Gregoire: State is on right track

By Brad Shannon and Adam Wilson | The Olympian • Published October 09, 2008

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Gov. Chris Gregoire says she's helped move Washington forward on school reforms, getting health care to more kids, promoting renewable energy and creating jobs, but she needs another four-year term to see the changes through.

"The progress we have made really is quite spectacular," Gregoire said Wednesday. The one-term Democrat made her remarks in an interview before The Olympian's editorial board. Her GOP opponent Dino Rossi told the board Monday the state needs "fresh air" and a change in governors. But Gregoire said there are many reasons to think the state is on the right track. She said children's lives are being saved because she mandated faster responses to reports of abuse and supported the added demand with hundreds of new social workers.

Crime rates are lower; Washington ranks as the fifth-largest producer of wind power; and the state added nearly 250,000 jobs since she took office in the midst of an election challenge in January 2005. The state also has an $800 million budget surplus, and Forbes magazine ranks Washington as the third-best state for doing business.

Her arguments are disputed by Rossi, who noted jobless rates are on the rise. He also said Gregoire recklessly spent a surplus of more than $2 billion earlier in her term.

Recent polls show the race is neck-and-neck, within the margin of error. Gregoire beat Rossi by just 133 votes in 2004 — and not until Rossi went to court to challenge the results, then lost there, too.

This time, the candidates are locked into a costly and nasty campaign that has seen more than $25 million raised by the candidates and outside groups combined.

The cash flow is fueling an incessant rain of hard-hitting, often-inaccurate TV ads.

Gregoire said she is sick of the campaign negativity and contended it all began with the Building Industry Association of Washington's ads in June that attacked her negotiation of a gambling pact with the Spokane tribe.

Rossi's campaign complained of a negative approach by the state Democratic Party well before those ads were launched; asked about her party's attacks on Rossi, Gregoire said she didn't know about those. They included party announcements and news releases last year that attacked Rossi for not embracing environmentalists' solutions to global warming and that accused him of an "extreme" social agenda because he opposes abortion rights in most cases.