This is another rematch. Four years ago Christine Gregoire (Democrat) beat Dino Rossi (Republican) by less than 200 votes it seems. I was not in Washington at the time, and have not followed local issues much since, so I didn’t know much about either person.

My first impression of Governor Gregoire was when I saw her at Democratic Caucus events earlier this year. My impression was decidedly negative. Almost every word out of her mouth made me want to scream.

Meanwhile, I knew nothing at all about Rossi.

For this general election, I had several Gubernatorial debates on my Tivo. I of course waited to the last minute and had not watched any of them before election day. I just watched the first one I had, recorded September 20th. It is the only one I had time to watch, and so therefore my vote will be based essentially only on the candidates’ performance in that one debate.

I continued to have an incredibly negative view of Gregoire.

First, on policy: She is very statist. It seemed like almost everything was something that could and should be solved by government. This is something I dislike a lot. One of the big issues seems to be transportation policy. She was repeatedly slamming roads and pushing public transportation sorts of solutions instead. Screw that. Give me my car damn it. Give me roads to drive on it. Make the roads big and wide. Take your collectivist trains and buses and shove them. OK, that is overly harsh. I like the occasional train and bus, although I would prefer when they are private efforts rather than public. But they should not be primary policy. Promote maximum flexibility for the individual please. And that is small vehicles that seat a handful of people at most. And this is just typical of the other policies she was promoting. They were all about ways that government could engage in social engineering to try to solve problems. I know government must be involved to some extent in many of these things, but please make it as little as possible.

Second, her attitude and temperament: She seemed cranky and angry. And bitter. She was constantly attacking Rossi. It was very very negative. Very little positive about herself, just attack, attack, attack. And she seemed arrogant and dismissive. She said several times “Those aren’t the values of the people of Washington”. How dare she presume to represent the values of the entire state. She won by a hair’s breadth last time, half the state obviously disagrees with her.

Meanwhile, Rossi seemed even tempered and stable. He never raised his voice or sounded angry. And he kept talking baout fiscal responsibility, living within our means, and generally not having government intrude where it did not need to. And on transportation he was much more pro-car.

I can’t say I actually LIKED Rossi. He seemed a little slimy too. And perhaps even like he was hiding his true self a bit. It seemed slightly fake. Like he was forcing himself to be calm.

However, more so than before, I actively DISLIKE Gregoire, and I definitely disagree on her general approach to government.

Therefore, my vote:

Dino Rossi (Prefers G.O.P. Party)

…although I must say, that absolutely idiotic “GOP Party” thing almost makes me want to change my mind in and of itself. Grand Old Party Party my ass. Just say Republican.

OK, I read the bios and statements of all eight tickets on my ballot. But I am running out of time and won’t waste it going through all of them. All of the third parties this year are a joke and aren’t worth it. (This includes the Libertarians, who I am usually inclined toward.)

Anybody who has been reading my blog or listening to my podcast this year knows my choice here, I’ve talked about it multiple times.

I disagree with Barack Obama on a lot of things, mainly in the area of Domestic Policy. I will be angry and annoyed at many things he does. But on foreign policy, which I generally believe is more important, I am very closely aligned with Obama’s positions.

But more importantly, there is an issue of temperament and process. From reading his books, especially his second book, one thing is clear. Obama is a thoughtful person. He considers issues carefully and deliberately. He takes into account and respects the opinions even of those he disagrees with adamantly. He is calm and cool in a crisis. He does not act impulsively. He acts out of rational analysis, not out of emotion.

This is the kind of person who should always be President. It is not what we have had for the past 8 years (arguably for the last 16 years actually). It is certainly not what John McCain would provide. But it is what is needed.

And yes, I believe the post-partisan message Obama has expounded in his 2004 Convention Speech and with regularity since then. I hope that his “Progressive” supporters that expect him to push strongly for highly partisan left-wing policies will be sorely disappointed. Of course, it could just as well be me who is sorely disappointed. As I said, I expect to be quite upset with many things Obama does.

But not only do I believe he is better than the alternatives, I believe that on balance he will be a positive force more in line with what I would want than not.

So my vote:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden (Democratic Party Nominees)

The next thing on the ballot is President/Vice President. And then I still have 23 more items on the ballot. But I think I need to catch a few Z’s. I’ll try not to be gone too long, I know all my readers are anxiously waiting for my vote for Washington State Superior Court Judge Postition No. 22 and such. I am running out of time of course, and should probably just keep powering through, but I think I need to stop to be horizontal for just a little bit. :-)

Full text is here.

Basically, this makes it a bit harder to get County Level Initatives on the ballot and changes it from the nonsensical two step process where first you vote if you want it on the ballot, then if that passes it appears on the next ballot… and makes it just go straight on the general election ballot if it gets enough signatures… with a higher number of signatures required.

I fundamentally think that ballot initiatives are generally not the right way to do things. And if they are possible at all, it should take a pretty high bar to get on the ballot, and that sort of initiative should be a very rare thing. Maybe one or two a decade.

So this effort to make it a little bit harder to do is fine with me.

My vote:

YES