Posted on 08/12/2003 8:46:26 AM PDT by Publius
For the third time this summer, state Republican Party officials have failed to convince a big-name candidate to run for governor.
Former Microsoft executive Bob Herbold said yesterday he will not run for office, after weeks of courting by the party. Two other GOP prospects — telecommunications executive John Stanton and King County Sheriff Dave Reichert — already have said they won't run.
So far, the only Republican who has declared for governor is Federico Cruz, director of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. Vance has openly dismissed Cruz as a marginal candidate.
The state party is now focused on wooing state Sen. Dino Rossi, R-Sammamish, chairman of the Senate budget-writing committee, into the race. And Rossi says he's in no hurry to decide.
"I'm going to take the kids fishing. We're going camping," he said. "That's a little more important. I don't have to make a decision today."
Rossi said he may decide by the end of September.
Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance has been pushing for the party to quickly get behind a candidate early in the campaign. But potential candidates have ignored his efforts to hold them to a deadline.
Vance, who is supposed to be on vacation, instead spent yesterday fielding phone calls and trying to make some calls of his own.
"Right now, I'm sitting in a house trying desperately to get hold of Dino Rossi," he said yesterday afternoon.
Rossi said he has lots of things to consider before deciding, including what impact running for governor would have on his family, and whether he has a good chance of winning
Rossi said Herbold called him yesterday about the decision not to run but didn't ask him to run instead. Although Rossi seems in no hurry to make a decision, he made noises like a candidate, saying, "Our state needs help. We need to turn our state around. We need to get people back to work."
He also noted he'd just gotten back from Washington, D.C., where he talked to people about a potential bid for the governor's office, including Bush campaign officials and Republican National Committee staffers.
Herbold, a retired executive vice president and chief operating officer of Microsoft, was eagerly sought by the Republican Party. Even President Bush and his top political aide, Karl Rove, had encouraged Herbold to run.
"He had tremendous credibility, having run Microsoft," Vance said.
He also has considerable personal wealth, a key factor in any election bid.
Herbold yesterday said that after weeks of thinking about a campaign, he decided not to run because he wasn't a good match for the political world.
Herbold recently talked to former governors of other states, as well as high-ranking Republican officials in Washington, D.C.
As he talked to people about a run for governor, Herbold said he was surprised to learn how difficult it is to change the political system or government.
"You worry about why it is that we can't move fast, why it is we can't be decisive and do significant things," Herbold said. "We're all nitpicking a bunch of things that in the great scheme of things aren't that important."
Vance said he wasn't surprised by Herbold's decision.
"I knew it was always 50-50," he said. "The most important quality is the desire to do it, and Bob didn't have it."
In addition to Rossi, King County Councilman Rob McKenna has been mentioned as a possible candidate. However, McKenna yesterday said he'd prefer to run for attorney general and leave the governor's race to Rossi.
McKenna said he'd consider a bid for governor if Rossi decides not to run. But he added that Vance, a former state representative, should also be considered as a potential candidate.
Reichert, who had earlier been courted by the party, repeated that he is not a candidate at the annual King County GOP picnic in Carnation on Saturday. He said he wanted to focus on the trial of Green River murder suspect Gary Ridgway, scheduled for July 2004, and on law-enforcement funding issues.
But prosecutors are said to be negotiating a plea with Ridgway's attorneys, which could remove the need for a trial. A decision could come within several weeks. Reichert declined to answer questions about a plea deal.
Reichert acknowledged that plenty of people were urging him to run. Many picnic-goers asked to be photographed with Reichert, who was dressed in his uniform. He said he also attends Democratic gatherings.
"I do have a lot of name recognition, and the gray hair sticks out like a sore thumb," he said.
Brett Bader, a Bellevue-based political consultant who works with GOP candidates, said he disagreed with the Republican Party's strategy of setting a July deadline for gubernatorial candidates. The desire for an uncontested primary has led the party to focus on selecting an immediate frontrunner instead of allowing multiple candidates to emerge.
"I'm critical of the state party because it looks like we have a list and are crossing off names. It looks like we keep asking people and they keep declining. But that's not the case," he said.
"The Democrats have a complete cast of characters, and we appear to be flailing around, looking for a candidate."
Dead.
LOL, now there's a tax I could get behind! We should talk initiative drive...
Yes, there is, but only if they discard the notion that they've done all they can by voting.
I don't know how many voters we've got in our once traditionally Republican state legislative district, but it's probably in the hundreds of thousands. In the last election my wife and I worked (primarily) for a Republican trying to unseat a liberal whose money comes mostly from outside the district. We spent weekend after weekend working precincts that didn't have a single Republican willing to step up and be a PCO -- and so did the ten other volunteers, most of whom we've known from other campaigns. But our numbers were so small that precincts were skipped because there was nobody and no time to cover them.
It was heartbreaking to see our candidate lose by a percentage point, knowing that if just 1/10 of 1% of even just the conservative Republicans in our district had volunteered but one afternoon to help, we would have had dozens of times the manpower -- and likely taken the election.
But they didn't so we didn't so our candidate didn't -- and we all get to pay the price.
The first thing the party brass asks you when you tell them you want to run for office is, "How much money can you raise?" It's one of the harder facts of American politics. I don't know anybody who would want to bankroll me without wanting to own my soul after the election.
You need to have a track record of success in the public or private sectors to make a credible candidate, and I'm not there yet. (I'm more like one of those fringe candidates running for governor of California.)
In September?
LOL!
Why then bother to waste one dime on the race?
He'll lose.
Everyone knows it.
Better to spend money on local races with at least a "snowball's chance in hell" of winning", wouldn't you say?
Yes.
Be patient, my friend. Be patient.
So long as those conservative Republicans continue to have big families with lots of children, the "zero population growth" pro-abortion socialists (who now control the state's political apparatus) will eventually die out, and the new generations who grew up instilled with morals and values from conservative parents will take over.
Oh happy day!
Pray you'll still be alive to see it.
Haven't found anyone who can consistently make one better than Starbucks.
Period.
Hey, you too? Well, I'm closer to full pro-life than pro-choice, but atheist libertarian Republican because the LP is useless - yep that's me. And hubby too. I wonder how many of us there are?
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