Next Years Election, Gregoire vs Who?

Politics reporter Sam Taylor at the B'ham Herald says "From what I've heard from the local GOP, they're pretty excited about Rossi." That might be so, but all the non-political-junkies I know need help recalling who ran against Chris Gregoire in '04.

Sam linked to a piece by Joel Connelly, at the Seattle P-I, who thinks Governor Gregoire is "projecting nervousness about her political prospects". But somehow I'm not convinced that Gregoire has all that much to worry about and this video/commercial seems to indicate that she feels the same way.


Putting aside the stealth/illegal campaigning, Rossi isn't off to a good start. Josh Feit at 'The Stranger' noted that Rossi dodged a question about SCHIP by saying "I’m not in Congress...". Since the S in SCHIP is for State, it's an issue that any credible candidate for Governor should know is very relevant.

Dino's been criss-crossing the state for the last three years doing events that draw no one but Republican Party activists. Rather than building support for a '08 run, all that effort seems to have left Rossi out of touch, with a campaign machine geared to winning the vote of the 30% of Washington voters who'll vote Republican no matter what.