Governor’s race all about strategic name-dropping

It’s a strange time in the 2008 campaign for governor of Washington.

All Chris Gregoire seems to talk about is Chris Gregoire.

And all Dino Rossi seems to talk about is Chris Gregoire.

Perhaps that’s to be expected since Gregoire is the incumbent and Rossi wants to oust her this fall. Some polls give Gregoire 2-to-1 approval ratings – that is for every one voter who disapproves of the job she is doing, two approve.

One of those polls that showed Gregoire with a 2-to-1 approval rating had her with less than 50 percent of the vote in a rematch.

To win a second term, Gregoire wants to tout her every accomplishment. To have a chance of winning, Rossi has to talk about her every failure.

And he does. Between the news releases sent out by his campaign and those sent out by the state Republican Party, Rossi seems to talk more about her than himself.

That isn’t completely true, Rossi said during a conversation last week. He says his campaign kickoff last year was about what he’d do if he becomes governor. But he admits that it often means talking about what he would do with what she has already done.

“That’s all part of the comparing and contrasting, to give people a clear choice,” he said.

The former state senator from Sammamish said he’s thrilled with early support and that “a lot of people who last time voted for me, wanted me to win, but a Republican hadn’t won since 1980 so didn’t think I could win. And they’ve been kicking themselves for three years because after 3 million votes were cast they realized they knew 129 people, or they could have helped find 129 people,” he said.

But outside his base, Rossi is battling the conventional wisdom that 2008 is not going to be a good year for candidates with an “R” behind their names, starting with president and working down the ballot.

Rossi said he thinks voters distinguish between national politics and a race for governor. In 2004, for example, the state went strongly for John Kerry for president and Patty Murray for U.S. Senate but nearly split between him and Gregoire.

That means a number of voters cast ballots for Democrats for the top two spots on the ballot and a Republican for governor. And then there are those polls that suggest Gregoire still struggles to build a relationship with a majority of voters.

Rossi cites the controversy over the counting of ballots in 2004. “She’s having trouble overcoming the manner in which she took office,” he said.

That could be part of it, as could a perception that Gregoire continues to have trouble transferring her perceived competence to a personal relationship with voters. Still, if his supporters underestimated Rossi’s chances in 2004, so did his opponents. Any soft treatment he received then will not be repeated this year. Expect a rough campaign from both sides.

The first battleground will be over the state budget. Rossi said he’ll try to tell voters that while the state budget seems OK now, it will get worse. He blames overspending by Gregoire and Democrats.

Gregoire comes back with her claim that she made investments in programs that will make the state stronger and that the budget is in better health than when she took office. She blames a recession-era budget drafted by then-state Sen. Dino Rossi.

But will voters in the middle – those who decide most elections – really engage in a campaign that is about future budget deficits?

If not, Rossi appears to be trying to tap into another theme of the election – change.

“It’s the same people down there (in Olympia) for generations. The big joke, ‘are you Locke 1, Locke 2, Lowry or Gardner,’” he said, citing previous Democratic administrations.

“The idea is to get a fresh set of eyes on the problems,” Rossi said.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

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