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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

MIA on I-912: Dino Rossi

Posted by on September 20 at 6:00 AM

While I’ve been demanding to know why Gov. Christine Gregoire won’t come out strong—or even come out specifically, or at all!—against I-912, David Goldstein over at horsesass.org is asking a similar question about Dino Rossi. Here’s one of Goldstein’s recent Rossi rants:

“Where’s Rossi?ā€¯ Day 6 by Goldy, 09/19/2005, 9:58 AM I keep searching for clues as to “Where’s Rossi?ā€¯ on Initiative 912… but according to Andrew Garber in this morning’s Seattle Times, Dino is clueless:

The campaign, in its polling, found that former Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi could have a significant impact on how people vote if he endorsed or opposed I-912. Rossi said recently he has no position.

No position? Gimme a break. This is a guy who wants to be governor, and he has no position on an initiative that will determine the ability of the state to start addressing its massive transportation infrastructure needs? He has no position on a transportation package that passed both houses of the Legislature with a bipartisan majority, and which is strongly backed by his longtime patrons in the business community? He has no position on an initiative that has been sold by its backers as revenge for Rossi’s loss at the polls and in the courts?

Actually, what he told Garber was that he was not going to take a position, not that he didn’t actually have one, and I really have trouble believing that my friends in the MSM will let Rossi get away with this prevarication. I-912 rode Rossi’s election contest trial onto the ballot, and if he wants to be taken seriously in WA politics, he has an obligation to take a public stance, one way or the other.

In a companion piece, Ralph Thomas raises the ominous question of “Who’ll be to blame if viaduct, 520 bridge collapse?”

Politicians, clerics and ethicists agree we have a moral obligation to fix infrastructure such as highways and levees that we know pose a risk to the public.

But where does that obligation lie?

Well, if I-912 passes due to Rossi’s silence, and the resulting delays result in a catastrophic collapse, I know one person I’m going blame: Dino Rossi.

It’s definitely worth going to Goldstein’s site to follow his Rossi watch from Day 1.