this would be a good chance for Democratic leaders from the west side of the state to listen to the issues that worry the Democrats east of the Cascades.

"We want to introduce the other side of this to people who live over there," she said. "They always think about salmon and they have no idea about what the dams do in terms of economy to our side of the state."

As far as the impact of the dinner and the Democratic platform in a predominantly Republican area, Teals said that though numbers tilt the scale to the right, those on the Democratic side "had never been so active before.

"The Democrats are feeling really good," she said. "We have many young people being active and manning those tables."

The tables at the Big Bend Community College 1400 building will start being filled around 6 p.m. The event does not start until half an hour later with a no-host cocktail. At 7 p.m., the dinner starts.

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