Dino Rossi was interviewed by Liz Mair at the oxymoronically titled GOPProgress.com. And Rossi is sure sounding like a 2008 gubernatorial candidate.
Two things struck me about the interview. First, Rossi is no moderate. He is a typical voter-disenfranchisin’, truth-twistin’, anti-guvmint, gimmicky Republican. All tricks and no leadership—just like we’ve come to expect from Washington state Republicans.
But what struck me most of all is that Dino is still a sore loser:
We won 34 out of 39 counties, all the non-Seattle, King County ones, Snohomish County–first time in 20 years for a Republican, Pierce County–first time in 40 years for a Republican, and we were certified the governor-elect–first Republican governor-elect in 24 years, twice, actually…[laughs] Apparently, as a Republican, you have to win three times.
Yeah…34 out of 39 counties…as if it was counties that voted instead of, you know…voters!
The other bit of sore loserism is the suggestion that he had to win “three times.” As Judge Bridges so elegantly put it, Rossi led after the initial count, he led after the first recount, and Gregoire led after the manual recount. There was only one person declared the winner of the 2004 gubernatorial election, and that was Christine Gregoire.
Does Rossi really not understand the election process? Or is he intentionally being disingenuous? Either way, man…what a sore loser!
Later on, Rossi offered this remarkable claim:
In the end, we ended up with hundreds more votes that were counted in King County than they could attribute to human beings who actually voted. Which is why we said, and I don’t think I was going too far out on a limb by saying this, but that maybe each vote should have a voter. I don’t think that’s asking too much.
I mean, yeah, we expect this kind of bullshit from a blatant propagandist like Stefan Sharkansky. But Rossi is supposed to be a real politician. To make such an outrageous claim suggests that either Rossi is such a sore loser that he would knowingly perpetuate a blatantly dishonest statement to undermine the electoral process that hurt his feelings in 2004, or else he suffers from delusions.
Rossi was whining about the voter crediting process. During the election contest trial, it became amply clear that the voter crediting process has a higher error rate than the ballot counting process. As Bridges stated in his oral opinion (pg. 6):
The crediting system in Washington is not an accurate reflection of the number of persons who actually voted.
Presenting a credible challenge will be tough enough for Rossi in 2008 if only because many of the issues that gave his campaign strength in 2004 won’t even be relevant anymore. (And the tarnished Republican brand name won’t help.) But could it be true? Will Rossi Mk II be running on a “we wuz robbed!” platform?
Yes! Please, go for it, Dino! I want to see the Rossi 2008 “We Wuz Robbed” campaign tour!
Look out! The sore loser express is coming through, and you better get out of the way. Whooo woooo!
Hey…I hear that Mike!™ McGavick even has a mobile home available for the tour.