At last, Washington matters in a race for president.
Weird as it sounds, strange as it seems, it's true.
Calculations done even before the first spray of results from Tsunami Tuesday showed this state's stash of delegates is a needed piece in the nominating puzzle, not the footnote to the process it's historically been.
What happened Tuesday in California and New York, Missouri and Georgia, Idaho and 19 other states, plus American Samoa, provided greater clarity to the 2008 contest.
What happens here in the next few days will, too, with caucuses Saturday and a statewide primary Feb. 19.
"This is a rare thing for Washington state to have kind of lucked into a place where we're not completely irrelevant," Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University, said Tuesday.
Thinking out loud, Donovan hiked through 40 years of presidential elections unable to find a similar situation. One reason is that Washington used to vote later in the year, so when ballots arrived, one or both parties had determined their front-runner.
When former Secretary of State Ralph Munro dusted off his memory bank in search of a past scenario mirroring this year's, he couldn't.
"This is totally different," he said.
In 2008, stars aligned in ways Secretary of State Sam Reed dreamed of but few others predicted. This race is much more competitive than imagined and all the completed primaries and caucuses have weeded but not wiped out the field.
"We've never been at this point in early February. This year, people need the delegates," Donovan said.
Let's not get too carried away.
Washington won't be crowning a king or queen for either party, but its cache of 97 Democratic and 40 Republican delegates -- including regular and superdelegates -- will confer additional strength to some of those vying to be in the White House next year.
"We're in play but we're not the final play," said Democrat strategist Cathy Allen, who is backing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Signs are there that candidates realize this. Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama and Republican hopefuls Sen. John McCain and Rep. Ron Paul are all running television commercials. And Obama is slated to be in Seattle on Friday.
Clinton dispatched a garrison of field organizers to the state. Unconfirmed talk Tuesday has the candidate or her former president husband coming to the state this week.
So what do Washingtonians do with their rare politically relevant status? Caucus.
Understandably, most Washington residents can't stomach participating in them. It means publicly associating with one of the two major political parties, and, gulp, giving them your name.
Yet, if you truly want Hillary or Barack, this is a year where you swallow that pride and show up. It's that close between them and the only place delegates can be won are the caucuses.
A couple of hours of politicking Saturday and starting Sunday, just delete any unwanted party e-mail, recycle any undesired brochures and hang up on any phone solicitors.
Regardless, if you lean Democrat you can skip the presidential primary Feb. 19. The candidates get no delegates -- and you still have to pick a party.
For those feeling the GOP mojo, candidates McCain, Paul, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee can collect delegates in both the caucuses and primary.
The Republican Party, like their partisan foes, will want your name in exchange for participating.
That's the price for mattering -- even a little -- this presidential campaign.
