Gregoire for governor

Washington state Republicans have offered the most viable gubernatorial candidate in the past eight years. Religious zealot or right-wing radio talk-show host Dino Rossi is not. He's a reasonable man who was a promising legislator, especially when his party held the Senate majority and he held the Ways and Means chair.

But while he's the GOP's best candidate in years, he's not the better candidate for governor of the state of Washington. Democrat Attorney General Christine Gregoire is.

The next governor will face four difficult years. The difficulties will begin with a $1 billion general fund revenue shortfall and will continue with increasing homeland security obligations, tough labor negotiations, insistent transportation demands and burgeoning health care cost pressures in the public and private sectors.

The next governor likely will face these difficulties with narrow partisan majorities in one chamber or the other -- or in neither. And without a sweeping partisan realignment in both the House and Senate, any governor's hopes for bold new policies will be stymied by a recalcitrant Legislature.

It's appealing to dream of a fresh new breeze capable of clearing Olympia of the partisanship, politicking and gridlock that so effectively block progress there. But unless and until the voters of Washington are ready to trust one party with a solid legislative majority, it's difficult for any governor to claim any sort of policy mandate.

Both candidates are denizens of Olympia, and only such a denizen can succeed there now.

That's not to say that we need a caretaker governor -- far from it. We've had eight years of a governor who offered competent management but precious little bold leadership. And there's far more to the governor's job than writing budgets. Christine Gregoire has the experience, the grit and the drive to lead the state in the right direction under difficult circumstances, even if it sometimes has to be in the direction not everyone may be ready to go.

Rossi is no phony, but in our dealings and conversations with both candidates we get a sense of hardwood with Gregoire and with Rossi a sense of veneer -- smooth, attractive, but not as deep. There are legitimate concerns about what lies beneath the surface there on social issues such as abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. No, the governor doesn't determine federal funding for research or rule unilaterally on reproductive rights, but neither should a governor stand in the way of potential federal funding for a state research university nor acquiesce to legislative attempts to limit a woman's right to choose.

Business and job creation should not be stifled by untoward regulation, but neither should profits be allowed to trump workers' rights and safety or environmental protection. From her work at the Department of Ecology, to her leadership in the national tobacco settlement to her unrelenting pressure on the federal government to clean up Hanford, Gregoire has proved to be a champion of health and environmental safety. She would encourage job and economic growth not by giving business a free hand but by leading government to give business a hand by building the underlying infrastructure of education and research and transportation that helps business and workers thrive.

Gregoire appropriately and publicly has been criticized for some management shortcomings in the attorney general's office. But they're errors from which she's learned, and have been cast out of proportion with the tremendous amount of good she's accomplished as attorney general.

The governorship is a job for which Gregoire has been thoroughly prepared, even through those excruciatingly public errors. She's widely respected by legislators and fellow statewide officials of both political parties. She's an accomplished litigator and manager of large, complex agencies. If she can handle the tobacco industry, she can deal with the Legislature.

Through her lead role on the tobacco settlement and other activities, she enjoys national recognition and respect among the governors who would be her peers. Washington would be well positioned in the pursuit of solutions to many problems -- health care, Internet sales taxation equity, homeland security, nuclear waste cleanup -- that will depend on interstate, national and even international cooperation.

Gregoire offers Washington voters an impressive package of experience, determination and powerful public policy leadership. She should make an excellent governor should the voters be wise enough to elect her.

(The governor is elected to a four-year term at a salary that will be $145,132.)

Other P-I endorsements at seattlepi.com/election2004/endorse.asp

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