Dino Rossi update: a decision to run by year's end

In an interview with Liz Mair of GOPProgress.com, Dino Rossi, the Washington GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2004 who lost by a few votes to Democrat Chris Gregoire in that legally contested election, says he will decide by the end of the year whether to run for governor again in 2008. We're just getting started up really, we've been at it less than a year now. We're going to be launching a few other things over the next couple of months, hiring a couple of people, and we're going to keep it moving ... Last year, I helped 36 candidates in three states, so I was very, very busy helping candidates I liked, free enterprise type candidates that I thought would be good, especially for the small and medium sized business community. Those are the people that I lent my help and support to. And now as to the second part of your question, we'll make a decision at the end of this year as to whether we do it again or not. With four children between six and sixteen, we've got to make sure it's right for the family first. There's a lot of variables there. And we have to assess whether the skills I have to offer are still necessary to turn the state around. We'll make that assessment as well. If I did do it again, and if I did win again, it looks like I'd be walking into what I walked into when we got the majority in 2003. It's a big mess that we'll have to straighten out again, but it's not like I haven't done that before. [laughs] I have experience doing that. Rossi said by 2010, the Democrats could be where the Republicans were in 2006 and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray could be vulnerable. Rossi has been pretty much invisible to media since a Superior Court in 2005 rejected the Republican Party challenge of Gregoire's election. He has an exploratory committee, however – a "foundation" – studying just about everything a potential political campaign would want to study. Rossi says his 501(c)(4) organization, called Forward Washington Foundation, is "centered around improving the business climate in the state for small and medium sized businesses, and also fiscal responsibility in state budgeting," and "is good way to highlight these issues." On its Web site, the exploratory foundation is raising money to "help us play an active role in offering and promoting solutions on important state issues such as the business climate, responsible state budgeting, accountability in state government and protecting the poor and the vulnerable." It's also "administering employer surveys with the intent of learning more about the challenges facing businesses in Washington state."