Christine Gregoire, Washington state's Kossack two-term governor, announced today that she will not seek a third term. The announcement had been expected for some time, given that her negatives in the state are high enough that if she did run, a Republican governor would be virtually guaranteed. The announcement today is widely expected to clear the way for her fellow Kossack, Congressman Jay Inslee of Washington's 1st Congressional District, to announce his candidacy for the state's highest office. Indeed, Governor Gregoire is encouraging him to do so.
Gov. Chris Gregoire said Monday that eight years in the state's highest office are enough.
'Today, I say I will not run for a third term as governor of this great state," she said at an Olympia news conference. "I need to set my sights on the next 18 months and make sure we're out of this recession."
Gregoire's announcement, which had been widely expected, clears the way for Rep. Jay Inslee, a fellow Democrat, to declare his candidacy. Last week Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna formally launched his 2012 gubernatorial bid.
Gregoire said she had spoken to Inslee about her plans.
"I called Jay, I said to him I'd done some soul searching...I said I hoped he would consider running for office," she said.
I know this is five paragraphs as the paper formatted it, not three, but three of those five are single short to average length sentences. I hope this is OK. -Kitsap River
Governor Gregoire has had a tough time in office. This recession makes governing well difficult, and the budget she proposed earlier this year, while it followed Washington law and gave K-12 education the highest priority, contained massive cuts to balance the budget, as required by law, that displeased virtually every segment in the state, educators included. The recession has hit every state hard, Washington included, and since the fat in the budget had already been trimmed away in the previous biennium, this budget cut to the bone for many services that Washington's government had previously provided. State parks now require a paid day pass or annual pass to visit, and this is going to keep people away from the parks. The 26th LD Democrats have decided not to hold our annual fundraising picnic in our local state park, for example, because we thought that having it in a place where every carload of people had to pay five additional dollars to attend a fundraiser was detrimental to our purpose of fundraising. Higher education is not protected under law as K-12 education is, and students at our state's universities and community colleges will be paying significantly higher tuition in the next year. There are fewer seats available in these institutions for Washington's students (whatever their ages) due to cuts to higher ed, as well, at a time when more Washingtonians than ever are seeking retraining to be able to pursue new career paths. Basic Health, the state's health insurance program for those who are low-income but do not qualify for Medicaid, is tossing thousands of people off its rolls, people who have no other way to obtain health insurance. That the state has been particularly hard-hit by the recession shows in the cuts and fee increases that were proposed and the ones that finally passed the House.
All that adds up to large negatives in the state for Governor Gregoire. The gubernatorial race is widely considered Mr. Inslee's to lose, and I hope he does run. He'd be an excellent governor; he has experience in working with a group of legislators with widely differing views, thanks to his six terms in Congress, and he's one of the most progressive candidates with a significant chance to win to come along for the highest office in the state in years. And the alternative, Rob McKenna, who has been courting the tea partiers for several years now, is unthinkable. It was Attorney General McKenna who dragged this blue state, against the wishes of Governor Gregoire, into the suit brought by a number of states' attorneys general against the Affordable Care Act. Were he to be placed into office by Washington's voters, he'd lengthen the recession, cut taxes on the state's multimillionaires and billionaires, and destroy our beautiful environmental treasures.
Please join me in encouraging our fellow Kossack, Congressman Jay Inslee, to run for governor here in Washington state. The state needs him, and he'd do a great job. He's demonstrated to us time after time that he is in alignment with the values most of us here at Daily Kos hold dear, and he's the best chance the Democrats have to retain this important governorship.