The Hill reports that NRSC chair Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is “getting antsy” over Dino Rossi and his supposed indecisiveness about a potential run at Democratic incumbent Sen. Patty Murray.
“I’ve been urging him to make a decision sooner rather than later because there’s a practical problem with not having enough time to do what you need to do before the election.”
Rossi keeps saying he has until the June 11th filing deadline to make up his mind, but with the election barely six months away, every day he delays diminishes his party’s prospects further. So what could possibly be going through Rossi’s head right now?
- He’s decided to run.
In which case he’s an idiot for not making it official, organizing a campaign, and starting to raise the millions of dollars necessary to make this race competitive. - He’s decided not run.
In which case he’s an asshole for leaving his party hanging like this. I mean, talking about not being a team player. - He’s truly undecided.
In which case he’s… well… he’s incredibly indecisive. Is this the kinda guy our state really wants to send to the other Washington… the kinda guy who can’t make up his mind whether he even wants to be there?
I’m already on the record suggesting it’s option number two — that he’s simply taking advantage of the attention and publicity in advance of another shot at the governor’s mansion. And Rossi’s comments to The Hill do nothing to change my mind:
“We have four children between nine and 19, so it’s not a casual decision,” he said. “I do have to say that I’ve been to Washington D.C. six times, and I’m not eager to head back into that snake pit.”
Cynical as I am, I don’t find either of those statements disingenuous. In fact, it’s exactly what I observed more than a month ago, when speculation about a possible Rossi senate run first started dominating headlines:
While Rossi would no doubt like to be elected Senator, insiders say he’s not so keen on the idea of running. Nor is serving in the other Washington all that appealing. … [T]he U.S. Senate is a full-time gig that requires tons of travel and the uprooting of one’s family…
Rossi wants to be governor. He believes he won the governor’s mansion in 2004, that it was stolen from him, and that, well, he’s owed it. So not only would the nitty-gritty of serving in the senate be unappealing, but an ass-whooping at the hands of Murray — a third straight statewide defeat — would pretty much end any dreams Rossi has of a triumphant return to Olympia.
So I can’t help but view Rossi’s very public dithering in that context.
Writing elsewhere on The Hill, Aaron Blake wonders if Rossi’s apparent indecisiveness signals the he does not have the “fire in the belly” necessary to run a viable campaign, but I think Rossi still has plenty of fire… just not for this particular job.
To me, Rossi seems to bask in the glow of friendly media and the back-slapping from his supporters. But he also seems to be incredibly thin-skinned, for a politician, when it comes to anything less than friendly questioning from the media, much less a challenge from his opponants. His last guvenatorial run showed this well: he loved getting in the small rooms with eagre supporters encouring him with promises of an easy victory, or at managed campaign events before screened audiences where he was able to give a speach to great applause, but avoid questions from the media. He even went so far as to make sure police enforced a ban on video cameras at events in public places (parks, etc.), and to exclude anyone not previously invited. His answers to his deposition in the lawsuit barely dripped with contempt that anyone would dare to question his motives or statements as to when he had decided to run for office at that time.
This doesn’t bode well for a politician on a national stage. A politician needs to be enjoy the fight, the constant struggle and debate between competing ideas, and to recognize that while you might disagree with the opponant on the other side, you still have to work with them when the day is done, and the day after that, and the day after that.
Agreed. Rossi wants one, and only one, political job. And it’s in Olympia, not the District of Columbia.
It’s a pissing contest with Rob McKenna. Each one is trying to position himself as the GOP nominee in 2012. Which will make for fascinating theater in the next couple of years, as they leap ever farther into the wingnut sphere in order to trump each other’s credibility with the
teabaggerswackoscraziesRepublican base.Rossi’s only won 1 race and he didn’t even finish out his term for that state senate seat. The WSRP would do well to cut themselves loose from Rossi.
What’s the record for most state-wide races lost?
If Rossi runs for office this year, he’s likely to have the sticky, stinky goo of his association with Michael Mastro all over him on the home stretch going into the election. Combine this with the fact that Murray’s a far more effective campaigner than Gregoire. (Mind you, the Republicans have blinded themselves to this as they’ve held hands and chanted their “Patty’s-a-dumb-broad” mantra for nearly 20 years, apparently unaware that it hasn’t worked.)
On the other hand, suppose he hitches himself to the campaign’s wagon, puts on his best tie, gets in front of the cameras and takes some teabagger pot-shots at her….then steps aside and lets some other poor fool take the fall. That way he gets some air time and perhaps can twist that into the public remembering him in 2010 as something other than a two-time loser for the same office coming back for a third try.
I agree that he’s decided not to run, but don’t agree that being coy about it is hurting the Republicans.
They’ve got nothing other than Rossi & McKenna, neither of which will take on Murray. They aren’t stupid.
When Rossi bows out is unimportant. Having nothing earlier rather than later is of no use to the Republicans.
Rossi is totally unqualified to be governor. Oh, and he did win in 2004, but the GOP’s stupid lawyers ($2 million’s worth of them) threw it away when they decided not to submit several hundred signature validations from Republican voters because they were arguing in the state supreme court that the validated Gregoire ballots shouldn’t count (an argument they lost). The GOPers got a late start in their signature drive, but they had around 400, and assuming a validation rate on a par with the Democrats’ 70%, Rossi would have got about 280 more votes, more than enough to overcome Gregoire’s 133-vote margin. So, yes, he probably did win — and got burned by his party’s stupid legal strategy.
# 7: The GOP strategy in the 2004 election challenge was: we choose the county & the judge, ergo we win! Didn’t quite work out that way. They chose the county, it only had two judges and the first one recused himself, and the second one decided the case fairly on the merits.
Republican attempts to challenge felon voters, based upon wingnut assumptions that all felons must be Democrats, only resulted in more votes being subtracted from Rossi’s totals as self-confessed Republican felons admitted to having voted for Rossi.
The GOP final last-gasp strategy was based on the assumption that if felons could be proven to have voted in King County, then the court must assume that they voted in the same percentages as King County voters generally. The judge, of course, thought that was nonsense – the GOP had the burden of proof, and if it could not prove that specific votes should have been subtracted from Gregoire’s totals, then that was their problem.
Besides, I’ve often wondered if the Republicans really wanted the governor’s office that badly. They seemed to enjoy the election contest more as a fund-raising tool nationally. If they had won the election, they might have had to – you know – GOVERN, which they don’t seem to be particularly adept at doing.
Why not?
The voters of the WA 08 have sent Reichert twice and he the only thing he’s made his mind up about is that he doens’t care being told how to vote by the radical teahadist Republican elite.
Doesn’t Rossi’s indecisiveness bring attention to a couple of the GOP candidates that would otherwise get NO exposure right now?
It would not surprise me if this flawed strategy was actually intentional.
Much like Palin, Rossi wants the easy way to power. Heaven forbid that he would actually have to work at something. At least, and I say this with actually no support for him whatsoever, McKenna has actually worked over the years in different political offices.
It’s going to be an interesting primary between McKenna and Rossi for the governor’s mansion! McKenna has got to be peeved that he has been doing all this work through the years creating a moderate image and now he has to visible tack to the far right just to get past Rossi. If he gets past Rossi in the primary he’s got to tack back to the middle. Meanwhile Rossi just sits back and waits for people to beg him to run…It’s very egotistical and shallow… enough said.
@10 I’m convinced Palin is in it for money. She’s getting $20 million in this TV deal. Not bad for a stupid hick who, just a few short years ago, was the bumbling mayor of a hick town in Alaska.
# 11: Yep, she’s in it for the money. Her PAC has raised quite a few bucks, but she’s only given a very small percentage to actual candidates. You might assume that she is saving the money for later, except that reports show she IS spending it – on consultants, travel, etc. She’s treating it as her personal budget.