Rossi’s experience as a boss
“Drive,” a 30-second TV commercial by Chris Gregoire, touts the endorsements she has received in recent weeks from Washington state newspapers as well as favorable comments from articles. The ad basically strings together several quotes from the papers.
“Chris Gregoire has the experience, grit and drive to lead us in the right direction,” the narrator says, quoting The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“Dino Rossi lacks administrative experience,” the ad quotes from The Olympian. “The last time he supervised people was in college,” the ad quotes from The Seattle Times.
“It’s Gregoire with the impressive plans to create jobs, improve health care and education,” the narrator says, quoting the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin.
Gregoire accurately quotes the papers, but The Seattle Times ran a clarification this week on its statement about Rossi’s lack of experience supervising employees. The clarification says Rossi has “supervised employees in two capacities – as a landlord with an on-site property manager and assistant, and earlier as a janitorial crew supervisor in high school and college.”
Rossi’s stance The Times’ clarification didn’t go far enough, Rossi spokeswoman Janelle Guthrie said. As a landlord, Rossi has supervised other property managers and the small crews that maintained his buildings, not just the two mentioned in the clarification. As a state senator, he managed a staff of people, she said. Guthrie declined to estimate the total number of people Rossi has supervised during his career. “Rather than getting into counting every single employee that Dino has ever managed, we would like to focus on the fact that the ad is wrong and it needs to be changed,” she said. Rossi has experience working and negotiating with many businesspeople who aren’t his employees, she said. | Gregoire’s stance Rossi is falsely promoting himself as a businessman who has more management experience than Gregoire, Gregoire spokesman Morton Brilliant said. Gregoire, meanwhile, heads a department of hundreds of employees. “Dino Rossi has evidently signed two paychecks,” Brilliant said after reading The Times’ clarification. He declined to say whether Gregoire would pull the ad because of The Times’ clarification, citing a campaign policy against discussing advertising plans. But Brilliant said the message of the ad is still valid. “It’s absolutely fair because (Rossi has) spent the entire campaign telling people he’s got more management experience than Chris Gregoire, and it turns out it’s just not true,” he said. |
The bottom line The reporter who wrote the Times article said Wednesday that she’s only able to verify that Rossi employed managers at two of his buildings – Hartford Court in Lake Stevens, where his brother was manager, and at Windsor in Federal Way, where he said he hired a manager and an assistant manager. Her story notes Rossi’s management of state employees. But the article focused on his record in the private sector, since he touts that regularly on the campaign trail. | |
| Ad Watch is a regular feature analyzing campaign advertising during the election season. Contact Megan Cooley at 927-2165 or meganc@spokesman.com. | To see past versions of Ad Watch, as well as some selected ads, go to www.spokesmanreview.com. |