Elephant

Steady Democratic servant with deep community roots and loyalty.

With decades of service rooted in Tacoma's working-class neighborhoods, Richard Miranda embodies the elephant's most defining qualities: unwavering loyalty, long memory, and an instinct to protect the herd. His lengthy tenure leading the Tacoma Police Department — marked by community-oriented policing and a steady, consensus-building leadership style — reflects the elephant's preference for stability over spectacle and its deep commitment to the social fabric of the group. Like an elephant matriarch who never forgets a face or abandons a struggling member of the herd, Miranda's Democratic advocacy consistently centers on the most vulnerable constituents, drawing on institutional knowledge built over years of patient public service. His grounded, collaborative approach is unmistakably elephantine: powerful without being aggressive, principled without being rigid, and always oriented toward the long-term health of the community he serves.