Rossi ready for a tough race

BY BRAD SHANNON | • Published October 26, 2007

Even before Dino Rossi announced Thursday that he will run again for governor, local Republicans were chomping at the bit for the announcement, saying it will rejuvenate their party after a disastrous 2006 election.

Rossi, who lost the nation’s closest race for governor in 2004, announced his candidacy in front of about 500 cheering supporters in Issaquah. He has a clear path to the party’s nomination in the Aug. 19 primary and says he is running as an agent for change in Olympia.

But whether that message will work — after Democrats balanced the budget, kept $1.5 billion in the bank and expanded health care coverage to more children — is in question.

“I think Chris Gregoire will be much tougher this time. I have to candidly say she’s doing a good job as governor. … But I, as a loyal Republican, will be supporting Dino,” said Dick Nichols, a longtime Thurston County Republican and former county commissioner. “I think it will be really tough. She has two houses of the Legislature and a track record to run on.”

Nichols said he expects Gregoire to be helped with a woman, Hillary Clinton, at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket in 2008, but he also thinks Rossi and Republicans have targets they can go after with Gregoire.

“They’ll go after spending. They’ll go after growth in government. These are legitimate concerns,” Nichols said.

Other Republicans say Rossi, 48, is just the ticket for a beleaguered party, one that former Thurston County GOP chairman Randall Rappe described as being in a malaise after the 2006 election.

“My sense is that people have been chomping at the bit for him to announce,” Thurston County Republican chairman Dan Cathers said at a Mainstream Republicans gathering this week. He added that Rossi can wake up the local and state party.

In his announcement, Rossi criticized recent legislative moves to delay high-school graduation requirements tied to high-stakes tests and said he would advocate merit pay for teachers. He said the governor ran as an opponent of tax increases and promptly raised a number of taxes. He said Gregoire said she would “blast through the bureaucracy” but has clung to the status quo.