Seattle Post-Intelligencer - Rossi Rallies GOP delegates
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Seattle Post-Intelligencer - Rossi Rallies GOP delegates
He says campaign raises $8 million
Stewart M. Powell
Republican Dino Rossi on Wednesday told enthusiastic Washington state delegates to the GOP convention that his rerun campaign was going "exceptionally well" against Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, with fresh donations swelling his campaign coffers to more than $8 million.
The fundraising bolsters his chances of winning in a state expected to back Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in November.
Rossi provided the upbeat update by phone to convention delegates and guests gathered here in the dimly lit, aptly named Rossi's Steakhouse hours before Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accepted the GOP vice presidential nomination. Palin is expected to appear at a fundraiser and campaign event in Washington state Sept. 24.
Rossi's announcement that his campaign was closing in on Gregoire's $9.4 million in fundraising triggered sustained applause and whoops of support from members of the delegation. Rossi said his second campaign against Gregoire already had enlisted 15,000 more donors than his 2004 campaign, with 68 percent of the donors first-time contributors.
"We've just expanded the pie," said Rossi, a commercial real estate entrepreneur who has served in the state Senate. "The campaign is turning into more of a citizens' movement."
Rossi lost his first race against Gregoire in 2004 by 133 votes in disputed recounts.
Rossi said that he has devoted the week of the GOP convention to campaigning in Washington rather than joining fellow Republicans in St. Paul.
"I wish I could be back there with you, but I'm kind of hoping you guys are all voting for me already," Rossi said.
Former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., who left the Senate after narrowly losing to Democrat Maria Cantwell in 2000, said Rossi stands a chance of withstanding the expected tide of support for Obama across a state that has backed Democrats for president in five straight elections since 1984.
"Our voters are particularly independent and don't follow a straight party ticket," Gorton said. "Dino has his appeal and it's separate from McCain."
The GOP ticket, led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faces a particularly challenging task in Washington because McCain's intervention in the Pentagon's prospective $100 billion contract for a new generation of combat aerial tankers has alarmed many employees and supporters of The Boeing Co.
Obama leads McCain by an average of 5.8 percentage points in five nationwide polls conducted since the end of the Democratic convention last Friday. Obama leads McCain in Washington state by an average of 10.5 percentage points in four surveys completed since July 25.
"Historically, the state votes Democratic for president," said Al Schweppe, a lawyer from Yakima who said he helped Rossi handle his court recount fight in 2004. "But I'm not going to concede that this time."
Schweppe said Rossi's promise to reform operations at the state Capitol in Olympia resembles the reform-minded agenda being pressed by McCain and Palin.
"They're all reformers," Schweppe said. "McCain has shaken up the nation's capital; Palin has shaken up Alaska and Dino wants to shake up the establishment in Olympia."
State GOP Chairman Luke Esser conceded that Republicans face challenges delivering Washington for McCain.
"We're realistic -- there's no doubt that Obama is ahead," Esser said. "We just have to keep working hard."
State Attorney General Rob McKenna told delegates that the key to the fall campaign would be generating voter turnout among supporters of Rossi, as well as McCain. Obama has 18 field offices across the state, McKenna said. Esser, the state party chairman, said the GOP has seven "victory offices" statewide to coordinate federal and state campaigns.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said that Republicans do well statewide. She cited McKenna's victory as attorney general, Rossi's narrow loss in 2004 and Gorton's narrow loss in 2000.
"It's always very close," McMorris Rodgers said.
Past candidates for governor such as Rossi have overcome the political odds. Democrat Booth Gardner survived Reagan's 13 percentage point win over Democrat Walter Mondale in Washington state in 1984 to win the statehouse.
Republican Dan Evans withstood President Lyndon Johnson's 25 percentage point sweep of the state in 1964 to win the first of three terms as governor. Evans ran on a GOP ticket that was led that year by then-Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., the presidential nominee, who rallied barely 37 percent of the vote in Washington.
Six-term Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a veteran campaigner who briefly ran for president in 2000, said in an interview that Rossi ought to emphasize Republican principles in his campaign and relentlessly tackle Democratic critics in hopes of prevailing.
David Avella, executive director of GOPAC, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that recruits and trains GOP candidates at the state level, said Rossi was one of two GOP candidates for governor nationwide that have "the best shot" to replace Democrats.
Repeated Democratic victories could leave them controlling the statehouse, holding the post of governor and majorities in the state's House and Senate in a development that could imperil Republican congressional districts when redistricting takes place, Avella said.
The nine-member Washington congressional delegation has six Democrats and three Republicans. Avella warned that the delegation could shift to eight Democrats and only one Republican under some hypothetical redistricting maps.
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