If Democrats are demoralized this election season, they were trying to hide it Monday.

About 2,000 people squeezed into an Everett airport hanger for a get-out-the-vote rally on behalf of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and headlined by Former President Bill Clinton. The popularity of the Democrat's "Big Dog" could be seen in the Clinton buttons, T-shirts and signs in the crowd.

Clinton, looking fit on his no-meat diet, was in professorial mode, delivering a detailed economic and history lesson as he ping-ponged between his record and that of the Bush administrations that sandwiched his eight years in the White House.

Hitting on the deficit and debt, the Bush tax cuts, student loan legislation, TARP, health care and just about anything else that came into his head, Clinton talked for nearly 45 minutes before summing it up at the end:

"I am pleading with you, folks, I’m not running for anything. I just look at the facts," he said. "The deal is, you’ve got 28 years of evidence. Our ideas are better than theirs."

Before Clinton took the stage, U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee and Rick Larsen warmed up the crowd, peppering pro-union messages with red-meat attacks on Dino Rossi, Murray's Republican opponent.

The crowd, heavily salted with Boeing workers, roared when Larsen, in a tough race with Republican John Koster, inadvertently called the Air Force tanker the "Boeing tanker."

He tried to correct himself before seizing the moment. "I call it the Boeing tanker. What do you call it?" Larsen asked the crowd, which dutifully roared "Boeing."

"I think I’m in the right crowd," Larsen replied.

Larsen hit his campaign themes, including support for financial industry overhaul passed by Congress.

"If a hedge fund manager wants to drive themselves off the cliff, let them. But no longer will you be trapped in the passenger seat with them," he said.

Inslee said that when he returns to Congress in three weeks,“I will introduce the Dino Ross 'Three Strikes and You're Out' Bill," referring to Rossi's past campaigns for governor. "I think it’s about time for that, don’t you?”