OLYMPIA — In their rematch for the state’s top elected office, Gov. Chris Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi are doing plenty of gabbing about their accomplishments, their virtues, and their visions for Washington state.
But there’s a surefire way to slow down the verbal flood: mention one of the campaign’s taboo topics, and a straight answer — or any answer at all — is suddenly hard to find.
Gregoire, the Democratic incumbent, won’t discuss the size of the impending state deficit — even as she orders state agencies to scrub their budgets for savings.
Rossi, the Republican challenger, has been reluctant to offer a definitive stance on abortion. For several months, his campaign declined to even acknowledge the issue.
Why the cones of silence? In a high-stakes race, it’s a strategic no-brainer — even if voters might want, and deserve, a little more straight talk from the people who seek to run their government.
“You’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, for both them, if you really take the issues head-on,” Western Washington University political scientist Todd Donovan says.
Voters get their first chance to weigh in on the Rossi-Gregoire rematch in next month’s primary. Both are excepted to advance easily to the November election.
Acknowledge the budget deficit, and Gregoire’s wide open to charges that she’s just another “tax-and-spend liberal.” Start talking about the nuances of abortion policy, and Rossi would quickly find himself starring in an unflatteringly edited attack ad. Any advantage from claiming the rhetorical high ground is quickly whisked away.
“We see this all the time in Washington politics. You want to paint the Republican as being too socially conservative and not pro-choice. You want to paint the Democrat as either letting child molesters out (of jail) or raising taxes,” Donovan says.
Gregoire, who often reverts to ultra-careful lawyer mode when being questioned, has avoided discussing the particulars of the looming budget deficit since the last legislative session, when the impending shortfall began to take shape.
A recap on the spending situation: After boosting state spending by about a third in the 2007-09 budget, Gregoire and legislative Democrats watched the state and national economies cool, sapping tax income.
Then, Gregoire’s budget office suddenly stopped issuing long-term predictions about the state’s bottom line. Republican lawmakers turned to nonpartisan budget committee staff for a working estimate, and the latest forecast pegs the 2009-10 shortfall at around $2.7 billion.
Gregoire quibbled with that forecast, but wouldn’t offer a competing number. Pressed for a best guess when the Legislature adjourned in March, she acknowledged a hole of about $2 billion.
She now declines to give any updates to that figure, saying budget projections can quickly change.
“We are going to look to what the last projection is, and that’s just before we do the budget in December. That’s the one that really counts.” Gregoire said recently.
It’s also, Gregoire hopes, after she’s safely re-elected to a second term.
For his part, Rossi has been equally slippery when it comes to abortion.
There’s no question the Republican challenger is personally opposed. Beyond that, Rossi tends to deflect further questions by saying, with some truth, that the issue is unlikely to reach the governor’s desk in Washington’s current political climate, with strong Democratic legislative majorities.
In the 2004 campaign against Gregoire, Rossi often replied that he wasn’t running for the U.S. Supreme Court — a venue where abortion policy is a major issue. This time around, he’s developed a stonewall strategy that only recently showed some cracks.
The Seattle Times, for instance, has publicly pointed out for months that Rossi’s campaign flatly denied to answer any substantial questions on abortion, saying he wasn’t running on the issue.
Asked in a recent interview on KING-TV why he wouldn’t address the questions, Rossi said it was his campaign, and he gets to lay the ground rules.
“I’ll talk about the issues I want to,” he said. “When people have the guts enough to run for office they can actually talk about whatever issues they want to talk about.”
Pressed for more, Rossi reiterated older themes: he’s Roman Catholic, and believes “every soul has a value.”
The campaign may have dropped its blanket refusal to talk about abortion. But Rossi spokeswoman Jill Strait still downplays its importance, pointing out that Washingtonians have codified Roe vs. Wade into state law.
“He recognizes that the people of Washington have voted on this issue several times, and it’s not something that’s going to change unless the voters change their minds,” Strait said.
Of course, by avoiding the issues or talking around the edges of them, both candidates are tacitly acknowledging that their opponents might have a point.
But their evasions are still less dangerous than giving a freebie to surrogates in the state parties and outside interest groups, whose nearly full-time job is to hound and kneecap the opposition.
Staying vague also helps insulate the candidates from ticking off their bases, even if they’d prefer — or find it necessary — to fade toward the middle on social or fiscal issues.
“I can’t think of many other issues that would be as dangerous for either candidate,” Donovan says.
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