Rossi stumps in county for votes

Appearing in Yakima with just days to go before the election, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi on Thursday said a Barack Obama victory could help him defeat Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Voters give an edge to personality and leadership ability over issues and party when electing candidates to statewide office, he said, adding that he polled well with young voters in 2004, the year he lost to Gregoire in the closest governor's race in modern U.S. history.

If young voters come out in droves to vote for Obama, a Democrat, for president, Rossi's confident those voters will also support his candidacy.

"If Obama drives them out (to vote), that's fine with me," he said. "I'm not picky where my support comes from."

Rossi's comments came during an interview, after he made a joint campaign appearance with Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, at the Nob Hill Boulevard headquarters of state Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima.

Just one day earlier, Rossi was being grilled under oath as part of a campaign financing lawsuit brought by Democratic supporters of Gregoire. The lawsuit alleges that Rossi helped coordinate the political fundraising of the Building Industry Association of Washington, and that if Rossi helped coordinate the BIAW's fundraising, the organization should be constrained by state limits on direct campaign contributions -- $3,200 per election cycle -- rather than the more than $6 million it has spent so far to back Rossi with independent expenditures.

Rossi said voters are savvy about dirty tricks, and he predicted the lawsuit will backfire on the governor.

"My lawyer said he was speaking today with a very liberal lawyer friend of his in Seattle," Rossi said, "and the guy said, 'This is nonsense what's going on. I'm voting for Obama and I'm voting for Rossi.'"

Moments earlier, Rossi asked supporters to do everything they could to get the vote out. He said 23,000 registered voters in Yakima County failed to fill out their ballots in 2004. After two recounts and a court challenge, Gregoire's final margin of victory was 133 votes.

"This county can determine the election," Rossi said of Yakima County, which supported him nearly 2-1 over Gregoire four years ago. "Send in your ballot now."

Rossi's stop in Yakima was part of a 33-city "Victory Tour" that ends in Issaquah, one of the fabled "swingtowns" in the suburbs of King and Pierce counties that nearly elected him governor in 2004 over a well-known Democrat in a state that is considered solidly blue.

Rossi told about 50 supporters that his previous experience as a legislator and chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee shows he has the skills to deal with state finances. And he hammered home his contention that Gregoire and the Democratic-controlled Legislature, not President Bush, are responsible for a looming $3.2 billion shortfall in the state budget.

"I can balance the budget without raising taxes, and everyone knows it," he said. "I did it before and I can do it again."

On hand was another Republican hopeful, Yakima City Councilman Norm Johnson, who is vying with Democrat Vickie Ybarra for a House seat in the 14th District.

Johnson said a Rossi victory would change the equation in Olympia, where Democrats have controlled the governor's office for 28 years.

"Dino knows how to tighten the belt, and I've been there too," he said. "It's kind of a way of life in the Yakima Valley."

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 577-7748 or cbristol@yakimaherald.com.

Editor's note: This story has been appended to correct erroneous information that appeared in the originally published version.