Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi stopped by our office Thursday evening for a discussion of his race with incumbent Gov. Chris Gregoire. (Note: Those of you who hate the word “gubernatorial” have a friend in Kitsap Sun News Editor Jim Thomsen.) Rossi said he feels like this campaign is beginning where the last one left off, only not in a courtroom.

He was short on specifics, but it is early in the campaign and the governor hasn’t officially announced her candidacy yet, though her decision is at least as foregone as Rossi’s ever was, if not more.

Rossi talked at length about problems for Washington small business owners. He referred specifically to the state’s B&O tax, which charges business owners on their revenues, not their profits. Again, not much specific, but he did talk about possibly raising the exemption level.

One piece that didn’t make the story was reporter Andrew Binion’s question on how Rossi would fare working with Democrats. He said he did it well for seven years, working with the moderates on the other side of the aisle.

In three of the seven years he was in the Legislature, however, his party had the majority in the Senate three years, was one vote behind two years and five votes back in two more. Democrats this session own a 32-17 advantage. Even though he was dead even with Gregoire in the 2004 race, Republicans lost two Senate seats and three House seats in the same election. That’s not exactly evidence of long coattails.

Rossi said he’s heard from lots of people who were affected by how close the race was and how they could have found friends to vote for him. It’s much the same message he gave when he was in Bremerton in May, you know, when he wasn’t a candidate.

Editor Scott Ware’s questions are on the video and focus on Rossi differentiating himself from Gregoire. The candidate believes his record with the budget in 2003 and the governor’s record in 2005-08 show contrasts. If that doesn’t convince voters to switch from Gregoire to Rossi, there’s a transportation plan coming and Rossi used the word one reporter at Tuesday’s legislative preview labeled the new buzzword for adding freeway lanes — “congestion.” Yeah, that word’s getting thrown around a lot.

I asked about the long-term outlook for ferries, wanted details about what he’d do about B&O taxes and and asked if tolls might be part of his transportation plan, but he wouldn’t go deep. I couldn’t even get him to begin a philosophical discussion about tolls. Meh, it’s early.

Rossi is not endorsing a presidential candidate yet, saying he told them the best thing he could do for them in 2008 was be on the state ticket.

The governor got specific today, calling for the 1 percent cap. From her Web site.

“I plan to push for legislation that establishes a one percent cap on annual property tax increases. I am already in discussions with legislative leaders on the best next steps to make sure we can implement this correctly.

“I am urging local leaders and taxing districts to not increase their tax levies, based on the court decision, to give the legislature time to act.

“The voters approved Initiative 747, it has been in place for five years and I think we need to leave it in place.”

Dino Rossi responds calls for a special session on his site:

Seattle, WA – Dino Rossi today called on Governor Christine Gregoire to hold a one-day special legislative session before the end of November to reinstate the one-percent limit on property tax increases.

“If Christine Gregoire is serious about providing property tax relief and reinstating the will of the people, then she will act now to cap property tax increases at one-percent,” said Rossi. “This cannot wait until January. Homeowners are threatened with a huge tax hike and local governments and tax districts now have the ability to retroactively tax up to the 6 percent limit. This would be devastating to many senior citizens and low-income people who are being taxed out their homes. Simply asking local governments to not raise taxes is not enough. It is time for Gregoire to turn her words into action and call a one-day session to protect the will of the taxpayers.”

One of the questions I asked legislators was,

“If the Legislature does anything other than reinstate 747’s limits, doesn’t Dino Rossi become governor?”

None said, “Yes” for certain, but Eyman said, “Republicans are salivating the prospect of Democrats not enacting the 1 percent cap as is. When your opponents are begging you to ignore the voters, that’s a good sign.”

What do you think?

I didn’t go to the Dino Rossi announcement. I didn’t ask for the text of the speech.

In fact, I took off in the middle of the day to take my kids to their piano lessons, which gave me an “intimate, slow-moving look at our state’s transportation problems.”

I talked to my daughter about her math, which gave me a close “look at the challenges our students face.”

I didn’t write a book, sell real estate or buy a baseball team.

I bring this up because Rossi did. Maybe he didn’t do all that yesterday, but apparently that’s what he’s been up to. He also headed a foundation, but that we’ve discussed.

Thanks to Sound Politics I can tell you exactly what he said yesterday when he announced he was running again for governor. (Who knew?)

I’ve remained active in the commercial real estate business.

I drive our children to school every day – my wife Terry says I’ve earned my car pool merit badge.

This has given me an intimate, slow-moving look at our state’s transportation problems.

I’ve helped my children with their homework – giving me a close look at the challenges our students face.

I also wrote a book about the lessons I’ve learned about business and leadership.

Oh, and Jay Buhner and I joined as part owners of the Everett Aqua Sox baseball team to ensure that the team ownership stays local.

If you prefer video, go to dinorossi.com.

Our editors, by the way, had planned to have the Rossi story where we run state stories, but the obits were bigger than expected and an ad came in late. Rossi got bumped. That was a mistake.

Don Ward at Sound Politics went to the speech, complained about David Postman’s quibble about not getting the speech text and complained about reporters’ questions at the event.

I don’t know who Don Ward is, but he also posted the text of the speech and invited us to steal it. So I did. I put it in Word, ran it through spell checker and then put it in a tag cloud. The tag cloud generator eliminates common words. After running it through once, I eliminated “being,” “bring,” “going,” “start” and “years.” Then you get the 50 most-used words in the speech. I thought telldino.com would show up.

Below you can find the text from Rossi’s speech, lifted from Sound Politics.

I mentioned I ran spell check, but I haven’t edited the speech closely. Since I don’t know how Ward entered the text over at Sound Politics, if you do find mistakes I don’t know if they are his or Rossi’s.

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On Sunday the (Yakima) Herald-Republic urged Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Gov. Chris Gregoire to stop being coy and announce that they’re running for governor.

Sound Politics says Rossi plans to announce Thursday. That’s the only place we’ve seen it, so far.

UPDATE: There is no “official” confirmation, but people who don’t want their names in the paper over this say Rossi is running.

Andrew Binion writes:

A news flash from the state campaign finance watchdog Friday had an interesting item, which may give the GOP faithful something to look forward to in November 2008.
Five people have registered to run for governor in 2008, and one is Dino Rossi.
But don’t read too much into it.

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In May Dino Rossi came to Bremerton as a guest of the county’s Republican party, but officially in his title as president of the Forward Washington Foundation.

Because the Caucus blog hadn’t yet launched, I planted my impressions at the Bremerton Beat.

Dino Rossi, who came 129 votes short of becoming governor in 2004, swears he hasn’t decided whether he’ll run again in 2008. It’s a good thing he says it, because if he didn’t you’d swear he already is.

Any politically interested person would have come to the same conclusion. The event was not all that different from one I attended in 2004 on Bainbridge Island, a meeting that was unapologetically a campaign stop. Nonetheless, Rossi’s position was that he was not yet decided on whether he’d run in 2008, saying he and his family would wait until the end of this year to commit.

State Democrats decided the Forward Washington effort was a Rossi campaign in disguise, so they filed a complaint with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission.

The ongoing question influenced Rossi to resign as president of Forward Washington, the organization announced today. He’s being replaced by Ted Dahlstrom, a former state senator.

“The Governor’s political agents filed a baseless complaint with the Public Disclosure Foundation (PDC) against our non-partisan Foundation. It is baseless because we were informed, in writing, by the PDC that as long as the Foundation did not expend funds to lobby or influence elections we would not be subject to PDC regulation – and we have never engaged in those activities,” said Dahlstrom.

I think I can say without risking much that I would be shocked if Rossi decided to not run and that fellow Republicans would be angry. It’s still early, but are there any other Republicans who could mount a sufficient campaign against Gov. Chris Gregoire?

Speaking of Gregoire, she says she won’t announce her intentions until after the 2008 legislative session, despite the fact she’s collecting a lot of cash in case she does. Postman’s got an entertaining bit on that.

You can read the rest of the organization’s press release below.

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Earlier we showcased the bit of irony that Gov. Chris Gregoire wouldn’t release the names of people who had applied to be part of the state’s Sunshine Committee, but weren’t selected.

She changed her answer. The Associated Press got the names and is still waiting from the state attorney general. I can’t tell in this story whether the auditor’s names have been released, but both the AG and the auditor raised no objections other than redacting information such as Social Security numbers.

The 20 pages of resumes, letters and e-mails regarding seven unsuccessful committee applicants were released to the AP Thursday and Friday, after Gregoire asked each person whether they objected to the information being made public.

If there’s one thing we reporters can get opinionated about is the government’s willingness to operate in the open. Apparently, a couple of the applicants did, too.

None of the applicants objected, and two criticized the Democratic governor’s decision not to release the documents.

Define irony.

From the Associated Press:

Gov. Chris Gregoire has refused to reveal the identities of some people who weren’t picked for seats on the state’s new “Sunshine Committee.”

. . .

In her reply, the Democratic governor cited an exemption to public records law that says applications for public employment can be kept secret.

This is far more ironic than any of the examples Alanis Morissette gave us.

Steven Gardner writes:

Former state GOP party chairman Chris Vance writes on Crosscut about what a difference it would make for the party if Dino Rossi were to win the governor’s race in 2008.

It suffices to say that if Rossi becomes Governor, if Republicans win that one election, the GOP is instantly back in the game.

A popular, suburban-friendly figure will lead and define the Party. Hundreds of Republicans will move into leadership positions within the administration. Republican legislators, whatever their numbers, will be relevant, backed by the power of the governor. The campaign funding disparity will improve as donors will have to recognize the changed political situation. Rarely has one race been so critical.

“Whatever their numbers” is particularly important here, because the number is zero. All nine legislators representing Kitsap are Democrats.

So, among those on the list above, who’s vulnerable? Who’s untouchable? And who’s a Republican who can win?

If all nine Democrats run again and win, then you go to Vance’s comment that “The campaign funding disparity will improve.” I’m extending Vance’s statement to mean that if Rossi wins in 2008, but doesn’t have the coattails to unseat any Kitsap Democrats in the same election, his win drastically improves GOP chances locally in 2010.

Local GOP candidates will undoubtedly campaign hard against the Democratic incumbents in 2008, but even for locals there may be no more important race than the one for governor.

Steven Gardner writes:

You’ve probably read the story, or this, or this, or this.

Democrats are saying Rossi really is campaigning for governor, even if he isn’t officially a candidate. In May I wrote about his visit to local Republicans in a news story and on the Bremerton Beat blog.

Dino Rossi, who came 129 votes short of becoming governor in 2004, swears he hasn’t decided whether he’ll run again in 2008. It’s a good thing he says it, because if he didn’t you’d swear he already is.

During the May event Rossi acted almost every bit like a candidate. I say “almost” because full-blown candidates are usually a bit more forceful in style than he was. Then again, I saw him speak in 2004 and the appearance this year wasn’t much different.

He says he is still undecided. Let’s assume that’s true. For me it raises the question of whether Rossi will be resented by the state GOP if he decides to not run. He has clearly established himself as Plan A, with no Plan B coming forward. Had he not been so much on the “foundation” trail, might someone else have launched and begun to establish credibility?

Rossi said he’ll make a decision close to the end of the year. If he decides he’s not running, is there a Republican who can present a significant challenge to Chris Gregoire?