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Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi at their first 2008 debate |
Some observations from the Chris Gregoire-Dino Rossi gubernatorial debate, in a semi-live-blogged format . . . (Kudos, by the way, to the cooperative effort involving home station KOMO-TV in Seattle that made live broadcast truly statewide, even including airing on KATU-TV in Portland, so the Clark County area and beyond was hit.)
Overriding impression: Lots of attack.
9:03 Rossi opened on the attack, not getting into his own views initially, but hitting with some good material: Unemployment up to 6% higher than when Gregoire took over, and budget deficit. He took after her recent add blasting him on stem cell research: "I support stem cell research ...wasn't true then, isn't true now. Why is she doing this? She's trying to distract us ...." He closed with a statement that he has answers for this, but didn't get into them.
9:05 Gregoire takes after the Bush Administration, which she said Rossi has "embraced and endorsed" - that some of the problems, in other words, are national in scope. She said some of the problems were "on the backs of our children and seniors." And she said she "inherited my opponent's $2.2 billion deficit," citing problems from the budget Rossi (as a state senator) worked on. Plenty of attack here too.
9:08 Gregoire: "When he was in charge of the budget, he actually did raise taxes" Rossi: "Well, now we;re having fun" - he said that at the office there was a pool of how many times she would mention George Bush - the prediction was nine, so she had six more to go. (Gregoire certainly is going after the heavy Rossi-Bush linkage.) She took after her budget levels, saying that if spending were more modest, the deficit wouldn't be there. And "One party can't solve this problem by themselves."
9:11 Gregoire: "I'm saying there is no taxes to be raised . . . Absolute nobody in the legislature is going to be raising taxes." Rossi: "One hour after she was sworn in" she opened the door to a big tax increase, which she soon proceeded to push for. And, "She didn't say she want not going to be raising taxes, just that now is not the time to be talking about it" - accurately put.
9:14 Rossi: "It's sheer incompetence how we got to this point" on transportation. Cited his transportation proposal. A side note here: Rossi does have a nice informal, colloquial way of expressing himself here without losing precision, hitting pretty hard without crossing the line (so far at least). Gregoire cited the transportation effort, more than 160, her administration has completed so far. The big projects (like the Alaskan Way viaduct and the Highway 520 bridge) are, she said, underway; and cited complaints about Rossi's proposal as a "fantasy and a fairy tale. . . . It has been panned by everybody across the state of Washington." (Not quite everybody, but widespread to be sure.) (more…)