Governor hits campaign trail

AUBURN, Wash. – Four years after her narrow victory over Republican Dino Rossi, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Monday officially kicked off her re-election campaign in her hometown south of Seattle.

Washington is “at a crossroads,” Gregoire said, and she brings hope and experience to the job. She vowed to push for more jobs, good schools, environmental cleanup and safe communities. She touted her work on a landmark deal to provide more water to Eastern Washington cities and farmers and said the state’s Cascade Curtain “has come down and it’s going to stay down.”

“I’m ready, with a proven record of results,” Gregoire told a cheering crowd of workers at Zones, a computer-products seller that employs 700 people in the city. She said she helped turn a $2.2 billion state budget deficit into an $850 million surplus, helped add 84,000 low-income children to state-subsidized health coverage, and steered more money to teacher raises, smaller class sizes and more all-day kindergarten.

“I believe that the prosperity of America rests in education,” she said.

On her watch, she said, the state has added thousands more prison beds, tightened monitoring of sex offenders and other felons and reinstated a 1 percent property tax hike limit after it was thrown out by a court ruling.

Gregoire criticized Rossi, who launched his campaign months ago, as a doom-and-gloom naysayer “who does nothing but criticize and promote fear across the state.”

Rossi fired back, saying that Gregoire has raised taxes and dramatically increased spending, while doing little to help improve schools, transportation or public safety.

“All we’re doing is talking about her record,” Rossi said. “She’s about the only one in the state who doesn’t consider that fair.”

The two have little in common on the campaign trail. What she calls “investments” he calls “total fiscal recklessness.”

Said Rossi, “Christine Gregoire has the taxpayer credit card and we are getting stuck with the bill.” The 2004 faceoff between the two resulted in three vote counts, a months-long court battle and, ultimately, a 133-vote victory for Gregoire.

Republicans say Gregoire is vulnerable.

“The big difference this time over last time is Gov. Gregoire’s record,” said state GOP chairman Luke Esser. Her push for a frugal budget this year and hundreds of millions of dollars in state “rainy day” savings, Esser said, belie a sharp rise in state spending on her watch.

“It’s window dressing when you look at the underlying reality of the deficits that we’re going to be seeing in 2009,” he said. “She says all the right things, but she tends to do the wrong things.”

During Gregoire’s tenure, state spending has risen 33 percent, Rossi said, though Gregoire insists the increase “is much less than that.” On key items like transportation and education, he said, the governor is indecisive and ineffective.

“We have heard a lot of promises, seen lots of studies and read many task force reports,” Rossi said. “But what we haven’t seen are real results.”

Yes, the polling has been close, concedes state Democratic Party chairman Dwight Pelz. But he said Gregoire is pulling ahead.

“The more we let people know about her record, the stronger her electability becomes,” he said. And after four years in office, he said, she has a track record: she’s invested in education, demanded better progress on traffic congestion and saved for the future.

“And Dino Rossi has to spend the next few months reminding people that back in 2003 he was a state senator,” said Pelz.

The first campaign stop for Gregoire’s blue bus Monday was at a small Main Street diner called the Rainbow Café.

Inside, farm implements hang on the walls, coat racks are at every booth, and the menu features a $3.25 early bird special and a breakfast scramble called the “Yakamush.” Pull-tab dispensers line one wall, with a couple more of the machines tucked among the tables.

The Rainbow Café – it was two doors down the street at the time – was where Gregoire spent many of her hours as a young girl. Her mother was a short order cook, and on Saturdays, young Christine O’Grady would sit on a stool in the kitchen, watching her mother work the grill. The governor was an only child; for much of her youth, her mother was a single mom. The two lived paycheck to paycheck.

Gregoire said her mother, now deceased, was the hardest-working person she ever knew. She credited her mother with teaching her the value of education, her faith, serving others and working for one’s family. During the small meeting in a back room of the diner, locals – including the long-retired teacher who taught Gregoire to drive – gave her a standing ovation.

Across town at the sprawling headquarters for Zones, Inc., Gregoire blasted the Air Force’s decision to buy Airbus-made tanker planes instead of Boeing. She said she will move ahead with plans to clean up Puget Sound, defend women’s right to an abortion and continue a state push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Four more years,” the crowd chanted in response.

Among those chanting: King County executive Ron Sims, who four years ago ran against Gregoire in the Democratic primary. One of his key campaign planks: a fairer state tax system, including an income tax. He lost.

“This state needs Gov. Gregoire so we can join the rest of this country as a nation of change,” he said.

Congressman Norm Dicks called this a crucial election, saying Gregoire is the “hardest working, most determined, most effective governor we’ve had in decades.”

Outside, Auburn businessman Greg DeLapp was waving a Dino Rossi sign. He worries that Gregoire will raise taxes.

“At a time when the economy is as bad as it is and families are struggling,” he said, “we can’t afford any more.”