Washblog

Some of us are Democrats, others are not.

Along with founder, Brian Moran, we maintain an insistence that this blog is not an arm of the state Democratic Party or any party for that matter. No one gives us our talking points or article topics except by suggestion.

This has been a hard-won independence that is the historical result of having had to cope with attempts to insert party talking points and control of Washblog's overall message and themes to our readers.  

If we have an overall theme it is that of progressive advocacy much more than political liberalism.

The majority of our posts are political but our  writings include an assortment of issues beyond party politics i.e., economics, the environment, law and order/criminal justice issues, social justice, and religion in or outside of politics.

Another issue is vote integrity. One of our editors, Jason Osgood, has gotten involved in a major way. He is the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State this year.

As a WashBlog contributing editor and member of  its board, I remain an independent voter. I returned to being an independent voter officially the Wednesday following election Tuesday in 2006. That was when I resigned from the Democratic Party and notified my local precinct committee officer.

Although I flirted with rejoining the Democrats after participation in a single Democratic Party Caucus in Naselle this past March, I backed off and was content to support my wife, Lietta, who became an Obama delegate to the Pacific County Convention in April.

I want to write an opinion on the candidacy of Dino Rossi for governor that is based on my own experience and participation in state government at a level that Mr. Rossi has no personal first hand day-to-day experience.

In that regard, folks like me possess a view of citizen concerns from inside the very state agencies about which Mr. Rossi makes critical observation. We know more about some of those topics and issues and their importance to citizens than does the candidate himself.

This is also fair to a public who might believe Rossi has ground-level experience and therefor whose views are much more than merely based on his theory of government.

For example, if candidate Rossi can publish a video ad in which it is implied that the ad's star witness is someone with inside knowledge of the state's foster care system then that individual needs to have her own credentials as a knowledgeable insider questioned and confirmed.

I will write more on that ad another time.

The truth is, Rossi is an outsider, far removed from the daily nuts and bolts of the state social services delivery system.

Governor Gregoire - as the one who presides -  possesses a clearer picture but is still echelons-removed from where the rubber hit's the road.  She can speak anecdotally but not with contemporary authority in the same context as one who is there every day all day.

I can and will.

When candidate Rossi offers a statistic and includes his one-dimensional interpretation of what that number really means, it can be quite probable that he truly doesn't know what he is talking about

or he is deliberately playing with facts in the same way a fast-talking preacher is able to prove anything with a Bible quote or two.

As someone inside the system, as a professional at what I do and as a civic-minded and civically active citizen, I want to challenge Dino Rossi's campaign asssertions.

Now as a state worker I am prohibited from speaking as if I were an official representative of DSHS, state government or any state officer.

But I am a citizen and voter who is a professional  employed by the Washington DSHS as a  TANF/WorkFirst case worker. I am  tasked with administering the family cash assistance program (TANF), state General Assistance (GA) and Medicaid programs in this end of Pacific County.

I am a tax-payer, property-owner and voting consumer in the state of Washington who is entitled to his opinion and has the right to express it.  

To me that means much more than just having a state job. It also means that as someone authorized to spend state funds, approve food benefits or open medical coverage, I do so with knowledge that I am s pending my own tax dollars.

I deal with individuals young and old and families who come to us needing cash help, food assistance and/or medical coverage. Often that coverage is needed out of desperation to help cope with illnesses or injuries for which the cost of treatment and medications does not fit in their budgets.

As a tax-payer and case worker, I then have a personal fiduciary interest in a wise and effective management of my little corner of the state budget.

And as a citizen who will vote, I want to discuss Dino Rossi's vow to be a governor of fiscal and political conservatism.

This week I watched that last debate in Spokane on channel 9.

The essence of Mr. Rossi's argument seems to be two propositions:

(1) Dino Rossi wrote budgets.

(2) There are people who like Dino Rossi as revealed to him when he holds Republican rallies around the state.

There was little beyond those two talking points to recommend Rossi as a governor with leadership traits.

Writing budgets is not a leadership trait.

Rather, writing budgets is a legislative tasking for those who desire that kind of responsibility and are chosen to do so based on political popularity within one's party.

Consequently, "reaching across the aisle" to write budgets is a given - since a budget has to be approved by the legislature and not a mere committee chair person.

I hope Mr. Rossi was not trying to say that he personally wrote budgets that were approved solely by him, then forced out of committee and into the legislature's main floor by sheer force of his indomitable will.

Is writing budgets a greater leadership virtue for a governor than managing budgets?

I guess Mr. Rossi wants us to believe so.

I disagree.

The greater role and where leadership matters with budgets is not what group of politicians write a budget. The greater role is taken by the leader authorized, tasked and trusted to spend taxpayer funds wisely and efficiently.

Leadership is how that budget is managed. This of course includes choices to spend or not-spend that will have unavoidable consequences.

Mr. Rossi has never sat in that chair and therefore has never been required to choose when conflicts within a budget of that magnitude and importance arise.  

Mrs. Gregoire has sat in that chair.

Mr. Rossi has not made the case that she has done poorly.

Part II tomorrow.