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We're in a US Senate race here in Washington State. Polling to the contrary, Patty Murray is playing the political equivalent of low-hanging fruit by backing Obama's unconstitutional abuse of the opaque (as opposed to the laughingly "transparent") process to use Soviet-style politics to ram through a health care bill that Americans don't want.
So, along comes the ego of Dino Rossi.
If he had already announced, Rossi would most likely be the political equivalent of the "Great White Hope." And there is a possibility... a SLIGHT possibility, that he could beat Murray.
I say "slight" because he's a, like it or not, two-time loser in a race which, given Gregoire's incompetence, matched only by his gubernatorial campaign staff's (Mostly the same one as Ridgefield Barbie's, come to think of it) he should have easily won, but didn't, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by a substantial margin.
Meanwhile, Rossi (who certainly does know, one way or the other, if he is, in fact, going to run or not) has passed on his actual chance to get the job done.
As a result of his lack of commitment for running for this seat, Rossi is sending a political message of arrogance. If he really, really gave a damn, he wouldn't be following in the abortive and politically foolish missteps of Rudy Giuliani, whose "all or nothing" primary gamble exploded in his face like an upset Ford Pinto.
Instead, he would have immediately hit the ground months ago with a take-no-prisoners approach that would take nothing for granted. If he genuinely wanted to win, he already would have started to run, instead of sitting on some sort of egotistical throne waiting for the cacophony of his subjects begging and pleading with him to get off the dime and get moving.
But the mere threat of his candidacy sucks all the air out of the room for any other candidate. And as ego-gratifying as it must be for him to be fully aware of this, the actual impact of that stupidity is to put any possibility of getting rid of the Obamainan Puppet Murray out of reach.
If he does, as he claims he will do, wait until May to "make a decision," he is undeniably hurting our chances to accomplish the number one mission of getting rid of Murray... who can and probably will put as much as $20 million in the bank before this is all over.
If he waits until May and then announces, he will fracture the party like a crystal vase dropped from the roof of a house.
If he waits until May and then tells us "No," the crippling delay will have made it effectively impossible to be even remotely competitive in the important money race against Murray, who will have an open field when it comes to fund raising while everyone else stews in their juices because Rossi was too arrogant to commit in anything approaching a timely manner one way or the other.
If he announces, then he runs the risk of alienating a substantial amount of the base who've committed to other candidates... not to mention the campaign staff and volunteer types who have committed to other candidate's campaigns.
For example, will Vander Stoep's crew abandon Herrera (not that they've been all that great, considering) to take over the Rossi effort? What then?
I find it hard to believe these issues have not been considered by Rossi, and for some reason, he's calculated that none of these things are problematic enough to concern him.
But also tossed in the mix is this: if he gambles... and loses... he will be politically dead. The curse of the 3 time loser is essentially impossible to ignore. It's one thing for Rossi to take another run at another statewide office. It's quite another for him to take a run at the senate, given his lack of success at the governor level.
So, what's it gonna be, Dino? You gonna screw the rest of the GOP to feed your ego? Or are you going to do what this situation demands, to even give us a shot, no matter how remote, at putting this seat into the "red" column?
The whole world's watching.
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