SEATTLE — In their final debate before the Nov. 2 election, gubernatorial candidates Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi spent far more time attacking each other than laying out their plans for the next four years in a debate Oct. 17.
After giving one- or two-sentence answers to some questions, the candidates returned again and again to the same themes they used in the other two debates over the past week and in their advertisements.
Rossi, the former state Senate budget chairman, said he is centering his campaign on improving the business climate in Washington. He contrasted his 21 years in business with the experience of Gregoire, who has served three terms as attorney general.
“My opponent has worked in state government as a government lawyer all her adult life,” she said. “You have to decide who can really turn this business climate around.”
Pointing to the state’s high unemployment rate, Rossi asked voters for a change from the 20 years of Democratic control of the governor’s mansion.
Gregoire said she was proud of her record as attorney general and as head of the state ecology department. She pointed to her leading role in negotiating a $5 billion settlement with tobacco companies.
“You have never run a large agency at all,” she said. “I have run the largest law firm in the entire state of Washington.”
Rossi accused Gregoire of repeatedly trying to deflect attention from other issues by often bringing up his opposition to abortion rights. He said the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively taken the issue out of the hands of state government anyway.
Rossi said he realized he could gain political points if he were to switch positions on the issue.
But, he said, “No matter where you are on either side of this issue, it’s an issue of conscience. If I actually had to change my position on an issue of conscience to become governor, I’d rather not be governor.”
Gregoire argued that abortion is a state government issue. The next governor, she said, would appoint state judges and decide whether to sign abortion-related bills. There were nine introduced in the Legislature in the past session, she said.
As she has done before, Gregoire pilloried Rossi for supporting social-service cuts.
Rossi replied that, in some cases, the budget proposals he supported included less severe cuts than those proposed by Democratic Gov. Gary Locke, who he called Gregoire’s “mentor.”
Calling himself someone who “can be fiscally conservative and still have a social conscience,” Rossi said he would always look out for the interests of the most vulnerable Washingtonians.
Both gave vague answers to a televised question by Everett resident Michelle Hoverter as to what they would do to reduce traffic gridlock in Snohomish County. Both oppose increases in the gas tax.
Neither candidate offered specifics as to how they’d fund their proposed increases in education spending. Rossi supports a constitutional amendment to increase K-12 spending by at least the rate of inflation.
Gregoire said some additional revenue could come from getting rid of more than 450 tax exemptions worth $45 billion each biennium. But she didn’t say which exemptions should go, instead calling for an “independent assessment” to determine which are necessary.
Rossi said Gregoire’s plan would hurt the state’s ability to retain existing businesses.
“This is just another tax on the business community if we do that,” he said.
David Olson is a reporter with The Herald in Everett.
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