WA-Gov: Contrast in Rossi v. Gregoire Race Widens

A round-up of recent events in the Evergreen State gubernatorial contest:

1)  Christine Gregoire's controversial stem cell ads have been chased from the TV airwaves, with the Tacoma News Tribune following the Seattle Times in castigating them.  An effective counter from Dino Rossi probably didn't hurt either.

2)  A late-in-the-game state Democratic party lawsuit to force ballots to declare Rossi a "Republican" rather than the "Prefers GOP Party" label currently used was promptly tossed out.  Background:  in Washington's somewhat unique "Top Two" primary system, candidate's declare their party preference in language of thier choosing; Gregoire appears on the ballot as "Prefers Democratic Party."

The gambit scored the earned media that Democrats wanted to empahsize "Dino Rossi is a Republican!" to low-information voters who caught TV news blurbs on the story.  It also accumulated more negative attention than likely anticipated.  The ruling judge cited printed ballots already in route to military/overseas voters (and in some cases already returned from them) among the reasons for dismissing the legal action.  Meanwhile, the move earned derisive editorials from the Seattle Times, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, and the Yakima Herald-Republic.

3)  With less than three weeks to go until the bulk of what will be largely mail-in ballots begin to reach voters, here are the competiting ads from the two campaigns:

So in this time of economic woes and voter angst, Gregoire is rehashing a debate about pharmacists being forced to dispense Plan B. Rossi is talking about the largest budget deficit in state history that looms for the next Legislature and Governor to deal with in January - no matter how how often Gregoire semantically argues that state has a budget surplus today.

One might guess which issue holds more interest to voters given the current mood of the electorate.