Updated with Jarrett response belowYou may be forgiven if you pictured Steve Raible and his mustache nodding approvingly as Susan Hutchison spoke on KUOW this morning. Perhaps it helped that she didn’t have an opponent on with her, but she showed a much improved command of county workings than on her last appearance, when her reliance on catch-phrases came off as particularly thin against Larry Phillips’ intimate knowledge of county government. She’s still got some work to do when it comes to hitting specifics. In an echo of Dow Constantine’s call for a trimmed executive staff, Hutchison said today that she’d cut the exec’s office’s budget by 18%, in part by eliminating a number of “patronage” jobs. Asked to name the titles of those jobs, Hutchison said, “There are um, from the folks who are advising me, they may have titles, but they have funny titles as well, which connote the job, or the work that they do. I don’t want to, at this point in time, point fingers at individuals.”But the real gossipy fun is at the very end, when Hutchison, ever looking to boost her bipartisan cred, says that once-Republican/now-Democrat Fred Jarrett told her he had to endorse Constantine because he promised in primary questionnaires for Democratic groups that he’d endorse a Democrat if he didn’t make the final two. Hutchison did suggest that Jarrett might hold a position in a Hutchison administration: “I can’t tell you unequivocally that he’ll join my administration; we’re in the process of talking.” Jarrett didn’t immediately respond to a message requesting comment. We’ll post when he does. Jarrett’s response is after the jump:Update: Jarrett Speaks! Jarrett says that he appreciates “all of Susan’s kind words” and confirms that Hutchison’s account of their conversations is “pretty close” to what he said, but says he still believes Constantine’s the better candidate because Constantine has public sector experience and understands how government works better. The public sector, he says, “is a different animal” and “I don’t think people can come in from the private sector and immediately understand the differences between the two.”As for whether he might have a spot in a Hutchison Administration, Jarrett says, “I have said the same thing to everybody.” He has a job to do as a state senator and “I don’t think about hypotheticals. Neither Dow nor Susan have a job to offer, so it’s academic say whether I’d take a job they can’t offer.”
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