Last week, ETS! took a look at the travails and implosion of the state's Republican party, an outfit whose long-time embrace with both the lunatic Christian fringe and the very peaks of the corporate food chain has finally caught up with it.

The Republicans' series of embarrassments and squabbles, however much it serves to keep predators and crackpots out of office, is no real cause for celebration, however. That's because, in an electoral system that has made alternatives to the two major parties virtually impossible to elect, any positions not filled by Republicans are being filled by Democrats. And they've got their own problems.

Fortunately for conservatives, any difficulty Republicans are having in getting their agendas enacted is more than being compensated by the rush of top elected Democrats to embrace and claim the same agenda. While local party activists spend their time apologizing, each of the most visible Democrats in the state--Gary Locke (who wants to be Al Gore's running mate), Patty Murray (who wants to be Slade Gorton's pal for six more years), and Ron Sims (who wants Slade's seat in 2000)--sell out their ideals and enact economic policies nearly indistinguishable from their elephantine "foes." The social policies, as seen in welfare eradication and the ever-expanding prison system, aren't much better. As with Bill Clinton, the only major difference is that when the Democrats enact them, opposition to such policies is far more muted and generally less effective than if some evil cigar-chomping white guy did the deed.

As King County Commissioner, Gary Locke never stood for much of anything. As candidate for Governor, his greatest appeal was in not being Ellen Craswell. It's a neat summary of the Democratic Party's entire public image strategy these days, which consists not of advocating anything, but of demonizing Newt Gingrich and painting themselves as the Lesser Evil. While politicos worry about the fallout from Bill Clinton's moral lapses, the real problem for the Democratic Party these days is that politicians like Clinton and Locke don't stand for anything. In his 18 months of office, Locke's one major policy triumph is a football stadium. Otherwise, his tenure has been nearly invisible, marked largely by photo ops and symbolic line-item vetos while allowing boatloads of bad Olympia legislation to become law. His appointments--one of the greatest powers of the governor's office--have been consistently business-friendly, rarely tapping the bases of labor and community activism used by predecessor Mike Lowry (who was no jewel himself).

On traditional Demo issues like the environment (Hanford, salmon, clearcuts, Puget Sound pollution) and labor (liveable wage, job exports) Gary Locke's actions are best described as traitorous. His greatest energy has been devoted to--surprise--fundraising, both for his own political future and for earning chits with the national party. Like the Republicans, Locke has had his own money scandals lately, though so far he's been unscathed. Gary wants to be a star, by combining good (and ethnic!) looks and inoffensive policies--preferably, no policies at all--with an open door for big business while taking labor money, too. He's essentially a socially liberal Republican at a time when the Repubs can't get the job done.

As is Patty Murray, who has managed to do even less in five and a half years than Locke has done in one and a half. To call Murray, who ran as a populist outsider in 1992, a disappointment is rather like calling the ocean wet. She is easily the Republicans' best hope in this year's Senate race--both because she is such a weak senator and candidate against whichever flawed candidate the Republicans mount, and because if re-elected she will, with lips firmly attached to the Clinton/Gore machine, be at least as much of a corporate apologist as, say, Linda Smith.

Meanwhile, Ron Sims has Locke's old job and wants the same job as Murray. To get there, he has used his 18 months running King County to renounce most any liberal principle he ever had (the paperwork must've been tremendous) and get cozy with the big developers who make the suburbs and campaign coffers go boom. Sims is a scandal waiting to happen, a man who-- like Murray--is hoping that his actual record won't catch up with his public image until after the next election.

With leaders like these, it's little wonder that the state Democratic Party has put up such a weak reply to the onslaught of socially and economically irresponsible Republican bills in the last two legislative sessions. There has been a remarkable lack of coherent response to this attack; such responses are readily available but violate the core principle of Clintonism, to move as far to the right and into corporate boardrooms as possible without outflanking one's electoral opponent.

At the grass roots, there's great hope this year that the Dems can retake the State Senate and therefore actually stem the Oly hemorrhage. But with such a marked schism between party ideals and realpolitik--reflected most recently in the grass roots rebellion at the party's state convention against Murray's shilling for Hanford--there is, firstly, a question of how committed the state party is to such a goal. It seems perfectly happy being a minority party that doesn't need to take the heat for the business- friendly policies it lets become law.

And, secondly, one wonders how long party loyalists will stick with unprincipled careerist leaders before giving up. Or before calving off--as Ellen Craswell has done on the right--and trying to effect change through the Greens, Labor Party, New Party, or proportional representation, rather than placing hope in a wing of a one-party system that doesn't want them.