>Will this be the second reason Rossi loses?

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It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that 2010 will be a GOP year. The fringe left nutjobs running government at the state and federal levels are doing everything they can to get the dems crushed in the upcoming election.

That said, one of the more troubling aspects for the GOP is the unbelievable arrogance establishment candidates like Dino Rossi and Jaime Herrera typically show.

Herrera, who fired the LA she acquired when she got the appointment in 07 because she was “too old,” has been the epitome of arrogance. Of course, having an interfering Godfather type like McMorris around to drag her to the finish line doesn’t help in that regard, nor does her almost mythical ability to be given everything she’s received instead of actually going out and earning it. Herrera, like Rossi, have become legends in their own minds. They see themselves as being unstoppable.

This, however, is Washington State. And their is no sure thing. Herrera’s leftist tendencies verified when she moronically told the Columbian:

“Not once have you heard me criticize Brian Baird’s performance in Southwest Washington,” she told the editorial board. “Linda Smith and Baird both have an independent streak.”

As if Baird hadn’t done volumes of things worth not only “criticizing” but condemning outright; when combined with her “Guardian of the SEIU” status and her help gladly given to the leftists to rip off the last $229 million out of the state emergency fund…. these are the kinds of things that make genuine Republicans cringe at the very idea of a closet leftist like Herrera getting elected to dog catcher.

Rossi, of course, has the same types of problems based on HIS “anointed” status.

As a rule, over-arching arrogance isn’t an attractive reason to vote for someone.

Rossi’s first horrific mistake based on arrogance was his failure to announce back in February. That allowed the fringe left to use him as a pinata while he couldn’t answer; it gave Murray the opportunity to raise additional millions unencumbered by having high profile competition and it kept Rossi from getting a 4 month head start on his own fundraising needs… his bogus “he raised $600,000 in a week!” crock notwithstanding.

Now, his second mistake built out of arrogance: blowing off the grass roots in the guise of the Tea Party.

Why Dino Rossi isn’t courting the tea party

The GOP front-runner skipped the movement’s forums, but that likely won’t hurt his chances in the 2010 election.

By Jim Brunner

Seattle Times political reporter

BELLINGHAM — At Whatcom Community College’s Syre Auditorium last week, the passion of the conservative tea-party movement was on full display.

More than 400 people packed the candidate forum sponsored by the Bellingham Tea Party, cheering raucously for Republican U.S. Senate candidates Clint Didier and Paul Akers as they one-upped each other with calls to chop the federal government down to a size the Founding Fathers might recognize.

The evening had all the flavor of the conservative insurgency that has become this year’s popular national political narrative — a tide that has washed away establishment GOP candidates in Utah, Kentucky and Florida in favor of fiery tea-party-backed rivals.

And yet there was one crucial absence: Republican front-runner Dino Rossi, who spent the day at a Spokane Republican women’s luncheon. It was the second big tea-party forum he has skipped in recent weeks

More:

One of the things you learn in this business is that there are, in reality, two elements to a successful election.

The first, of course, particularly in a contested primary with a relatively low turn out coming up, is to provide people with reasons to vote for you. At this point, as far as I can tell, the only reason to vote for Rossi is that he’s Rossi.

That’s not nearly good enough for me, at least, and I will not be voting for Rossi. I’m long since the stage in my life where I find “settle for” votes to be acceptable.

The second, and easily the “as important” aspect of elections is to not provide people with reasons to vote against you.

Locally, the best example of that truism is Jon Russell, whose consistent lies and exaggerations, combined with his use of Washougal city government as a campaign prop along with his avoidance of responsibility for the many times he’s screwed up as a councilman has provided thousands of people with many reasons to blow past him on the ballot.

Rossi, on the other hand, heaps scorn on the Tea Party by acting as if they didn’t exist.

Well, here’s a clue: those of us supporting the Tea Party issues DO exist. And if he goes to the general… he will need each and every one of those votes… and he won’t get them.

Yeah, yeah…. I’ve seen the polling. But we live in a state as deep and darkly blue as downtown Moscow when it comes to election results.

Does ANYONE believe that if he gets to the general, Rossi will win in a blowout?

I’m not convinced he can win or will win by any number. But does anyone think it isn’t going to be close?

I will be among the percentage of those who will not vote for Rossi under any circumstances. That percentage may be small… but it will be there.

And that, like this moronic delay in announcing, will be the fault of the arrogance of Rossi.

Cross Posted at Dino Rossi Watch, Jaime Herrera Watch and Jon Russell Watch.

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>Mair steps in it again: Today’s revisionist history award goes to….

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Below the line is the original post where I bitch slapped a Herrera staffer whose name rhymes with “Ignorant” who blasted Benton for rightfully calling Rossi, who will lose this race, out for delaying his entry.

Now, Ms. Mair is engaging in just the tiniest bit of revisionist history with a rather moronic piece she just slammed together attacking me.

Forgive me for yawning. I’ve heard that a certain “politically savvy” Benton fan whose name rhymes with “Belly” trashed me a couple months ago using four and five letter words typically applied to women that aren’t very nice for suggesting that Benton would do just this shortly after Dino Rossi entered the Senate race. After all, Benton’s fundraising was so stellar (he managed a weak $130,000 raised in two months of campaigning). And Benton was at least seen to imply he wouldn’t drop out just last week.

I am, of course, flattered that Liz thinks highly enough of me to single me out. Nevertheless, Benton’s actions in calling Rossi out was the right thing to do at the time. Further, nothing I wrote had anything to do with what Benton would do if Rossi entered.

Where’s ol Liz’s self-delusion comes into play is the idea that I “trashed her a couple months ago using four and five letter words typically applied to women that aren’t very nice.”

In fact, Mair referred to herself as a “snarky bitch.” What I was doing was merely agreeing with her… while schooling her as to the reasoning for Benton’s position.

Due to her ignorance, she seems incapable of understanding that nothing that happened today disproved anything I said. Further, I never indicated that Benton could beat Rossi, or that Benton was the superior candidate.

What I said was what many others, including light weights like Jon Cornyn said: waiting is stupid. Waiting does nothing to make Rossi more viable against Murray.

But then, it appears that among her other talents, revisionist history plays a major role as well.

BTW, Liz: this you can dish it out but you can’t take it thing?

You’ve got to do better than that.
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While Liz Mair disclaims the fact that she “…didn’t get up in the morning and think about ways to be a snarky bitch to politicians back home” while simultaneously pulling it off brilliantly, the fact of the matter is that since she’s a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bellevue Mafia, to have expected any OTHER response from her would have been ludicrous.

As I pointed out earlier, Dino Rossi is doing neither himself not anyone else any favors by keeping his foot on the throat of fund raisers for Senate candidates in this state because he’s too indecisive to either make a damned decision, or he’s made it and he’s too damned arrogant to let us in on the secret.

Mair has proven her political ignorance of this area with her kool aid drinking support of Jaime Herrera. If Benton raised $130,000, that’s $130,000 that Rossi HASN’T raised. I, for one, am sick of Rossi’s intransigence. He is NOT the be all to end all in politics, and I believe he has waited FAR too long to get into this.

See, I can only wonder what Mair will say if Rossi sticks to his plan and decides to get in at the last second… and lose.

Will she be the one leading the “if only he had announced earlier” charge?

If Rossi waits until the last second he WILL NOT BE VIABLE IN WASHINGTON STATE.

What Benton is doing is calling him out. Mair, a self-described “expert” is apparently too ignorant to figure that out. So what does she do?

She engages in the kind of play ground BS that those who do not believe in the gospel of Herrera or Rossi are likely to get.

Let’s add “ignorant” to Mair’s self-imposed title of “snarky bitch,” shall we? I know I have.
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>An admission I was wrong: Dino Rossi is going to announce.

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Earlier, I had indicated that Rossi most likely would not announce; I mistakenly believed he’d put his family first, but taken in totality, an arrogance and ego that would force the rest of the party to wait while he dithered would certainly not be as concerned about that as most of us would.

Now, multiple sources have reported that Dino “Ego” Rossi will finally… finally… deign to let the rest of us in on his secret decision.

I will not be supporting Rossi. His desire to waste $75 million taxpayer dollars to keep the Sonics in town killed the deal for me. Any so-called fiscal conservative who would want to make that huge amount of money vaporize for professional sports in a town that had just months before voted 3 to 1 to STOP that kind of expenditure shows a tone deafness and irresponsibility to conservative principles that just sickens me.

Adding that to a rather cowardly, IMHO, refusal to endorse a friend and fellow former legislator in the primary of the ’08 county commissioner race; a race that the candidate in question, Tom Mielke, ultimately won.

Combine that with this “it’s all about me” approach to announcing for the senate, and you’ve produced a level of self-importance and egomania… with just the tiniest bit of intrepredation that would put Benito Mussolini to shame.

Good luck, Dino; you’re gonna need it. But I wish for you the same outcome you wished for all those who went before and sacrificed their time, effort and their money.

Cross posted at Dino Rossi Watch.
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>No Chris, we won’t: The Bellevue Mafia’s cluelessness as evidenced by Chris Vance.

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As most sentient beings following Washington State politics are aware, Sarah Palin endorsed Clint Didier yesterday for the US Senate seat currently held by Aunt Patty.

Given the nuances of our top two primary, I detailed the impacts on the race as I see them, including the perennially egomaniacal and undeclared candidacy of Dino Rossi.

That said, please note the utterly clueless, moronic position put out by former WSRP Chair Chris “I took our caucuses from a tie to fitting into a phone booth” Vance:

“If Dino Rossi chooses to run, the Republican world will line up with Dino Rossi,” said Vance. “And that will include the conservative base.”

“There have always been Republican candidates who split the Republican base one way or the other. Dino was the one guy everybody loved.”

Such an utterly false observation goes to the heart of precisely why this state is so deeply and darkly blue that it’s almost black.

The biggest impediment to a GOP resurgence in this state rests with the almost genetic inability for the members of the Bellevue Mafia to understand and respond to reality.

Not everyone “loves” Dino. In fact, when Patty Murray is re-elected, both Rossi and the Bellevue Mafia will in large part be responsible for that act, as if they were working for Murray’s campaign.

Clearly, the rarefied air within which Vance and the BM operate is too lacking in oxygen to allow them to understand that things aren’t the way they believe. Not by a long sight.

We don’t “love” Rossi. Many loath him because his arrogance and self-worship have cost us a US Senate seat. I loath him because at base, he is the very definition of a RINO.

The endorsement of Didier by Palin yesterday, clearly not a well thought out act based on the latest information concerning the dichotomy of his simultaneous reliance on, and condemnation of, numerous government subsidies and programs, will hurt Rossi and hurt him badly.

It is the kind of thing that can result in nation-wide money coming in, something that Rossi has little chance of getting.

It will bring attention to Didier, providing him with Rand Paul-like attention that Rossi can only dream of.

Now, Rossi will have to spend time dealing with Didier and the other candidates in ways he would not have had to do had he used his head for something besides a fire hydrant.

The Bellevue Mafia cocoon within which Vance, Rossi and the rest reside is in for a shock. If Rossi actually announces, his failure to get in back in February has made his task geometrically harder. Burying your head in the sand like Chris “Puget Sound Crescent and how’s that working out for us” Vance avails us nothing.

The inability of the so-called “Republican political elite” of this state to change, adapt and overcome continues to be sunk in concrete. And as a result, we have the situation we have: complete leftist control of every facet of state government.
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>Palin endorses Didier: ANOTHER Rossi/Cornyn headache.

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As each moment ticks by, Dino Rossi is further confronted with the idiocy of his failure to announce.

As each moment ticks by, Sen. John Cornyn is further confronted with HIS idiocy in failing to ORDER Rossi to make a decision, one way or the other.

And now… it’s again too late for Rossi.

Today, Sarah Palin, feeling her oats no doubt from the outcome in Kentucky where Palin-endorsed Rand Paul blew the establishment GOP candidate to pieces at the polls last Tuesday, endorsed the somewhat ethically challenged Clint Didier today.

I have twice heard Didier speak. I admit that I lean right; but Didier is a 7 foot tall version of Ellen Craswell. And, I believe, he will poll just like she did as well.

But that’s not the point here.

The point is… what does this do to Rossi?

Rossi is getting hammered from all sides. As I’ve pointed out, he’s waited too long to enter this but he seems incapable of grasping that. Because of his late entry, he’ll have to waste assets, time and cash to get past Didier and the others to make it into the general.

Arrogance can be a terrible tenet of the politician’s make up.

Had Rossi jumped in when he should have, at least some of the other candidates would not BE candidates, and Rossi’s alleged position as the titular front runner would have been sunk in concrete for the most part.

But he didn’t. And now, because of the top two scenario, Rossi is in genuine trouble before he even announces… if he announces.

I’m no Rossi fan. His desire to spend $75 million in taxpayer dollars to keep the Sonics here after the people of Seattle voted against such a move was, I believe, instrumental in him getting spanked in the ’08 election. But it showed a side to me… a RINO side to me… that means when it comes to a conservative ideology, Rossi is just a skosh too pliable in abandoning fiscal conservatism under the right circumstance.

Didier, on the others hand, has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning in the general should he politically survive to reach it.

What we’re facing here is a mess. Another botched opportunity to take out a dullard of a US Senator who has managed to pass 5 bills into law during her 18 year tenure… someone who SHOULD have been low hanging fruit… but instead, because of Rossi’s petulance, will most like be the Senator for this state for 6 more horrific years.
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>Tom Mielke nailed it: It’s time to get past Dino.

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I’ve been writing here for some time that Dino will not be running for the Senate. His intransigence and arrogance has actually, IMHO, cost the GOP any reralistic chance of winning.

I wrote one client this morning in response to something Dick Morris wrote in an article:

Rossi continues to avoid the issue.

Ultimately, there’s still no good scenario for the senate in this state.

Dino’s foot will remain, directly or indirectly on the money hose. That is; if he announces for the Senate, people will give him money and the big donors in particular will dry up for anyone else. If Gregoire gets the Solicitor General gig (And I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard even more noise about that soon… not that she will get it, but the dems want Rossi to chase his tail while continuing to shut off the money flow to the rest of the field) I seriously doubt that the announcement would be made at any time that would elevate Owen before October 4, when he would get 25 additional months to hold Rossi (and everyone else) at bay.

If, for whatever the reason, such an announcement is made sooner; the people who would have given money to Rossi for his Senate run will now do it for his Governor’s run, although with smaller limits for the governor’s race, (Looks like $3200 total,
split in half for the primary and the general) that would still leave $1600 to donate for a senate race (Federal limits to $4800.)

Either way, the clamp remains firmly in place, and unless one of the GOP candidates wins Power Ball, there isn’t going to be the where-with-all to get this done.

You can always have the fastest car in the race. But without the gas to run it over the finish line… you finish last. The only way this would work would be for Dino to hold a press conference announcing he was running for anything (Senator OR Governor), while endorsing (and working hard for) a candidate he wanted to win.

And how likely is that?

Morris probably doesn’t know about the stranglehold Rossi and the Bellevue Mafia have on the cash. In an otherwise equal world, Rossi’s failure to act could be overcome. But at this point, the GOP candidates are “squabbling for the crumbs off Longshank’s table,” so to speak. And because there are so many other candidates, and the one with the possibility of self-funding (Aker) has his overseas manufacturing exposure (40% of his product comes from China) and Didier politically to the right of Genghis Khan (ala Ellen Craswell) there appears to me to be little else left.

The GOP has had a golden opportunity here. Bungling, the parochialism of the Bellevue Mob and blinders as to the political reality has taken this seat out of play… no matter what Rossi does. If he were going to announce… the King County Lincoln Day Dinner (Saturday) would have been a time to do it. Had he announced back in February, this would be a completely different discussion

Mielke, on the other hand, took a different tack:

Dear Members of the State Committee

I am very disappointed that Dino Rossi is playing political games with the Republican Party.

We have the ability to take this seat in the Senate away from the democrats, but Rossi’s failure to make a decision has badly hurt our chances.

We have other candidates who’ve been in the race for a long time now and who’ve been taking Sen. Patty Murray to task over and over on the things she is doing and not doing. Some have been paying for TV in Seattle and other areas exposing Murray’s voting record. I am concerned that Rossi’s failure to make a decision has been holding up contributions that would normally be going to other viable candidates. Rossi has held back with his finger in the wind long enough and it is hurting and jeopardizing good Republican candidates who can actually win this
race.

Enough is enough, Rossi would be getting started way too late to have a successful campaign himself if he announced now… He needs to get out of the WAY and let others run… or we will have lost any chance to take this seat away from Murray when she is the most vulnerable she is ever likely to be.

Dino has hurt us all by waiting for no good reason; financial, political or strategic. All he’s done is anger a lot of the base because he refuses to make his plans public and that makes him look indecisive while a lot of us see this fantastic opportunity slipping away because of Rossi.

I, for one have had enough.

Tom Mielke
Clark County Commissioner
District 1
(GOP)

I know Tom. I was his consultant in his successful 2008 run where the GOP took control of the county commission for the first time in 30 years… and did it in a county that went for Obama roughly 52-46% in a campaign where he was outspent about 3 to 1. I know him as both a rabid Rossi supporter and a politically pragmatic figure in elected office for four terms in the Legislature and in his first term as a commissioner.

I am in complete agreement with his observation that we’ve let this opportunity slip away. And unfortunately, nothing can be done to get it back, thanks to Rossi, his intransigence and his arrogance.
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>The Rossi Conundrum: to run for the senate… or hang on for the governorship.

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Sources in the senate have told me late last night that two senate staffers who were going to take a leave of absence for the Rossi campaign cancelled them today.

Rossi is caught between the rock and a hard place. “Everyone” has indicated that Rossi would really, really, rather be Governor. With the rules for a situation like this, if Obama would actually be moronic enough to pick our disaster of a governor for solicitor general, the question would be one of timing.

As explained by the Swing State Project, here’s the scenario:

• WA-Gov: The rumor du jour is that Chris Gregoire is now on the short list to become Solicitor General, assuming Elena Kagan gets promoted to the SCOTUS. Allow me to say: bad idea, if only because it means at least several months of Governor Brad Owen. Under Washington law, though, Owen wouldn’t serve for long, as a special election would be held. The timeline varies, depending on when Gregoire might quit as Governor. If it happens before May 31, a primary would be held, followed by a two-person general in November. If it happens after May 31 but before October 3, it would result in a jungle-style election in November. And if it happens after October 3, we’d be blessed with two full years of Owen. One other major wrinkle: if this looks like it has legs, it may shut the door on a Dino Rossi run for the Senate, as it’s a poorly-kept secret that he’d really prefer another gubernatorial run rather than wasting his third strike on getting pasted by Patty Murray, and this would be the way for him to do it.

So, why would these two people cancel their leave of absence?

Dunno. Fascinating to ponder tho, eh?
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>Why is Dino Rossi working to re-elect Patty Murray?

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A while or so back, I asked the almost rhetorical question: Will Rossi’s intransigence cost the GOP a US Senate pick up?

At the time, it was more a matter of confusion about what was motivating him in this bizarre position he keeps holding on to: that he doesn’t need to campaign until May or June.

Today, a few thoughts occurred to me in the wake of the news that former Rossi stalwarts and former chiefs of staff to Slade Gorton Tony Williams and Jay Vander Stoep won’t work for Rossi if he were to announce… Williams going so far as to hold a fund raiser for Murray, an event that most would have felt to be as possible as being hit by an astroid.

So, the “Why?” questions kept going off in my head.

As I wrote 3 weeks or so ago:

If he waits until May and then tells us “No,” the crippling delay will have made it effectively impossible to be even remotely competitive in the important money race against Murray, who will have an open field when it comes to fund raising while everyone else stews in their juices because Rossi was too arrogant to commit in anything approaching a timely manner one way or the other.

And that was the answer, right there.

That has been his plan all along.

Dino Rossi will NOT be announcing for the US Senate in Washington State. Dino Rossi is deliberately doing this to protect Patty Murray’s re-election.

You see, Rossi’s alleged popularity would not REQUIRE him to campaign at this point. But announcing and filing with the FEC IS a requirement to accept donations.

So, why not do that?

Why not just announce; file, set up a small office with a couple of people in it, and do nothing else except to pick up the checks?

Right now, a lot of people won’t donate to candidates in the senate race because they’re concerned about what Dino Will Do.

Dino knows this. Dino also knows, as I or anyone else knows, that there is absolutely NO advantage of any kind to waiting several months while Murray puts, say, $15 million away before he were to announce. None.

But if he fails to announce until filing; or fails to file, period, Murray will have built up a monumental amount of cash that no one else running could possibly hope to even come close to achieving.

Rossi’s foot is on the fund raising throat of this US Senate campaign. If he waits too long to lift that foot, he will even strangle himself. But by keeping his foot on that throat, he certainly knows he’s strangling everybody else.

By itself, this could have been the product of a massive, out of control ego, a character trait that Rossi has shown in the past.

When added to the facts that waiting makes no strategic political sense and is, in fact, far more crippling to all involved, including Rossi, than announcing last February; when added to the fact that Tony WIlliams held a fund raiser for Patty Murray and that Jay Vander Stoep has indicated he won’t work for a Rossi campaign (Very easy to do when Jay most likely knows there won’t BE a Rossi campaign) it tends to add up to an ugly, deliberate effort to sabotage any chance we have to get rid of the USS Patty Murray and replace her with someone who won’t be an uber-corrupt leftist Obama sycophant.

In spending, literally, days trying to figure this out, there were only so many possible scenarios. When you strip the tenuous partisan element away from it, only one scenario emerges.

Rossi will not run; he knows he will not run; and he’s doing this on purpose to keep anyone else from making a run, either; not only taking them out of the race, but making sure that these other candidates running for the Senate cannot resurrect themselves from a close loss as competition for his next run for governor.

No other scenario of any kind makes strategic political sense.

If you’re among the tens of thousands scratching your head as to why an otherwise bright candidate would engage in childish, ego-centric and dangerous political behavior, I would ask you to consider the possibility that the main reason is he’s doing it on purpose, fully knowing that his actions cripple any other possible outcome but a likely Murray victory.

In 2004, I strongly supported Rossi. In 2008, I opposed him because of a wide variety of reasons that had to do with, among other things, his bizarre position of using tens of millions of tax payer dollars to support keeping the Sonics in Seattle.

But now, I see Rossi as another Herrera type. And that can’t be good.
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