Washington State Governor

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.