The gubernatorial candidates had their first debate last night.
Andrew Garber reports:
"BLAINE - Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi wasted little time going after his Democratic opponent Christine Gregoire last night, portraying her as a career bureaucrat who helped make the state one of the most over-regulated in the country. Gregoire, the state attorney general, attacked Rossi's record in the Legislature, criticizing votes on health care and teacher pay. She told the audience of business people attending the Association of Washington Business (AWB) event she was proud of her government career. 'I chose public service, and I don't regret it.' "
Gregoire tried to make Rossi's opposition to stem-cell research an issue. Rossi didn't back down.
"One of the more heated exchanges came when Gregoire asked Rossi if he would support an effort to make Washington a leader in stem-cell research.
Rossi responded that Washington's biotech strengths were in diagnostics and therapeutics and that it didn't make sense to use state money to try to compete with stem-cell research efforts in a state like California. 'We'd lose that battle,' he said, noting that he wasn't sure where Gregoire would come up with the money. 'You promise things to almost every group you go to.' "
Here's another paper's coverage.
And AP.
Both nonpartisan groups and the parties and their independent arms are spending a fortune to get young voters out this year. The effort appears to be working, BTC reports this morning, as 2 million more 18-29-year-olds could come to the polls than in 2000. Kerry leads in a recent poll 46-40. The story has some useful charts.
Alaska
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, running for re-election against Tony Knowles, got in some trouble this week for calling the Exxon-Valdez oil spill "that little issue," and doing it at an Exxon-Mobil station as a backdrop. Oops.
The Anchorage Daily News has it.
National
Here's an interesting look back at John Kerry's first campaign, a losing one for Congress. He's surrounded by many of the same loyalists, Todd Purdum reports in The New York Times.
Interesting snippet about the man of the people: "Later that spring, he married Julia Stimson Thorne in a big Long Island ceremony. The bride wore a gown from a relative's 1786 wedding, at which Alexander Hamilton had been best man and George Washington a guest, and The New York Times's lengthy account declared, 'Whether today's wedding becomes a similar footnote to history may depend on the bridegroom.' "
BTC expects much the same for himself, though he's not sure Hamilton or Washington were ever in Las Vegas.
In The Washington Post, Dana Milbank runs down the recent instances of Republicans saying Kerry and the Democrats are helping the enemy or that the enemy wants them to get elected. This is lengthy, but worth reading.
"Appearing in the Rose Garden yesterday with Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Bush said Kerry's statements about Iraq 'can embolden an enemy.' ... It was the latest instance in which prominent Republicans have said that Democrats are helping the enemy or that al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents and other enemies of the United States are backing Kerry and the Democrats. Such accusations are not new to American politics, but the GOP's line of attack this year has been pervasive and high-level.
On Tuesday, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said terrorists 'are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry.' On Fox News, Hatch said Democrats are 'consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there.'
On Sunday, GOP Senate candidate John Thune of South Dakota said of his opponent, Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle: 'His words embolden the enemy.' Thune, on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' declined to disavow a statement by the Republican Party chairman in his state saying Daschle had brought 'comfort to America's enemies.'
On Saturday, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) said at a GOP fundraiser: 'I don't have data or intelligence to tell me one thing or another, [but] I would think they would be more apt to go [for] somebody who would file a lawsuit with the World Court or something rather than respond with troops.' Asked whether he believed al Qaeda would be more successful under a Kerry presidency, Hastert said: 'That's my opinion, yes.'
The previous day in Warsaw, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said terrorists in Iraq 'are trying to influence the election against President Bush.'
Such accusations have been a component of American politics since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and surfaced in the modern era during the McCarthy communist hunt and the Vietnam War protests."
An interesting footnote. Richard Armitage, who's mentioned above, seems to be trying to get a job as Secretary of State. It's well known Colin Powell is finished, and Armitage, always known as Powell's man, seems to be angling for his job. He was on Powell's side in his wars with the Pentagon and Vice President Cheney, but has become a media fixture of late, saying some pretty provocative things on behalf of President Bush.
Just over 24 hours till kickoff.
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