Gov. Christine Gregoire launched her reelection campaign April 7 in Auburn’s Rainbow Café, a few feet from where she once sat after school while her single mother cooked flapjacks and flipped burgers.
Gregoire, a 1965 Auburn High School graduate, scanned the crowded banquet room of the downtown eatery and found there some people she knew, including the two sons of a former classmate and Auburn City Councilman Gene Cerino, her high school driving instructor, now 81.
“Don’t ask him any questions,” Gregoire said to laughter.
Gregoire, flanked by husband Mike Gregoire and U.S. Congressman Norm Dicks, spoke proudly of her track record on the environment, education and the economy. She promised to fight during a second term for children, senior citizens, veterans and the less fortunate.
To win a second term, Gregoire will have to get past former state Sen. Dino Rossi, her Republican opponent in the bitterly contested 2004 election and her opponent once again. Rossi, the initial winner of that contest, lost by 133 votes on the third recount and a long court battle.
Gregoire said her campaign will emphasize the need to tackle the tough issues.
“It will be about getting results, results that families need, deserve and can count on,” Gregoire said. “I am ready with a proven track record of results.”
Gregoire said that when she became governor, the state had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country — tied with Oregon — and now has the lowest in the state’s history.
She cited a recent Pew Research article that listed Washington as one of the three best-managed states in the country. She said that Forbes and Fortune magazines had recently ranked the state among the top five in the country in which to do business.
Gregoire said that when she became governor the state had no plans for dealing with its transportation problems. She said that Rossi had done nothing to deal with the issues while he was in the Senate.
“I stuck my neck out and all my colleagues in the Legislature stuck their necks out and passed a 9 1/2 cent gas tax,” Gregoire said. “That takes a lot of nerve. People of the state of Washington wanted to repeal it, but (legislators) stood up and said ‘no, we are going to maintain it.’”
In a written release on his campaign Web site, Rossi fired back. He said that after nearly four years of Gregoire, the state faces many of the same challenges it did before she took office.
He said the state has never gotten off the “budget roller coaster,” that it faces a projected $2.4 billion deficit, a degrading transportation system and students who still struggle to compete in math and science.
Rossi said that in the last four years, state spending has shot up by $ 8.5 billion, a 33-percent increase. He accused Gregoire of “total fiscal recklessness.”
“Christine Gregoire has the taxpayer credit card, and we are getting stuck with the bill,” Rossi said.
Gregoire said that spending has increased much less than 33 percent. The Governor’s budget office said Tuesday the better figure is $6.7 billion, about 26 percent. She said most of the new spending has gone to education and other popular programs.
“I love how (Rossi) plays with numbers,” Gregoire said. “Let me tell you what I walked into. We hadn’t lived up to the voters requirement that we reduce class sizes in our K-12 programs. We hadn’t lived up to voters telling us that they wanted to pay the teachers so we could put the best and the brightest in front of the classrooms. We had not paid for pensions. We were cutting kids off health care. Those were not the values the people of the state of Washington wanted.”
Gregoire said when she came into office the state faced a $2.2 billion shortfall and had only $270 million in its savings account. She said she learned from Bill Gates Sr. about a rainy day fund and decided the state should have one.
At the moment, she said, the rainy day fund is just short of $500 million already and has the capacity to double that.
Dicks called Gregoire “the hardest-working, most-determined, most effective governor we’ve had,” adding that she has done “a great job” on climate change and developing alternative energy sources.
King County Executive Norm Dicks said the state “needs Governor Gregoire so we can join the rest of this country as a nation of change.”
Traveling in a biodiesel bus, Gregoire stopped Monday in Tacoma and Vancouver, then crossed the mountains into Eastern Washington.
She wrapped up her tour Thursday in Seattle.
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