OLYMPIA -- They know each other well and so do most voters.
Democrat Chris Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi dueled in the historically close election for governor in 2004 she won by 133 votes.
Now they face each other again, with Gregoire as the state's governor and Rossi as her hopeful challenger.
She is running on her record of the last four years and he is running against most of what she's done in that time. She talks of staying on course and he contends that will steer the state into trouble.
That injects a much different dynamic into their rematch, yet it's made little difference in the minds of many voters.
Polls continually show the electorate's likely voters are mostly decided, leaving the two candidates to seek support of first-time voters, those who rarely vote and the 63,000 who voted for another candidate in 2004, Libertarian Ruth Bennett.
This is the most expensive and maybe fiercest-fought campaign for governor ever in Washington. The job pays $166,891 a year.
Combined fundraising by the candidates reached $20 million early this month compared to their $12.6 million total in 2004. Spending by the Democratic and Republican parties and collectives of special interests exceeded $8 million as of last week, a figure sure to rise as voting gets under way.
It's resulted in an election laden with hard knocks delivered by every participant. Attacks are made online, in mailed fliers, radio ads and, it seems literally without interruption, in television commercials aired in prime time.
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Gregoire, 61, entered office through a fog of discontent pierced by shouts of "re-vote" by Republican lawmakers and irate Rossi voters.
A cloud of uncertainty floated overhead as a legal challenge to the election didn't get decided until the summer of 2005.
She arrived to find her first task was to erase a projected $2.2 billion deficit in the state budget.
With a Legislature led by Democrats behind her, she proposed increased taxes on cigarettes and hard liquor. When the state Supreme Court threw out the estate tax, she pushed for its rewriting and re-enactment. She poured money from those increases into education and health care.
In her first session, she also pushed through an increase in the gas tax to fund nearly $9 billion in road, bridge, ferry and transit projects through 2021. Since 2005, 165 projects have been finished using money from the 2005 hike plus an earlier 2003 gas tax boost that Rossi supported.
Opponents of the estate tax and gas tax hike tried to repeal them at the ballot box, but voters supported both measures.
Through much of her term the state enjoyed robust economic growth that led to job growth and produced record amounts of revenue for state coffers. A hot housing market, Boeing Co.'s sales of its 787 jet and increased foreign trade spurred the surge.
Gregoire used the financial dividends to push forward on her political objectives.
As a result, state spending from the general fund -- the bank account for daily government operations -- is roughly $33 billion in the current budget, $8 billion higher than when she took office.
Though spending exceeded the rate of incoming revenue, the state today has $442 million in an emergency "rainy day" fund that she supported and voters approved. There is also another $87 million in separate reserves. Next year, the Legislature must add $330 million to the rainy day fund under the law approved by voters.
When talking about the next term, Gregoire points to what she did in her first -- increased spending in all levels of education, providing health care coverage for thousands of children in low-income families, toughening laws against sex offenders, cleaning up Puget Sound and promoting alternative energy -- as the grail of her priorities entering a second term.
"I am proud of what Washington state has done the last three years," she told supporters in Mill Creek. "We've invested based on your values."
While she doesn't mention them in casual conversation, in her first term she's also signed laws to ban use of handheld cell phones while driving, set limits on toxic substances in toys and to provide legal recognition to same-sex partnerships.
For Snohomish County, she backed money for rumble strips and other improvements on U.S. 2 not included in the 2005 plan. She also has supported launching a new four-year college in the county -- though she hasn't interceded in the community dispute on where it should be built.
The state budget is the subject on which Rossi dishes out his sharpest criticisms of Gregoire.
This summer, as the economy slowed and revenues trickled in at lower than predicted levels, the prospects of a deficit became real.
Gregoire had been reticent to acknowledge predictions of the shortfall issued early this year by the nonpartisan staff of the state Senate budget writing committee.
In recent weeks, she ordered cuts and savings totaling $330 million in the next eight months. In doing so, she said they are intended to trim the predicted $3.2 billion deficit down to size.
"Even though today we have a surplus and are better prepared than other states to weather this storm, we will likely face a deficit in the next two years," she said Oct. 7.
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Rossi, 48, entered the race last year picking up where he left off in 2004.
There's been a Democrat in the job of governor for nearly three decades and it's time for a change, he says.
It's a theme he rode nearly to victory in 2004 and he's hoping may resonate even more in a year when the notion of change is such a factor in the presidential election.
He is again making the budget a primary plank of his campaign.
He contends government under Gregoire is spending at a greater rate than the income it is taking in. It's sinking the state in a sea of red ink and his first task will be to "right the ship," he said.
Rossi points to his actions in helping write a balanced budget in 2003 as an indicator of what he will do in 2009 if he is governor.
Then, Republicans held a majority in the state Senate and he was chairman of its budget writing committee. The state faced a $2.2 billion deficit. Rossi tells how he worked with Democratic Gov. Gary Locke to write a balanced budget by cutting spending and not raising taxes.
"If I hadn't done it before, I'd be terrified," he said.
He's offered few specifics on where he would cut, though he does usually promise to slim down the size of the Office of the Governor.
Rossi, at each debate with Gregoire and every one of his public appearances, insists that Gregoire will raise taxes if given a second term. Rossi says in the 2004 campaign she pledged not to raise taxes and then did so.
"She's saying the same words again," he said. "She raised them before and she'll raise them again."
Gregoire says the allegation is unfounded and said voters will get to decide any proposal for a general tax increase in the state.
One of Rossi's pledges is to make Washington an "entrepreneurial state."
To do so he said he will look at making changes in areas business owners call hurdles to success, such as the price of unemployment insurance, workers compensation and business taxes, and the cost of complying with environmental laws and worker safety regulations.
Rossi does not put forth any specific proposals for changes in any of these areas, though he makes clear he wants to pursue them.
Public safety and transportation are two other central issues in his campaign. Each is plagued by problems in need of fixing, he said.
Rossi criticizes Gregoire's administration for not knowing the whereabouts of hundreds of convicted sex offenders who are without a home when released from prison.
State law does not allow keeping offenders locked up until they find a place to live. Rossi says he would figure out a way to prevent them from registering as homeless.
He says wants every Level 3 offender -- those considered most likely to reoffend -- to wear a GPS tracking device and be watched 24 hours a day. Today, about 90 such offenders are outfitted with GPS bracelets.
On transportation, Rossi has proposed a $15 billion plan that includes a tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an eight-lane Highway 520 floating bridge and $600 million in projects on U.S. 2.
It will be funded in part by a portion of sales tax paid on new and used cars from the general fund into the separate transportation budget.
When he first laid out his proposal, Rossi vowed all of the projects on his list would get started within four years. Since then, the projected budget deficit grew from $2.7 billion to $3.2 billion.
"We may have to phase them in," he said Oct. 10. "I still think we can get them all started in four years."
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: (360) 352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com
