A milestone passed quietly this fall for the Snohomish County Republican party.
The GOP, centrally and symbolically located in Everett for about 30 years, packed its trunks and moved its headquarters north.
The new digs are in Marysville.
“It was just merely past time to move,” party chairwoman Geri Modrell said.
“We’re getting a face-lift.”
Heading north brought cheaper rents, but some thought the party was ceding ground.
“There were a few very vocal people who thought it would harm the image of the party if we moved outside the county seat,” Modrell said. Seeing the new headquarters changed their tune.
“It’s five minutes out of Everett. It’s not a big thing,” Modrell said.
The old headquarters were too small and rent was rising, she said. The new headquarters has a warehouse with room for storing and building campaign signs.
The space is twice as big, for only $100 more in rent.
“We know we have to rebuild the party,” Modrell said. “That’s just a given. Having a new location has lifted spirits.”
An open house at the new headquarters is today.
With Election Day around the corner, it’s a chance to rally voter turnout and the party faithful.
Headquarters have changed from a place where stamps were licked and envelopes addressed by hand, said Paul Elvig, county party chairman in the mid-’90s.
“Headquarters are fun places,” Elvig said. “You sit there and plot war strategy, nurse wounds, decide what is good political rumor and what isn’t. Political headquarters aren’t smoke-filled anymore. There are no political deals being made in headquarters.”
Though the location is farther north, toward Republican country, the new HQ is still in the Democratic stronghold of the 38th Legislative District.
The new location shares an address with a tattoo parlor – a convenient place where diehards can get “GOP 4-ever” in a heartfelt script.
“In 1960 when I was 18, at the Republican convention in Chicago, I went into a tattoo parlor, to get a trumpeting elephant that says ‘GOP,’” Elvig said. “I thought, ‘What if I change parties?’”
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