Candidates butt heads in first debate

BLAINE, Wash. – The announcements were printed to look like a boxing fight card, and both sides got in some jabs Thursday in the first debate between the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor.

Attorney General Christine Gregoire and former state Sen. Dino Rossi sparred over each others’ records, with each claiming to be the true agent for change in Olympia.

“I come from the private sector. My opponent’s worked in government all her adult life,” said Rossi.

Gregoire, a three-term attorney general and former head of the state Department of Ecology, said she’s hardly a business-as-usual politician. She pointed out that she’s wrung billions of state dollars from Big Tobacco and sued the federal government to spur Hanford cleanup.

“That’s not status quo,” Gregoire said. “That’s leadership.”

The two faced off before 260 people at the annual Association of Washington Business policy summit at Semiahmoo, a resort near the Canadian border. Further debates are planned for Yakima and Seattle in mid-October.

Rossi, who served seven years in the Legislature, is hoping to be the state’s first Republican governor since John Spellman left office in 1985.

Recent polls show Gregoire leading, although the lead in one poll was slight. Gregoire rolled over fellow Democrat Ron Sims in the primary, 67 percent to 29 percent.

Among registered voters, independent pollster Stuart Elway told the Associated Press this week, Gregoire has a lead of 49 percent to Rossi’s 38 percent. The poll was based on a survey of 405 people last week, with a margin of error of 5 percent.

A newspaper poll released Thursday had Gregoire leading 49 percent to 43 percent, according to the Associated Press. Gregoire, who’s hoping to be the state’s second female governor, had a strong lead among women, especially well-educated women. Rossi had a slight lead in Eastern Washington, and a strong lead among gun owners, weekly churchgoers and veterans. The poll surveyed 406 voters, with a margin of error of 5 points.

Rossi joked and seemed more relaxed in Thursday’s debate, which will be televised Friday at 8:30 p.m. on TVW, Washington’s public-affairs network. Gregoire was more intense, consulting her notes and carefully using up her allotted time on the answers.

“We’re going into his (Rossi’s) territory,” Gregoire spokesman Morton Brilliant said of the business crowd. “We’re willing to go everywhere and talk about issues that other Democrats don’t.”

Both candidates touted their humble upbringings. Rossi, the grandson of a coal miner and son of a schoolteacher, said he started in business with a $200 car and $200 in the bank. He’s now a millionaire real estate broker.

Gregoire was raised by her single mother, later earning a teaching certificate and then a law degree in Spokane.

Rossi pledged to cut regulations, limit jury awards in lawsuits, and to press for “achievement and accountability before money” for education. A reinvigorated business climate will create more jobs, he said.

“I want to see entrepreneurs be entrepreneurs again,” he said.

He said he’d cut health insurance rules to spur more competition and reduce costs. Asked what he’d do about energy costs, he said he’d make sure no dams are removed in Washington.

He jabbed Gregoire for promising “many things to every group that you go to,” and said that on her watch as attorney general, the state’s paid out more in lawsuits than in the rest of state history.

Gregoire said she’d “take down barriers and create incentives” for business.

She said the state must pay teachers more and must put more money into a struggling higher education system. She also called for incentives for alternative energy, including crop biomass and hydrogen cells, as a way to avoid relying on increasingly expensive energy sources.

“I won’t hesitate to blow past the bureaucracy and I won’t hesitate to ask the Legislature to work harder than they’ve ever worked before,” she said.

She wants to use $500 million of the state’s $4.5 billion tobacco settlement to spur Washington’s biotechnology industry and its high-paying jobs. She said she’d expand health insurance coverage by allowing small businesses to piggyback with the state’s buying power.

Gregoire jabbed back at Rossi, saying that despite claiming to “bring people together” in politics, he’s predictably partisan, voting Republican 96 percent of the time. Unlike Rossi, she said, she’s not cozy with business or any other interest group.

“No special interest will get special treatment” in a Gregoire administration, she said. “Everyone will be treated the same. So be ready with the facts.”