Judging by the way Democrat Jay Inslee has pounced on Republican Rob McKenna's recent anti-light-rail statements—bringing out King County Executive Dow Constantine and Bellevue City Councilwoman Claudia Balducci to help pound the message home at an event in Bellevue a short while ago—it seems Inslee's campaign thinks it's found a potent wedge issue.

"The last thing the State of Washington needs is a governor who would stand in the way of progress on transportation," Inslee began.

Then, speaking directly to McKenna, he said: "Stop whining and start building."

This was clearly an attempt to own McKenna on the question of whether to build light rail over Interstate 90—a question that, Inslee pointed out, has already been decided several times over, in courts and at the polls. "My opponent has lost this argument on multiple occasions," Inslee said. "He needs to get over it and move on."

Inslee promised to be a "vigorous advocate" for light rail, warned that a Governor McKenna could do all kinds of things to obstruct its progress, and dismissed McKenna's recent worries about whether it's even possible to build rail on a floating bridge. "The people who just finished building the first carbon fiber plane can figure out how to put tracks on a bridge," Inslee said.

Politically speaking, he could be on to something.

So far, pointing out McKenna's opposition to gay marriage and health care reform—as well as his not exactly pro-choice beliefs—has done little to erase McKenna's considerable lead over Inslee in King County. Surprisingly, however, as I was trailing Inslee all over King County last week I noticed that talk of McKenna's light rail opposition really seemed to upset people in a way that talk of all these other issues didn't. It was intensely local. It was an issue people felt had already been put to rest. And it was a contrast they got immediately—a contrast that put McKenna on the side of transit obstruction, against the will of the people, and out of step with King County.

Remember: King County just voted 63 percent to 36 percent to run light rail across I-90. People here want this project.

Can Inslee roll more of that 63 percent over to his column by taking the fight to McKenna on light rail? Sounds like we're about to find out.