DBWI: Washington State a Democratic Party bastion

I know it is hard to imagine with Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Boeing and other defense companies such as General Dynamics and Lokheed Martin making a pro-military conservative state. How can you make it a liberal one?
 
First off, Scoop Jackson remains a Democrat instead of switching to the Republicans.

Considering how far to the left the Democrats have moved, Jackson remaining in the Democratic party would be ASB.
 
That would be a start but I don't think enough. The whole state is built around the military-industrial complex and the military is pretty conservative.
 
Maybe have the computers and coffee crowd in Seattle play a bigger role in state politics?

A large minority of them work for the defense industry and tend to be more conservative than computer programmers elsewhere. Those who don't work for the defense industry still tend to be more Conservative than elsewhere since many of their colleagues do. Still they are the most liberal people in the state.
 

d32123

Banned
Maybe you can increase Mexican immigration to Central Washington? They're already the largest minority in the state and generally vote Democratic.
 
True, how would you go about doing that?

Preventing the Apple Blight of 1981-1986, and the collapse in the global price of raspberries after Yugoslavia opened up its markets in the late 80s, would help. The state's relative agricultural decline kept the large numbers of Hispanic migrant workers away from the state, as they went to the resurgent South instead. We may see a new wave into Washington and Oregon though, I hear cotton and sugar production in the South are down significantly since the Global Trade Organization made the Feds reduce the tariff barriers.
 
Maybe take Sen. Rick Wilson out of the equation. He's been very good at keeping the defense industry running, a very good party organizer, and even though he's pro-life, he's live and let live enough to win some votes among the Seattle crowd.

Also, you could prevent Koslov winning in Ukraine's presidential election and making his "National Fortress", which caused NATO to keep its defense spending at higher than their leaders would've liked after the Cold War.

(OOC: Wilson is obviously fictional, as is Koslov)
 
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