Rematch!

“It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame / Everybody’s so different,
I haven’t changed.”
—Joe Walsh, “Life’s Been Good to Me (So Far)”

If this were boxing, it’d be a cheesy pay-per-view special. (Cue ominous music: “This time it’s personal!”) But it’s politics, not boxing, so this year’s grudge matches—incumbent Christine Gregoire vs. Dino Rossi for governor and incumbent Dave Reichert vs. Darcy Burner for the 8th District Congressional seat—are deadly serious.

Both are reprisals of heart-stopping races: Reichert’s slender 51 percent to 49 percent victory over political neophyte Burner in 2006, and Gregoire’s thrice-recounted, bitterly adjudicated 129-point squeaker over Rossi in 2004. Last time, both pairs of rivals raised record amounts for those races, spending much of it to attack each other. They didn’t like each other then, and the years since have not made any hearts grow fonder.

Bottom line: These are two of the hottest races in the nation. Expect even more TV ads, rancor and moola than last time around. Much of the money is coming from outside the state, with Reichert’s seat among the prime House targets for Democrats and Washington state one of the few chances for Republicans to pick up a governorship.

Emotions are still raw from Washington’s last gubernatorial race—the closest one in U.S. history—with many Rossi supporters convinced election errors cost him that win. “Christine Gregoire was definitely illegitimately elected,” Republican Steve Hammond, a former King County Council member, says flatly.

Republicans filed a lawsuit at the time, but Chelan County Judge John Bridges ruled against them.

Round Two
Rossi, sitting in a bustling campaign office in a nondescript Bellevue office park, says the response to his candidacy “has been like drinking out of a fire hose.” More than half his contributors, he says, are new to the campaign, “people who did not participate last time, [now] saying, ‘I realized last time I could have done something, and I kicked myself and said I’m not going to let that happen this time.’ … It’s been turning into a real citizens’ movement.”

It’s worth noting that, while Rossi had raised a staggering $2.8 million by the end of February, compared to $800,000 at the same point four years ago, Gregoire had raised an even more eye-popping $4.7 million. And this was before the end of the legislative session, when serious fund-raising traditionally starts.

Speaking after a fund-raiser in Kirkland, Gregoire has an immediate answer to what she’d like to have done differently in 2004: “Win big on election night.” Which is what she plans to do this year: “We’re clearly not going to let that slippage [from early polling leads in 2004] happen this time.”

While Gregoire and Rossi both claim an energized base, their race will turn on what has happened since 2004. Gregoire says that’s a good thing. “I think people now understand that I bring results,” she says. “I can broker across all kinds of lines—across party lines, across the state, across the ocean, across ideologies—and bring results.”

Rossi paints a different picture. He accuses the governor of increasing the size of the state budget by 33 percent. “She has blown through the biggest surplus the state has ever known,” he charges. “When I was chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee [2003], I balanced the biggest deficit in state history without raising taxes, and while protecting the most vulnerable people in society.”

Gregoire retorts that it was Rossi who left her a shortfall. “I take no lessons from someone who balanced the budget on the backs of children and seniors,” she says. “I love it when he says I shouldn’t have spent on … what? I take it he wouldn’t invest in education, he wouldn’t invest in children’s health care, he wouldn’t invest in economic development and he wouldn’t invest in public safety, because that’s where my investments are.”

Both are correct. Gregoire did, in fact, inherit a deficit and turned it (with the help of a booming economy) into a large surplus, much of which, in an extravagant 2007 session, was spent on restoring cuts and making long-deferred investments in education, health care and economic development. Rossi’s 33 percent figure includes all four of Gregoire’s years, including the anomalous 2007 budget. In 2008, Gregoire spent far less, leaving reserves of $835 million out of a $33.7 billion budget. But Rossi has a point, too: A slowing economy and deferred spending from the 2007 session are likely to once again leave the Legislature with a significant budget shortfall in 2009.

The volleying continues.

“He’s very negative ... very negative,” says Gregoire. “For example, he’ll say that we’re an unfriendly state to do business in, and Forbes magazine says we’re the fifth best in the country, as does Fortune.”
Rossi rejoins, “If she feels her record is negative, maybe she should be doing something different. Most people think that comparing an incumbent’s record with what you want to do is fair. ”

This time, it really is personal.

Negative vibes
Democratic consultant John Wyble of Moxie Media thinks Gregoire would benefit from spewing some of that negativity, too. “She’s got to run a different campaign [than in 2004]. She has a list of accomplishments a mile long, but she’s also got to hold Rossi accountable for being out of step with the values of Washington. If you look at the budget that he passed in 2003, his health-care cuts, his social values on things like choice, he’s out of step.”

But Eastside Republican activist Scott St. Clair makes a similar point about Rossi’s campaign: “Dino has to define the difference: What would he have done? How would he have handled [replacing the bridge on State Route] 520? In what ways are we worse off in 2008 for the things that should have been done on Gregoire’s watch?”

Four years ago, George W. Bush was at the top of the Republican ticket. Having John McCain in that spot this time should boost Rossi’s chances, says Chris Vance, who chaired the state Republican Party in 2004. “Rossi had to convince 60,000 people who voted against Bush to support him then.” Indeed, Rossi ran eight points ahead of President Bush in 2004; McCain, a more independent Republican without some of Bush’s baggage, should do better.

KVI Radio talk-show host John Carlson was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2000. He, too, thinks the zeitgeist should help Rossi. “Clearly, people are receptive to a message for change to the status quo. And Dino’s change. I would not be the least surprised if Barack Obama and Dino Rossi both win Washington state next November.”

But if the public is in the mood to throw the bums out, where does that leave Congressman Dave Reichert, who squeezed out a 2 percent victory over Darcy Burner in 2006 and now faces her again?

Wyble, the Democratic consultant, helped with State Sen. Rodney Tom’s brief primary run last summer challenging Burner for the 8th District Democratic nomination to face Reichert. Tom dropped out only a couple of months in, after Burner leveraged a George Bush fund-raiser for Reichert to raise a stunning $125,000 on the Internet over a long summer weekend.

She outraised the incumbent Reichert in 2006, and is outpacing him again in 2008, one of the few congressional challengers in the country to do so, and with a vast amount of grassroots support. But to Wyble, what makes Burner a formidable foe is precisely what Tom thought might make her vulnerable to a primary challenge: her lack of experience. “People don’t care about experience,” says Wyble. “She’s smart and articulate and an outsider. This is a year where people aren’t excited about the status quo.”

Reichert’s spokesman, Mike Shields, makes the case that Reichert’s no insider. “Dave looks at things a very different way. He’s a D.C. outsider. He has a law-enforcement perspective not many people have,” he says, referring to Reichert’s background as a King County sheriff and detective—a background Reichert has traded on heavily in his two previous campaigns. “He has an open mind,” Shields says. “His skills as an investigator translated so perfectly for this job.”

Burner says Reichert “greenwashes,” voting “independently” only on issues like the environment, with White House approval. With no record of her own to trumpet, she is again relying heavily on linking Reichert to Bush’s policies, especially the war in Iraq. Republican St. Clair, who believes the Middle East situation is improving, thinks this is a mistake: “The way things are going in Iraq right now takes that issue away from Burner. If she runs against Bush, that just reprises 2006, and she’ll get the same results.”

Clearly, there is no love lost in this race. Shields, in a 20-minute interview, never once brings himself to mention Burner by name. The closest he comes is to question her track record: “What has she done?”

Which Congressional candidate will benefit most from the anticipated large presidential-year turnout? Depends whom you ask. Carlson thinks it will help the Republican in this race as well. “The 8th District prefers Republicans like McCain and Democrats like Barack Obama. Reichert is a McCain kind of guy—strong on security, moderate on most domestic issues.”

Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik begs to differ. “In 2006, there were 251,000 total votes in the 8th District. In 2004, there were 336,500 votes. Given the intensity and enthusiasm demonstrated this primary season,” he says, “a 40 percent or more increase in turnout over 2006 is very plausible, even likely, at this point. As a general rule of thumb, higher turnout benefits Democrats.”

And if you ask Reichert’s spokesman, it’s a moot point. “I don’t think you can speculate on that sort of thing,” says Shields. “Turnout is always high in the 8th District. It was high in the midterm last time.”

In the end, all four candidates agree that campaigning is a grind. So why do they do it, when the chances of failure are so great? Burner, the least experienced of the bunch, explains: “Making a difference in the dialogue is worth it.”  L&P