Is Susan Hutchison waging a stealth campaign?

In the two months since former TV news anchor Susan Hutchison announced her candidacy for King County executive, she hasn't been seen much in public.

She hasn't participated in any forums with other candidates and, with rare exceptions, she hasn't responded to media requests for interviews. Seattle Times reporters have not been able to schedule an interview with Hutchison since the day she announced her candidacy.

That's all about to change now that she's officially filed as a candidate, her campaign manager says.

"We're going to participate in as many events as possible and do as many interviews as possible and we look forward to it," Jordan McCarren said Monday.

He said Tuesday that Hutchison would participate in a King County Police Chiefs Association candidate forum Thursday morning, but a scheduling conflict would prevent her from taking part in a Thursday breakfast forum sponsored by growth-management advocacy group Futurewise.

Hutchison's low profile has prompted speculation that she was trying to use her name familiarity from her years as a KIRO-TV anchor to make it through the August primary without subjecting herself to much public scrutiny.

"That's what I would do," said political consultant Steve Finley, who is not involved in any of the executive campaigns. "She's the front-runner. She's got 34 percent of the vote and no one else is breaking single digits. Why mess with these mere mortals?"

Finley was referring to a KING-TV poll that showed Hutchison far ahead of Metropolitan King County Councilmember Larry Phillips with 9 percent; Councilmember Dow Constantine with 8; and state Rep. Ross Hunter and state Sen. Fred Jarrett with 5 percent each. Undecided voters outnumbered Hutchison supporters.

Others running in the nonpartisan contest are engineer Alan Lobdell and frequent candidates Goodspaceguy (formerly known as Michael Nelson) and attorney Stan Lippmann.

Constantine spokesman Sandeep Kaushik said his campaign "strongly suspects she (Hutchison) doesn't have much familiarity with county issues and county government and that that would become apparent were she actually making herself available to answer questions."

Brett Bader, a Republican political consultant not involved in Hutchison's campaign, said it was appropriate for her to spend much of her time initially with individuals and groups that support her. But, he added, "She can't say nothing between now and the primary. ...

"It does no good for anyone to hide out and spring themselves on the electorate at the last minute. She's a pretty courageous lady. I don't think that's going to be her strategy."

McCarren, Hutchison's campaign manager, said she's familiar with the problems facing the county and said "there's no strategy at all to try to avoid any of the forums or the press. ... She filed on Friday. Our plan all along was to get our organization in place, to file as a candidate and get the campaign running."

He said she didn't need extra time to study county issues.

"Susan understands there are tremendous problems facing King County and she understands that the King County executive's office needs new fresh-faced leadership and new direction and that's exactly what she's going to bring. She understands what the problems are and she understands what solutions need to be enacted."

McCarren is an associate in Dresner, Wickers & Associates, a San Francisco-based consulting firm that was paid more than $9 million over four years from independent campaigns funded by the Building Industry Association of Washington. Much of that money went to support Dino Rossi's unsuccessful 2008 bid to topple Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com