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The American Prospect raises the existential question for Dino Rossi and his closest advisors:

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair John Cornyn has a had a pretty tough year recruiting and protecting his candidates. They just keep running into trouble — from Charlie Crist fleeing the Republican Party in Florida and Bob Bennett’s primary loss in Utah to John McCain’s Arizona primary challenge and the Kentucky Rand Paul insurgency overwhelming the GOP’s chosen standard-bearer. So if you’re a Republican considering a run for Senate and Cornyn says, “I told him we will do whatever it takes to help him and that’s a fact,” do you take that to the bank?

That’s the question facing perennial Washington state GOP candidate Dino Rossi, who is mulling over a challenge to sitting Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

And I’d wager the answer is “no.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, there are really only two possibilities here: either Rossi has already made his decision, or he hasn’t. If he’s made his decision, then he’s decided not to run, because there’s absolutely nothing to gain from delaying his campaign any further, while there’s not much to lose from keeping his name in the headlines. And if he’s still undecided, I’m guessing a large part of the process has to do with working out the logistics of raising enough money to be competitive.

Rossi raised about $11.6 million during his 2008 gubernatorial bid, and even assuming he could match that total in roughly half the time — averaging about $70,000 a day between now and the election — that would still leave him well short of Sen. Murray’s likely total… maybe by as much as $5 million. And that’s assuming he can take Cornyn’s promise to the bank.

So thanks, American Prospect, for raising that very important question. But as for the rest of piece, well, you really ought to do your research:

While Murray isn’t particularly vulnerable, in a tough anti-incumbent year and with a candidate like Rossi, who has come within 133 votes of winning the state’s gubenatorial seat, Republicans might have an opportunity to exploit.

Of course, that 133 vote margin was way back in 2004; Rossi lost by 194,614 votes in a 2008 rematch, after voters had the opportunity to get to know the two candidates better. Maybe you just confused “2004” with “2008” — after all, they both have “200” in them — but I’d argue that the more recent election is the more relevant one.

Except the Tea Party candidate will stay in the race no matter what happens in the primary. So will a self-funding millionaire conservative candidate. That doesn’t spell an easy chance for Rossi.

Yeah, um, except we have a top-two primary here in Washington state, so nobody will be on the November ballot other than the top-two vote getters. So while I love that whole Tea-Party-and-self-funded-millionaire-candidates-as-obstacles meme, and would absolutely love to run with it… well… if wishes were horses, and all that.

Moreover, Democrats are already doing everything they can to make Rossi the next Dan Coates — Coates, the former Indiana senator returning to run for Evan Bayh’s open seat, hit early troubles by slighting his old state and with his work as a Washington lobbyist. Thus far, they’ve been hitting him for not paying $20,000 in back taxes and his connections to a shady bank.

I’m confused by that last sentence. Does “him” refer to Rossi or Coates? Or both? (Factually, it does apply to Rossi, but that’s not so clear from your vague use of the objective personal pronoun.)

Rossi has had two heartbreakingly close statewide elections in the last two cycles.

“Two heartbreakingly close” elections? Really?

Surely 2004’s 133-vote margin was a heartbreaker (no doubt Rossi still believes he actually won), but the 194,614-vote, 6.5% margin in 2008… not so much. That’s about the same percentage of the national vote by which Barack Obama beat John McCain, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody describe that race as close, heartbreakingly or otherwise.

So yeah, while I agree with the American Prospect that Rossi should question whether Cornyn can help him all that much in a U.S. Senate bid, Rossi first has to answer the question of whether he can actually help himself. And based on his 2008 performance, the evidence isn’t all that convincing.

Right around the same time yesterday that State Auditor Brian Sonntag was telling reporters he would run for governor should there be a special election to replace Gov. Gregoire, I was telling a Republican friend of mine that I would actually vote for Dino Rossi should it come down to a contest between the two. Really.

The way I figure it, as long as we’re getting a conservative Republican who hangs with teabaggers, cavorts with Tim Eyman and endorses Susan Hutchison, we might as well get one who openly embraces the Republican Party label (or at the very least, the Grand Old Party Party label). That way, I can vilify the new governor coherently, and without constantly having defend my party from being branded with his anti-tax, anti-transit, anti-Democratic policies.

So yeah, in the hypothetical event of a Rossi v. Sonntag contest, I’m voting for Rossi. Though I’m guessing I’ll have to get myself pretty damn drunk to fill out that ballot.

According to the Seattle Times, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is likely to receive the $44 million it needs to make emergency repairs to the Howard Hanson Dam. Why…?

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray convinced her colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee to put the money into a supplemental spending bill the Senate is expected to vote on later this month.

And this is why I’ve already made the bold prediction that the Times will break with character this November and endorse the Democratic incumbent, even if her opponent is Dino Rossi. Because Sen. Murray delivers in a way that a Sen. Rossi simply couldn’t.

See, unlike Sen. Murray, Rossi wouldn’t have any colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and even if he did, he’d be the juniorest of junior members, most likely in the minority party, and with almost zero influence. The result: billions of dollars of federal money going to states that weren’t stupid enough to toss out one of the Senate’s most powerful appropriators… dollars that could’ve been coming to us.

Does that analysis sound craven? Does it reek of pork barrel politics? Well tell that to the thousands of homeowners and businesses in the Green River flood plain who risk having their lives and livelihoods washed away should the Army Corp not get the funding it needs to continue emergency repairs.

This is the way politics works. Patty Murray is simply too valuable to our state economy to toss out on mere ideological grounds. And business establishment types like Frank Blethen know it.

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It looks like Dino Rossi isn’t the only Republican with a moral hazard, and he might want to look to Ohio for a timely example of how one’s business “success” can turn into a political failure:

Republican John Kasich, the former congressman and Fox News host who is running for governor of Ohio, used to tout his eight years at Lehman Brothers.

But in the wake of the firm’s collapse, it’s Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland who is putting Kasich’s Wall Street ties front and center in one of the marquee races of 2010.

Co-founding Eastside Commercial Bank to help him and his associates cash in on the recent real estate bubble may have been a smart business move for Rossi, but now that his banks “unsafe and unsound” practices have come to light, he sure as hell won’t profit from it politically.

But if he can’t run as a successful businessman, what can Rossi run on? Almost winning the governor’s mansion in 2004? I’m not sure that’s enough to defeat Sen. Patty Murray, even in an anti-incumbency year.

It’s good to see that the Seattle Times editorial board has its priorities straight.

YOU do not have to be a technical whiz to know Craigslist is not to blame for the recent murder in Pierce County, a heinous crime that claimed the life of a loving father in front of his family.

No, you don’t. But despite this admission, the “Craigslist Killing” still kinda trivializes the rest of the Times’ editorial:

But it also doesn’t take too much to recognize the site must do more to rid itself of numerous posts that seem to promote or involve prostitution.

The Times urges Attorney General Rob McKenna to “step up his involvement,” but I think if local law enforcement is going to crack down on prostitution, I’d rather them focus on the hookers trolling Rainier Avenue, who occasionally have their Johns drive up the hill and park on the corner in front of my house, where they inevitably dump their empty beer bottles, used condoms and soiled paper towels on the sidewalk for the neighborhood kids to walk by on their way to school the next morning.

I mean, don’t you think that’s a bit more of a public nuisance than the more discrete, home delivery kinda services pitched online?

Personally, I find the whole notion of sex-for-money both degrading and, well, unhygienic, and I’m sure in favor of attempting to address the broader swath of social ills that leads women to engage in the sex trade. But when the transaction occurs between two consenting adults in the privacy of one’s own home or place of business, well, I find that much less troublesome than when it occurs in the backseat of a car parked outside my bedroom window at one in the morning.

But then, I suppose my priorities are bit different than those of the editors at the Times, perhaps because, unlike me, none of them live two blocks up the hill from Rainier Avenue.

I don’t doubt that the ads in the adult-services section of Craigslist are degrading and offensive, so unlike the Times’ editors, I never read them. But if, as the Times implies, these ads are “among the main ways officers track down sexually exploited juveniles and adults,” it strikes me that there’s a certain karma at play here, if not a useful check and balance on the sex industry’s worst excesses. After all, it’s easier and more efficient to patrol the adult-services section on Craigslist than it is our city’s streets, and during these tough budgetary times, law enforcement needs to prioritize its resources.

The truth is, men are dicks, both literally and figuratively, so there will always be a market for prostitution; I mean, you just can’t change human nature. So my concern is that if you crack down on Craigslist, you won’t stop these illicit services, you’ll just force them offline, underground… and into a car parked on that dark corner outside my house.

TPM digs into AmeriPAC, a right-wing political organization run by Bellevue’s Alan Gottlieb. The organization raised $1.3 million from people – primarily by playing upon unfounded fears that the Obama Administration is going after everyone’s guns – but only spent $1,300 on actual political campaigns. So where’s all the money going?

Most of the money raised by AmeriPAC has gone to Diener Consultants, a Lititz, Pennsylvania, firm whose pared down website boasts of “email marketing software and related professional services streamline production time to maximize your return on investment.”

Diener reportedly did work for Alan Keyes’ 1996 and 2000 presidential campaigns. According to the Arizona Republic, Diener also ran the failed 2005 California congressional campaign of Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist. But he was none too pleased with their services, telling the paper, “I fired them the day after my campaign was over.”

And by the way, Gottlieb has previously served time for tax evasion.

Last week, Goldy posted the video of police officers storming into a Columbia, Missouri house and shooting two dogs in front of a young child – all in the pursuit of someone they believed had marijuana in his possession. Radley Balko has an excellent post about the raid, the reaction, and the reality:

Last week, a Columbia, Missouri, drug raid captured on video went viral. As of this morning, the video had garnered 950,000 views on YouTube. It has lit up message boards, blogs, and discussion groups around the Web, unleashing anger, resentment and even, regrettably, calls for violence against the police officers who conducted the raid. I’ve been writing about and researching these raids for about five years, including raids that claimed the lives of innocent children, grandmothers, college students, and bystanders. Innocent families have been terrorized by cops who raided on bad information, or who raided the wrong home due to some careless mistake. There’s never been a reaction like this one.

But despite all the anger the raid has inspired, the only thing unusual thing here is that the raid was captured on video, and that the video was subsequently released to the press. Everything else was routine. Save for the outrage coming from Columbia residents themselves, therefore, the mass anger directed at the Columbia Police Department over the last week is misdirected. Raids just like the one captured in the video happen 100-150 times every day in America. Those angered by that video should probably look to their own communities. Odds are pretty good that your local police department is doing the same thing.

…

It’s heartening that nearly a million people have now seen the Columbia video. But it needs some context. The officers in that video aren’t rogue cops. They’re no different than other SWAT teams across the country. The raid itself is no different from the tens of thousands of drug raids carried out each year in the U.S. If the video is going to effect any change, the Internet anger directed at the Columbia Police Department needs to be redirected to America’s drug policy in general. Calling for the heads of the Columbia SWAT team isn’t going to stop these raids. Calling for the heads of the politicians who defend these tactics and promote a “war on drugs” that’s become all too literal—that just might.

And now the Columbia police chief hates the internet. Oh, that mean, mean internet – always pointing out that storming into houses and shooting dogs in front of young children isn’t an appropriate response to marijuana use.

What started as a rumor running through the halls and barrooms of Olympia has jumped to the other Washington today, with the National Journal’s Reid Wilson confirming that Gov. Chris Gregoire is indeed on the White House’s short list to replace Elena Kagan as Solicitor General:

WA Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) leads a short list to replace Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the WH has told members of Gregoire’s home-state delegation.

Gregoire, a 2-term incumbent and a former WA AG, has been a rumored contender for other admin positions. But the WH has informed top aides to WA members that she is under serious consideration, according to several sources inside the delegation.

An admin official confirmed Gregoire’s name is one of those being considered. Gregoire endorsed candidate Obama just before the WA caucuses in ’08, offering a helping hand as Obama picked up two-thirds of the state’s delegates.

Yesterday, Gov. Gregoire’s aides seemed eager to quash the rumor, but in the wake of today’s reports, the most definitive comment I’ve been able to extract from insiders today are assurances that the Governor “has not been seeking” the job. Clearly unanswered in that response is whether Gov. Gregoire would consider the position if offered.

Of course, she’d be crazy not to, at least in terms of her own career. Gov. Gregoire does not appear to be planning to run for a third term, and there’s a better than even chance she’d lose if she tried. So there’s zero downside to her moving on to the national stage.

As to the political chaos her early retirement would create here in Washington state, well, that’s a different matter.

Even putting aside the unsettling prospect of Lt. Gov. Brad Owen’s brief stewardship, the political disruption would be immense, resulting in either a cakewalk for Dino Rossi in a special election, or a messy free for all that could leave several open seats in its wake. Would Rep. Jay Inslee suddenly abandon his congressional reelection for an early run at the governor’s mansion? Would Reps. Adam Smith or even (don’t laugh) Dave Reichert? Would WA Attorney General Rob McKenna defer his own gubernatorial dreams in favor of Rossi, or would he try to muscle the two-time loser out… or even risk splitting the Republican vote?

Given the circumstances, I’d have to put my money on Rossi. I’ve often joked about how well Rossi runs in the polls during off years, but a special election with little time for an opposing Democrat to gain statewide ID would be just the opportunity Rossi needs to break this cycle.

Hmm. Much to think about. Especially for Rossi as he continues to contemplate a near hopeless run at Sen. Patty Murray.

When I wrote a post back in March, laying out Dino Rossi’s shady business dealings with accused swindler Michael Mastro, Rossi’s defenders depicted the maybe-senatorial candidate as one of Mastro’s victims. When a real estate investment firm Rossi co-owns was found to owe over $20,000 in unpaid property taxes, Rossi’s business partners downplayed his culpability, saying “It definitely is nothing Dino is involved in.”

And Monday, when Politico reported that a failing bank Rossi co-founded and co-owns runs the risk of being shut down by the feds at taxpayer expense, a Washington State Republican Party spokesperson laughed off Rossi’s involvement, repeating the Rossi-as-victim meme by saying of his investment, “It’s not worth as much as it used to be.”

All of which raises a question: If Rossi — who frequently touts his business acumen and experience as one of his prime qualifications for higher office — is so hands off his investments, so easily swindled by his associates and so frequently on the wrong end of a deal gone bad, can we taxpayers really afford to have Rossi run government like he runs his business?

Or, is Rossi really much more involved with his business dealings than he lets on?

He’s allegedly a millionaire after all, so it’s hard to believe that Rossi is as clueless and detached as his surrogates consistently make him out be. Take, for example, the foundering Eastside Commercial Bank at the center of the latest expose. Rossi was one of 35 founding stakeholders who put in a minimum of $10,000 each to start up the venture, and it was Rossi who recruited Dick Ducharme, “a friend, lobbyist and business partner” to both invest in the bank and serve as its CEO.

So, when the federal Comptroller of the Currency declares that Eastside has “engaged in unsafe and unsound banking practices relating to its strategic and capital planning, credit underwriting, credit administration, concentration risk management, and liquidity management,” doesn’t that even somewhat reflect on Rossi’s judgement, if not his business ethics and management skills?

Rossi’s defenders insist “no,” dismissing this latest revelation as just another skid-mark in a Democratic smear campaign, but one can’t help but wonder if Rossi’s refusal to take any personal responsibility for the negative consequences of his own business ventures might have contributed to their failure? No doubt Rossi helped start the Eastside Commercial Bank with the intent of getting in on the huge profits that were being made during the recent real estate bubble, but now that it is collapsing under the weight of the same kind of “unsafe and unsound banking practices” that were widespread in the industry at the time, Rossi expects to be held blameless for his own co-creation.

This is exactly the sort of moral hazard that led to the Wall Street disaster and subsequent bailout, for when there are no consequences for one’s actions, or when the consequences are always the responsibility, perceived or otherwise, of some third party, then there is little disincentive to reckless behavior or benign neglect. And while the term has most recently been applied to the machinations of Wall Street, it is just as applicable to the way Rossi routinely leverages his political capital for both political and personal gain, apparently without fear of ever being held publicly responsible for his actions.

Rossi could have accepted at least a little responsibility for the unsound practices of the bank he co-founded, just like he could have accepted responsibility for not seeing through the fraudulent practices of his mentor Mel Heide or his investment partner Michael Mastro. He could have accepted responsibility for being a partner in a business that failed to pay its taxes, or for his gubernatorial campaign’s misuse of the Everett AquaSox mailing list, a team he part-owned. But in all these situations he allowed the blame to fall on others, painting himself the innocent victim of a Democratic smear campaign.

The thing is, it’s not a smear when it’s the truth. Rossi’s mentor was convicted of fraud, and Mastro is accused likewise. Rossi did misuse the AquaSox mailing list, his business did fail to pay its taxes, and his bank is on the verge of collapse. I suppose you could argue that it is unfair of me to imply guilt by association, but it is not unreasonable to attempt to infer a pattern by connecting the dots.

More troubling though for Rossi and his boosters at the NRSC is that the dots keep coming, and it is important to note that despite the vetting he received during his two gubernatorial runs, these latest revelations involve post-2008 timelines. This is the way Rossi conducts his business, and if he truly is as hands-off a manager as his defenders insist, or as morally hazardous as critics like me suspect, then dollars to donuts there are plenty more dots to come.

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 352 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

According to the TNT’s Peter Callaghan, the rumor du jour in Olympia is that Gov. Chris Gregoire is on President Obama’s short list to replace Elena Kagan as Solicitor General, a prospect that conjures three frightening words: Governor Brad Owen.

(Shudder.)

Callaghan goes on to explain that a resignation before May 31 would result in a special election, both primary and general, whereas a resignation after May 31, but before October 3 would result in a November free for all. (A resignation after October 3 would result in — ugh — Lt. Gov. Brad Owen filling out the remaining two years of Gregoire’s term.)

One intriguing aspect of this rumor is that should it come true, Dino Rossi would become the instant frontrunner in a special election. Yet one more bit of gristle for him to chew on as he considers flushing his career down the toilet in a futile challenge to Sen. Patty Murray.

Last night at the 37th LD Dems’ monthly meeting, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith talked about the tough electoral climate Democrats will be facing this November, pointing out that even he faced a credible challenger for the first time in years.

Really?

According to the FEC, Rep. Smith was sitting on nearly $650,000 cash on hand at the end of the March quarter, while his closest rival, James Postma, had an almost respectable reserve of about $135,000 at the end of 2009. I emphasize the date, because Postma has failed to file the Q1 report due April 15. Postma also hasn’t updated his website since at least early April, his Facebook page since March, and his Twitter feed since, well, ever. So it’s not really clear that Postma is still running.

Not that Postma was ever all that credible. Rep. Smith already defeated him by a nearly two-to-one margin back in 2008, and of the $150,977 Postma had raised before apparently dropping off the edge of the earth, $150,900 was a loan from himself. No, $77 in individual contributions is not really credible at all.

So I suppose the credible challenger Rep. Smith must’ve been talking about is Pierce County Councilman Dick Muri, who raised $56,000 through the end of March, for a total of $43,000 cash-on-hand. No, money isn’t everything, but from all reports Muri isn’t exactly the kinda imposing political presence who can afford to be outspent by a 15-to-1 margin.

No doubt Rep. Smith hails from a swing district, at least demographically, despite the firm electoral hold he’s managed to take on it over the past decade, but I haven’t heard even whispers of Republican optimism in WA-09, despite the GOP’s almost religious belief in the cleansing powers of an imminent Big Red Wave.

So sorry Adam, don’t mean to put a crimp in your fundraising appeals or anything, but the real opportunity for a GOP pickup is WA-03, where Rep. Brian Baird’s retirement has left an open seat for the taking, and to a much lesser extent in WA-02, where it remains to be seen if Snohomish County Councilman John Koster can wage the credible challenge to Democratic incumbent Rep. Rick Larsen that state Republicans have been promising. But, you know, it never looks good to come off as overconfident, so keep at it.