“I would have preferred to win,” Inslee tells me, laughing. Three weeks after his 15 minutes on the national stage, he dropped out. Still, his plea didn’t move the polls much. Some fawned over his Clark Kent glasses and jawline as he vowed to save the planet (“Horniness for Jay Inslee Is a Renewable Resource,” one New York headline read). “Our house is on fire!” he hollered, sounding appropriately desperate for an existential call to arms. He staked a short-lived presidential campaign to the cause, decrying Joe Biden’s climate plan on a crowded Democratic debate stage in July 2019. For decades, he’s harped on combating global warming even as progress toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions has proceeded at the pace of a makeshift vessel bobbing across the Pacific.
“Ohmygosh! It’s one of the most classic adventure stories of all time.” His gaze settles on Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl’s epic travelogue, which I haven’t read. “Let’s see if there’s a good one,” Inslee says, swiveling. Over his left, there’s a bookcase with…well, I can’t quite make out the lettering on the bindings from this virtual view. Over his right shoulder, there’s a mirror and a couple of sad-looking candles. Now he’s in a different seat-in the dining room of the governor’s residence-as he wedges an interview between briefings and his first shot of a coronavirus vaccine. His didactic guidance provides a rare injection of monoculture (“Washingtonians”-drink!) into a dispersed, shut-down state.
From a high-backed chair at a mahogany table inside the state Capitol, he’s rendered verdict after verdict on the public’s ability to sit at restaurants, to see friends. It’s January 22, one day after one year since the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in Washington, since the governor’s press conferences became appointment viewing for more than just journalists and wonks. J ay Inslee’s on my screen again, but this time he wants to talk about Kon-Tiki. Seattle Met composite, Inslee portrait courtesy Gage Skidmore
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