Post any questions or answers to posted questions pertaining to Chapter #8 “Political Parties” in this thread.

A local journalist tells the story you haven’t heard.

By Craig Franklin

Jena, La.

By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they’ve all heard the story of the “Jena 6.” White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

There’s just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

I should know. I live in Jena. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning.

The reason the Jena cases have been propelled into the world spotlight is two-fold: First, because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side’s statements – the Jena 6. Second, the media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they’d read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue.

The real story of Jena and the Jena 6 is quite different from what the national media presented. It’s time to set the record straight.

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a “whites-only” tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this tree. When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites. As reported by students in the assembly, the question was asked to make a joke and to drag out the assembly and avoid class.

Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of “Lonesome Dove.”) The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends. Another myth concerns their punishment, which was not a three-day suspension, but rather nine days at an alternative facility followed by two weeks of in-school suspension, Saturday detentions, attendance at Discipline Court, and evaluation by licensed mental-health professionals. The students who hung the nooses have not publicly come forward to give their version of events.

Myth 3: Nooses Were a Hate Crime. Although many believe the three white students should have been prosecuted for a hate crime for hanging the nooses, the incident did not meet the legal criteria for a federal hate crime. It also did not meet the standard for Louisiana’s hate-crime statute, and though widely condemned by all officials, there was no crime to charge the youths with.

Myth 4: DA’s Threat to Black Students. When District Attorney Reed Walters spoke to Jena High students at an assembly in September, he did not tell black students that he could make their life miserable with “the stroke of a pen.” Instead, according to Walters, “two or three girls, white girls, were chit-chatting on their cellphones or playing with their cellphones right in the middle of my dissertation. I got a little irritated at them and said, ‘Pay attention to me. I am right now having to deal with an aggravated rape case where I’ve got to decide whether the death penalty applies or not.’ I said, ‘Look, I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make your life miserable so I want you to call me before you do something stupid.’”

Mr. Walters had been called to the assembly by police, who had been at the school earlier that day dealing with some students who were causing disturbances. Teachers and students have confirmed Walters’s version of events.

Myth 5: The Fair Barn Party Incident. On Dec. 1, 2006, a private party – not an all-white party as reported – was held at the local community center called the Fair Barn. Robert Bailey Jr., soon to be one of the Jena 6, came to the party with others seeking admittance.

When they were denied entrance by the renter of the facility, a white male named Justin Sloan (not a Jena High student) at the party attacked Bailey and hit him in the face with his fist. This is reported in witness statements to police, including the victim, Robert Bailey, Jr.

Months later, Bailey contended he was hit in the head with a beer bottle and required stitches. No medical records show this ever occurred. Mr. Sloan was prosecuted for simple battery, which according to Louisiana law, is the proper charge for hitting someone with a fist.

Myth 6: The “Gotta-Go” Grocery Incident. On Dec. 2, 2006, Bailey and two other black Jena High students were involved in an altercation at this local convenience store, stemming from the incident that occurred the night before. The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him. The two parties gave conflicting statements to police. However, two unrelated eye witnesses of the event gave statements that corresponded with that of the white male.

Myth 7: The Schoolyard Fight. The event on Dec. 4, 2006 was consistently labeled a “schoolyard fight.” But witnesses described something much more horrific. Several black students, including those now known as the Jena 6, barricaded an exit to the school’s gym as they lay in wait for Justin Barker to exit. (It remains unclear why Mr. Barker was specifically targeted.)

When Barker tried to leave through another exit, court testimony indicates, he was hit from behind by Mychal Bell. Multiple witnesses confirmed that Barker was immediately knocked unconscious and lay on the floor defenseless as several other black students joined together to kick and stomp him, with most of the blows striking his head. Police speculate that the motivation for the attack was related to the racially charged fights that had occurred during the previous weekend.

Myth 8: The Attack Is Linked to the Nooses. Nowhere in any of the evidence, including statements by witnesses and defendants, is there any reference to the noose incident that occurred three months prior. This was confirmed by the United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, Donald Washington, on numerous occasions.

Myth 9: Mychal Bell’s All-White Jury. While it is true that Mychal Bell was convicted as an adult by an all-white jury in June (a conviction that was later overturned with his case sent to juvenile court), the jury selection process was completely legal and withstood an investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Court officials insist that several black residents were summoned for jury duty, but did not appear.

Myth 10: Jena 6 as Model Youth. While some members were simply caught up in the moment, others had criminal records. Bell had at least four prior violent-crime arrests before the December attack, and was on probation during most of this year.

Myth 11: Jena Is One of the Most Racist Towns in America. Actually, Jena is a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks. The media’s distortion and outright lies concerning the case have given this rural Louisiana town a label it doesn’t deserve.

Myth 12: Two Levels of Justice. Outside protesters were convinced that the prosecution of the Jena 6 was proof of a racially biased system of justice. But the US Justice Department’s investigation found no evidence to support such a claim. In fact, the percentage of blacks and whites prosecuted matches the parish’s population statistics.

These are just 12 of many myths that are portrayed as fact in the media concerning the Jena cases. (A more thorough review of all events can be found at www.thejenatimes.net – click on Chronological Order of Events.)

As with the Duke Lacrosse case, the truth about Jena will eventually be known. But the town of Jena isn’t expecting any apologies from the media. They will probably never admit their error and have already moved on to the next “big” story. Meanwhile in Jena, residents are getting back to their regular routines, where friends are friends regardless of race. Just as it has been all along.

• Craig Franklin is assistant editor of The Jena Times.

Susan Estrich
Creators Syndicate
October 25, 2007

The kids in one of my son’s ninth-grade classes were asked to write essays on their heroes. With two exceptions, they all picked Al Gore. That’s easy: He was in the news that week. Only a kid with my son’s backbone would debate whether all of the science in Al Gore’s presentation was correct, whether he really would be a stronger candidate than Hillary, or whether his loss in 2000 wasn’t at least in part his own fault.

But the question of picking a hero remained. So he asked me who mine was.

That’s probably why I found myself dreaming of Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Store. Most people dream of romance and adventure. On occasion, I do, too. But when I go to bed thinking of heroes, I’m more likely to dream of an obscure furniture store in Washington, D.C., that used to take advantage of poor people who had nowhere else to go to buy tables and chairs, or refrigerators and stoves. So they went to Walker-Thomas Furniture, which promised credit for everyone, with a catch. The catch was that the interest rates were higher than anyone would pay in any other part of town, and repossession came faster than it ever would from Hecht’s or Woodward and Lothrop if they missed even a single payment. Did I mention that all the customers were black?

That’s the way it was until a man named J. Skelly Wright wrote a decision I read about in my first year of law school. I’d never heard of Wright, and when I started reading, it was just one more case to be briefed by morning. But this one was different. The Uniform Commercial Code, one of the most boring documents I encountered in law school, prohibited unconscionable commercial transactions. No one had ever thought that meant charging poor people usurious interest rates for goods they desperately needed and then repossessing them for even a single nonpayment, as explained in very small writing.

Wright thought that was exactly what it prohibited, and he wrote a decision that outraged many in the business community for its audacity in seeking to regulate arms-length commercial transactions between willing sellers and desperate buyers.

“What do you think of that?” my then-professor asked the class. I thought I might have found my hero.

Long before he protected poor people from being treated like dirt in furniture stores, Wright, a self-described “good Catholic boy” from New Orleans, a night-law-school graduate, a working-class kid who took seriously what he learned in school and in church, had been appointed to the federal district court by Harry Truman while still in his 30s because he was the only guy around who thought every ballot was supposed to be counted, once. But no one expected this good ol’ boy to decide that if separate but equal was inherently unequal, it was his job as a federal judge to order the first blacks to attend LSU Law School, to integrate the New Orleans school systems.

The Klan burned crosses on his lawn so often his son once told me that when his parents went out, his dad told him to just ignore them unless they got too close to the house, in which case he should call the fire department.

He didn’t set out to be a hero. He just believed it was his job to do what was right, to enforce the law. By the early ’60s, Richard Russell, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had told the president’s men that Skelly Wright would never be confirmed for the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which covered the South, or for the Supreme Court. But if the new president wanted to get him out of Louisiana and put him on the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C., he’d skip the hearing that day. That is what President Kennedy did.

I was Wright’s second woman clerk. He had to tell me that his good friend William Brennan, then the most liberal justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, a job my judge would have loved and could never have, wouldn’t be hiring me because I was a woman. He sat with me as I tried not to cry.

A few months later we were assigned an important rape case. The fancy law firm representing the defendant was trying to uphold the corroboration requirement that Wright’s closest friend on the court had championed. I came close to tears again. I explained how I’d been raped and there had been no corroboration, and the rule that would have kept this case from the jury would have kept mine away as well. This one’s for you, he told me. It was the day I came to understand that lemons could be made into lemonade.

He never got rich. I used to joke years later that he was the only person I knew who drove a car worse than mine: I drove a Maverick, and he drove a Pinto. As the Supreme Court changed, he got reversed more and more often. But he never stopped fighting.

The year I worked for him was the year my world fell apart: I lost my father, my family was in shambles, I didn’t have a dime to call my own, and I could barely remember why I had become a lawyer. It was also the year my world came back together, under the kind and gentle tutelage of a man who never wore his courage on his sleeve, never expected, or received, much acclaim, but taught me what it was to believe in something enough to put your life and your heart on the line for it every day.

I spent Christmas that year with the Wrights. It was the finest Christmas of my life. For it was his soul that made J. Skelly Wright a hero. He never got a Nobel Prize, but truth be told, he didn’t need one.

James P. Pinkerton
Newsday
October 25, 2007

Remember “The Lord of the Rings”? Sure you do. So, now let’s play Republican “Lord of the Rings.” As in, who’s going to win the GOP presidential nomination?

The rings of political power tell the tale. Four rings, outermost to innermost, can give us clues. But it’s that innermost ring – the ring of buzz and momentum – that reveals the most.

The outer Republican ring – that is, the ring furthest from the minds of core activists – is the November 2008 election. In this “electability” ring, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is strongest in matchups against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the leading Democrat. Of course, Giuliani would run best in November, because by many measures he is more of an independent, even a liberal, than a conservative. And the middle is where elections are won.

But that’s not where primary contests are won. So we come to the next ring – the battle for hearts and souls within the Republican Party itself. And here again, Giuliani has the lead, though not by much. The folks at RealClearPolitics.com have averaged out the most recent polls, showing Giuliani with 27 percent – 9 points ahead of former Sen. Fred Thompson. It’s better to be ahead than behind, but if barely more than a quarter of primary voters support you, you aren’t a very strong front-runner.

And besides, a lot of those GOP voters are, by definition, in places that don’t have much say in the nomination. So, who speaks loudly re: The nomination? The answer can be summed up in four words: “Iowa and New Hampshire.” Those two states make up the next ring. After the Hawkeye State’s caucus and the Granite State’s primary, there won’t be more than three Republicans left in the race. Now that’s political power.

Interestingly, Giuliani is fourth in Iowa and second in New Hampshire. For all his strength across the country, he’s having trouble among close-in, hard-core Republicans. So, who’s ahead in those two states? It’s former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to the same RealClear site.

In fact, Romney always has been a favorite among many Republicans, especially professional Republicans. Why? Because he looks like a president – or, more precisely, he looks like Hollywood’s idea of a president; few actual presidents have ever been so handsome. And, oh yes, it doesn’t hurt that he has the most money to spend and doesn’t mind spending it. Professionals appreciate that about Romney.

But now we come to the innermost ring. This ring is the hardest to quantify because the key metric – “buzz” – can’t really be expressed in a hard number, at least not until Election Day.

But buzz is real, nonetheless. It’s the juice that animates the activists, the folks who actually power a candidate to victory. As the American Revolutionary Samuel Adams put it centuries ago, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires.”

So who, if anyone, is burning up the grass roots? A visit to the Values Voters Summit, convened last Saturday by the Family Research Council in Washington, provided the answer. The “hot” candidate, measured by standing ovations, was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. As he said, “I am someone who comes not to the faith community but from the faith community.”

And the Values Voters straw poll underscored the power of Huckabee’s connection to these innermost voters: Romney won the overall balloting, including online “votes,” but of the 1,000 or so activists who cared enough to be in the room, 51 percent endorsed Huckabee – compared with 10 percent for Romney, 8 percent for Thompson and virtually none for Giuliani.

So then is Huckabee the front-runner? Nope. Way behind in money and name recognition, Huckabee is still a dark horse. But he is a buzzing dark horse, lit up by that fourth, white-hot, innermost ring.

David S. Broder
Washington Post
October 25, 2007

CHICAGO – These are difficult days for supporters of Barack Obama.

This city is filled with people who have voted for, worked for, contributed to, and in many cases prayed for the success of the young senator from Illinois. The struggle he has had in trying to overtake Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination is wearing on their morale.

Last weekend, I heard them tell each other that while the race started months ago, it is still early going; that the crucial days in Iowa and New Hampshire are still ahead; and that there is time for Obama to close with a rush, as he did when he came from behind to capture the nomination for his Senate seat back in 2004.

But the steady drumbeat of polls showing Clinton with more support than all the other Democrats combined – and twice as much as Obama – is taking a toll. In their private moments, they wonder whether even Obama, as gifted as he is, can pull off this feat.

Such doubts can afflict any trailing candidate’s campaign, but they are particularly pronounced – and poignant – in this case. Obama burst onto the national stage with such high expectations, fueled by his remarkable speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, that nothing, including the presidency, seemed to be beyond his reach.

The elevated stature he enjoyed nationally was nothing compared to the near reverence he commands among his friends here. Those I met who have worked closely with him through the past decade in politics, community affairs or the anti-war movement exhaust the list of superlatives in speaking about him and his wife, Michelle.

They see Obama as someone uniquely positioned to heal a divided nation – and to change the image of America in the world, simply by virtue of his own history and personality. They can visualize the headlines and television coverage around the globe if he were elected to the White House.

Among the Obama faithful, Hillary Clinton is not reviled. Indeed, there is a good deal of admiration for the way she has conducted herself in the campaign.

But at every turn, Obama’s people feel that he has been outmaneuvered and outsmarted by Clinton’s timing and tactics. Nothing is more painful to them – or more typical – than what happened on Oct. 2.

That date was the fifth anniversary of the speech that Obama gave to a rally outside Chicago City Hall, called to mobilize opposition to the looming war with Iraq. In the speech, which has been quoted many times, Obama, then eyeing a Senate campaign, defied public opinion and decried what he called a “dumb” war.

He has often cited his prescience on that issue as the best evidence that, despite his short tenure in Washington, he has the judgment to make the right calls on crucial questions of national security.

The Obama campaign, therefore, announced that the fifth anniversary would be a special day for them, the date of a major foreign policy address. After some debate, the campaign decided not to stage a repetition of the outdoor rally, but rather to have him speak in a college auditorium, a better setting for a thoughtful address.

The speech that he delivered at DePaul University here was as serious a discussion of the lessons of Iraq and the future of American foreign policy as anyone could wish. And, as I was repeatedly reminded by the Obama people, it got next to no national press coverage. It was briefly summarized on Page 8 of the Washington Post, Page 11 of the Boston Globe and Page 20 of the New York Times.

Why? Because the Clinton campaign, with exquisite timing, that same morning released its latest-quarter fundraising totals, which put her ahead of Obama for the first time in the money race. The Page 1 stories in the next day’s Times and Post were simple: Clinton, leading all the polls, now leads in campaign finances as well.

The pessimists in the Obama camp worry that never again will they have such an opportunity to highlight his early opposition to the war – in contrast to Clinton’s vote for the resolution that President Bush used when he ordered the attack on Baghdad.

That is probably an exaggeration. Future debates, especially those coming in Iowa and New Hampshire, may provide more openings. It is also the case that the voters in those states are far less firmly attached to their current candidate preferences than polling numbers would suggest. There is, in fact, time for Obama to rally. It’s just hard for his people to believe it right now.

36-year-old embraced face-to-face campaign

Louisiana Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal answers a question in Kenner, La., on Sunday. Associated Press (Associated Press)

Miguel Bustillo
Los Angeles Times
October 24, 2007

MONROE, La. – When Bobby Jindal lost his first Louisiana governor’s race four years ago, some experts told him that white people here were not ready to elect a dark-skinned son of Indian immigrants.

On Tuesday, as he dashed across the state in a victory caravan following his historic landslide win Saturday, Louisiana’s Republican governor-elect had a message for his rural supporters: Thank you for proving the political wisdom wrong.

Jindal, 36 – who will become the first Indian-American governor of any state, the youngest current governor in the country and the first nonwhite to lead Louisiana since Reconstruction – refused to believe that his ethnicity was an obstacle to achieving his political dreams.

He essentially never stopped campaigning after his 2003 loss to Democratic Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, an election in which he failed to win over many of the white rural voters who should have loved his conservative positions.

Jindal was convinced that if voters got to know him, they would see him as a fellow native son from Baton Rouge, not a foreigner with an Ivy League degree.

So he made more than 70 trips to northern Louisiana cities such as Shreveport, and the devout Catholic seemingly attended Sunday mass at every small church in the state, even after he was elected to represent suburban New Orleans in Congress in 2004.

“In these small Louisiana towns, retail politics is very important,” Jindal said in an interview from his tour bus as he rode to Natchitoches. He always believed Blanco beat him simply because she was better known. “I don’t think there’s any substitute for staring someone in the eye and listening,” he said.

Jindal’s tireless tours of Louisiana, especially here in the conservative northern parishes that were considered the keys to his earlier defeat, impressed political observers, who said that by the time his rivals entered this year’s race, Jindal’s hard-earned backing in the rural stronghold was insurmountable.

“I have never seen anyone work so hard,” said Bernie Pinsonat, a Louisiana pollster and political consultant. “I had a local legislator tell me that he had to go to church more often, because Jindal had been to his church more times than he had.”

Jindal wound up winning all but four of Louisiana’s 64 parishes – nearly the entire state except New Orleans. It was an embarrassing defeat for Democrats, who were unable even to force Jindal into a runoff election. Under Louisiana’s open primary rules, a candidate who can secure more than half the total vote wins outright. Jindal received 54 percent, despite competing against 11 candidates.

Blanco opted not to seek re-election earlier this year after her response to Hurricane Katrina drew widespread criticism, and no prominent Democrat stepped in to challenge Jindal.

Piyush “Bobby” Jindal’s meteoric rise through the Republican Party ranks is already legend in Louisiana – as is his personal version of the American dream. His parents moved to Baton Rouge from India shortly before he was born so his mother could study nuclear physics at Louisiana State University. His father is a civil engineer.

At age 4, Jindal asked his teacher to refer to him henceforth as Bobby, after the character from ” The Brady Bunch.” His parents worried he was going through a phase but also obliged, and Jindal has been known as Bobby since. When he converted from Hinduism to Catholicism at age 18, he used Robert as his baptismal name.

At age 24, the Brown University and Oxford-educated wunderkind was named head of the Louisiana Department of Heath and Hospitals by then-Gov. Mike Foster, placing him in charge of a $4 billion budget and 13,000 employees, and on the political fast track.

Yet he learned in 2003 that his resume was not enough to be elected governor in Louisiana – and could even serve as a hindrance. Democrats ran ads criticizing the steep cuts Jindal had made as health chief and questioning whether the Ivy Leaguer was in touch with common folk. The ads worked.

Following his defeat, Jindal launched his statewide charm offensive.

Republican lost to Gregoire in 2004

A “Re-Vote” sign from the 2004 governor’s race still hangs in the Olympia office window of state Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland. The Spokesman-Review (RICHARD ROESLER The Spokesman-Review) Related stories Elections – Washington state

Richard Roesler
Staff writer
October 24, 2007

OLYMPIA – The 2008 governor’s race officially launches Thursday, when Republican Dino Rossi is expected to announce – in Spokane and Issaquah – that he will again challenge Democrat Chris Gregoire.

“I won’t deny anything, but it’s Dino’s announcement to make,” his campaign spokeswoman Jill Strait said Tuesday. The Associated Press, citing anonymous GOP sources, reported late Monday that Rossi will run.

If so, it will be a rematch of the 2004 cliffhanger, which left Rossi trailing the former attorney general by 133 votes after two recounts and election lawsuit in Wenatchee. But after three years as a quiet candidate-in-waiting, some political observers say, Rossi faces a tougher fight. Over the past three years, Gregoire has led trade missions, brokered deals, written two budgets and made many appearances across the state.

“Compared to the last go-round, she’s in a somewhat stronger position,” said David Nice, a political science professor at Washington State University. “I don’t have a sense that she’s done too many things that have made people mad.”

Gregoire – who’s clearly running but has yet to officially kick off her campaign – has raised $3 million for the race and has been buoyed by round after round of economic good news over the past year and a half. The governor has also won grudging admiration from some of the same Republican lawmakers who refused to applaud her opening speech as governor in 2005.

Long gone are the “Re-vote or revolt!” signs that adorned some cars in the legislative parking lot. One of the few visible reminders of the bitter feelings at the time is a “Re-vote” sign still hanging in the Olympia office window of state Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland.

“The winds kind of went out of the sails of that ’she’s not my governor’ stuff,” said Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University. While party stalwarts on both sides vividly remember the high drama at the time, he said, independent voters probably don’t.

“They’re not thinking back four years,” he said. “And that’s who makes or breaks an election.”

As an example, both Nice and Donovan cited the 2000 presidential race, Florida ballot flap and Bush-Gore U.S. Supreme Court fight.

“How much did the Florida thing hurt George Bush four years later?” Donovan said. “It didn’t. People forgot about it, and when he ran for re-election, he did even better.”

State GOP chairman Luke Esser – who would say only that he’s “very optimistic” about Thursday’s announcement from Rossi – says Gregoire’s record will be a minus, not a plus.

“It was all about promises four years ago,” he said. “Now there’s a real record that can be pointed out to voters.”

He cited tax increases, particularly reinstatement of Washington’s estate tax and large increases in state spending, both of which the governor has characterized as key “investments,” particularly in education. Esser also criticized ongoing problems with the foster-care system and early release of felons by the state Department of Corrections during Gregoire’s watch.

“There’s a lot wrong in state government that can be pointed to,” he said.

Esser said he’s also heartened by a couple of polls this year that suggested Gregoire’s approval rating with voters is below 50 percent. (Rossi’s was a couple points lower, but within the margin of error.) For an incumbent, Esser said, that suggests Gregoire’s vulnerable.

State Democrats have been convinced that Rossi would run for months. This summer, they filed a complaint with state campaign-finance officials, charging that Rossi’s “Forward Washington” foundation and speeches were actually a stealth campaign. It’s still under investigation.

This morning, in a “curtain-raiser” meant to undercut Rossi’s usual line of attack, Democrats plan to circulate a Web video that touts the business and economic climate in Washington: “210,000 new jobs…Record investment in education…Lowest unemployment in state history…Time for a new rationale, Dino.”

“Nothing will be taken for granted, but Washington state is moving forward together under Gov. Gregoire’s leadership,” said state Democratic Party spokesman Kelly Steele. “Voters will understand Republican Dino Rossi would take us dangerously in the wrong direction.”

In Spokane, county GOP chairman Curt Fackler said he’s excited to have Rossi as a candidate. But Gregoire is a formidable opponent, he said, particularly when rising state spending is masked by a growing economy.

“I think Gregoire is very politically smart,” he said. “I think it’s going to be difficult.”

Rossi’s best hope, Fackler said, will be Elections 101: getting Republican voters to vote. Republicans were stunned a year ago, when voter anger over the war in Iraq cost Republicans numerous seats in the statehouse.

“The reason that Republicans did so lousy is that our people just didn’t vote,” Fackler said.

With a hotly contested presidential race under way, it also may be harder for Rossi to tap national donors for money than it was in 2004, Nice said.

“A lot of money’s getting vacuumed up,” he said.

Despite Gregoire’s $3 million lead, Esser said he’s confident that Rossi will get enough money to get his message across to voters.

“She’ll need more,” Esser said of Gregoire. “She’s got a lot of explaining to do.”