WA-GOV: Gregoire (D) 43, Rossi (R) 41
Rematch is a toss-up
By Adam C Posted in 2008 — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
In 2004, Dino Rossi (R) won a very close election against Christine Gregoire (D) for Governor of Washington. After a recount, Rossi was again called the winner. Then after a second recount with some rather fishy vote counting in King County, Gregoire led by about a hundred votes and took the the Governor seat.
Rossi, unlike Al Gore, was not a whiner after he lost in court. He let Ms. Gregoire govern the state and didn't harp on the contested race. He has now announced he is running in a rematch this year.
The Washington Conservation Voters just put out a poll to ramp up support for government-led environmentalism, but as part of the poll they asked about the Governor race and found a dead heat 43-41 with Gregoire ahead slightly. Independent voters, a necessary group for Rs to win in WA, went for Rossi 41-30.
The Rossi campaign has started launching attacks at Gregoire's liberal big government policies (see below fold for video).
This is the Republicans best hope for picking up a Governor seat (NC being the second best). Learn more about the rising star Republican Rossi at his campaign website.
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WA-GOV: Gregoire (D) 43, Rossi (R) 41 17 Comments (0 topical, 17 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
That's why getting a statewide R is a big deal. It helps in recruitment and party building. Rossi is a great candidate for those functions and could be a big help.
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In the legislature, the GOP has been entrenched in the minority for about a decade and there's little to no chance that things'll change. Washington has liked Republican governors in the past, though, but we've been shut out since 1992. Rossi is a great guy and an exceptional politician, so his chances aren't that bad.
1. McCain, 2. Thompson, 3. Giuliani, 4. Romney
King County stole the election from Rossi last time -- he was the choice of the people -- just not the choice of the people doing the counting.
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I hadn't heard. If someone actually found some evidence I'd love to know how that investigation's going.
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
But a Wenatchee judge didn't have the evidence, and he didn't have the stones to call for a new election.
1. McCain, 2. Thompson, 3. Giuliani, 4. Romney
Actually, it is even worse.
The Republicans haven't held the governor's office since 1984.
I believe the Republicans briefly held the State Senate while Rossi was serving in that office. But the 2006 election really hurt them in the legislature. They lost six seats in the House and six seats in the Senate. I think they are down 34 to 16 in the state senate and 63 to 37 in the state house now.
For this reason, a Rossi win would really help the GOP in this state, and it might give them coattails to win back some of those seats.
The last GOP guy was Spellman, who lost in '84 to Booth Gardner (or was it Mike Lowry?). Anyway, it's been a string of mediocre Dems since then. The GOP had numbers in the 1990s, but we haven't had a sniff of majority rule for a while.
1. McCain, 2. Thompson, 3. Giuliani, 4. Romney
Gregoire crammed a bill through the state legislature that would require pro-life pharmacists to fill prescriptions for Plan B. A court just ruled the law a violation of pharmacist's Constitutional religious rights:
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - Pharmacists and drug store owners in Washington can still refuse to sell the "morning-after pill" if they have religious objections to the emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton's decision, a defeat for Gov. Chris Gregoire, is the latest twist in long-running legal and political battles over the morning-after pill, which is sold as Plan B.
Good news for pro-lifers, bad news for Gregoire. I don't know enough about Washington's political climate to comment on how this bodes for Rossi.
I think that would be a helpful theme.
A lot of Washingtonians are tired of there being problems but nobody to blame for it.
Infrastructure is probably the worst case of this.
We keep spending all this money to develop plans to fix all these traffic issues, and then nothing ever gets done and somehow nobody is to blame.
I think that is the issue Gregoire is weak on.
In 2004 Dino Rossi won nothing.
He was ahead after the initial vote, but the margin was so small that a mandatory recount was required by law.
After the initial recount, Rossi won nothing. He was ahead, albeit by a smaller margin.
Finally, and fully in accordance with the law, there was a hand recount. Rossi was behind after that final count and thus lost the election to Gregoire, the winner.
The election was overseen by a Republican Secretary of State, who made his rulings according to the law (much to the dismay of the state Republican Party). A Republican prosecutor found insufficient evidence of voter fraud (on the part of the Democrats), but people who continue to place their desired winner over the rule of law continue to cling to the fiction that Rossi was robbed by the Democrats (apparently with the help of the Republican secretary of state and Republican prosecutor).
In truth, the election was so close it was within the counting margin of error, but there is only one winner in an election and that person is determined after all the legal counting is complete.
Note: the irregularities in counties that favored Rossi over Gregoire got very little attention, but according to analyses I read at the time they were equivalent in magnitude to any irregularities in King County (The Great Satan). Unfortunately, for Rossi, he lost his case at the polls and then again in the courts.
This is my only post on this subject. I feel the need to comment, but I realize the hopelessness of having a reasoned
"discussion" on this topic. So, feel free to make up your "facts" as necessary to support your case.
Don't try and convince me differently.
Repeated errors over and over again. A refusal to adopt proposal suggested by a non-partisan citizens investigatory panel. Heck, he wouldn't even implement all of the recommendations of his own self appointed panel.
As my grandfather said:
"Where there is smoke, there is fire"
Hmm... are you sure your a Republican? LOL
Anyways, I really like and respect Dino and I hope he wins because 2 loses in a row would really ruin his ability in the future.
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
I followed the recount and the subsequent election challenge trial quite closely. Stefan Sharkansky of www.soundpolitics.com did a really exhaustive analysis of the vote counting procedures, the questionable ballots, and the patterns of votes by district. He and others were able to demonstrate that the number of votes cast by fraudulent voter registrations, double votes, etc. exceeded the potential margin of victory by either candidate. I remember in one case he found that a CDC scientist who lived in Washington state during med school maintained his registration there & voted in 2004 even though he'd relocated to Georgia a decade earlier and was presumably also registered there.
Unfortunately, Mr. Rossi's lawyers chose to argue that the election procedures in King County were so poor that it was impossible to know who won rather than providing conclusive proof that Ms. Gregoire's 134 vote margin after the odd recount was mitigated by the over 1,000 fake registrations. The judge declined to rule on common sense and instead indicated that in the absence of conclusive proof about individual ballot fraud he would not overturn the recount results. This is a far cry from a result that indicated Ms. Gregoire won the election.
Mr. Rossi had too much class to claim that he was the true winner and simply maintained that future election procedures needed to be tightened so voters could truly have confidence in the results. King County, Ron Sims, etc. did not deliver on that. The absentee ballot procedures in particular are very vulnerable to fraud.
Jill
Another poll not good
The "Washington Poll" sponsored by the University of Washington shows Gov. Gregoire with a 54-42% lead over Republican challenger Dino Rossi for a November rematch.
Rossi's chances hinge on the D's nominee.
O...he loses.
Hillary..he has a chance at winning.
What is interesting, is WA.'s economy has been STRONG. There have been sizable surpluses and a healthy amount has been put into reserves.
Secondly, WA is a Dem stronghold. D's control the Gov, both Senate seats, a majority congressional delegation and a near Super-majority in both state houses.
Yet, Greggy and Dino are statistically tied.