State Auditor Brian Sonntag has been contemplating a run for Governor, a move that would have left open another statewide office. Apparently, his 4th of July weekend self-performance audit convinced him otherwise. It appears he will run for a 6th term as State Auditor, instead.
Sonntag would have little chance of winning against Rob McKenna (R) and Jay Inslee (D). Sandeep Kaushik gives three reasons why a person who has been elected to statewide office five times wouldn’t successfully pull off a gubernatorial bid: The top two primary, money, and giving up a safe seat. The latter appears to have kept him from the race altogether.
Sonntag is nominally a Democrat, with a track record that includes things like endorsing Republican King County Executive candidate Susan Hutchison, snuggling spooning blowing Tim Eyman, and participating in Teabagger events.
We can only hope that the buzz about a potential Sonntag gubernatorial bid has encouraged some talented people to think about running for the open Auditor seat. And with any luck, they’ll still run, but now against Sonntag. Otherwise, I’m afraid, Sonntag will maintain his grip on the State Auditor’s office…well, until it’s pried out of his cold, dead hands.
Re: the last part of that third paragraph…Cheese Whiz, Darryl! Can you please show the common decency not to evoke such mental imagery right after breakfast?
@1 Well, I didn’t read it until two hours after breakfast, so I’m okay with it.
Damn, I was hoping he’d retire. He could spend his days golfing with John Ladenburg and Ron Simms.
I’m not sure whether this is good news or bad news. Is Sonntag really causing any problems with his “Blue Dog” Democratic bent? I’ve always been of the position that, even with the “performance audit” issue included, that Sonntag’s politics aren’t making more than a ripple on the state stage.
If the election were open, it becomes one of those low-profile state-wide contests that the Republicans have gotten pretty good at handling. The run someone who you don’t know that much about, throw a lot of money at the race, and then you find out after the election that they plan to use the office to create a “permanant Republican majority”, by one artifice or another.
In other news, it appears that the Republican race is just getting downright silly. Fox News polls show Romney still in the lead, but slipping slightly as Bachman and Perry’s approval ratings inch upwards. Everybody else is down, too – Newt is down to about 3%. And even more “never heard of him” candidates are throwing their hats into the ring, which only further dilutes the prospects of those who might form a coalition which seeks a middle between Romney and Bachman.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seat.....x-poll/Fox: Bachman, Perry up, Romney Down
Romney has the best chance of all of them to win a general election, but that’s exactly why he will find it hard to win. Right now everybody’s throwing eggs at him. Which is just fine with me – Bachman or Perry as the Republican nominee would pretty much ensure that Pres. Obama will win re-election in Nov. 2012.
So I guess the question is whether Timmeh spits, swallows, or gags?
@5 Heh. Just kidding. Wingnut pervert joke.
@4 It’ll be interesting to see whether the “liberal biased” media calls Romney out on his absurd statements and constant flipflopping, or whether they give him a free pass like all the other RepubliCons get.
Seriously, if Romney is the best they’ve got, the GOP shouldn’t even be in this race. He’s underwhelming, to say the least. The more drastic problem is that he’s so mealy-mouthed you have no fucking idea what he would do as president. And that’s a problem.
Why would anyone vote for any of these GOP freaks?
@4: It’s only a problem for state employees who have to deal wtih the fallouts of the audits performed by his staff, who don’t actually bother to find out what the various agencies do, and tend to be highly (and stupidly) critical of things they don’t understand.