One thing that's good about real estate speculator Dino Rossi's third try at a statewide seat in Washington is how much fun new media and the alternative press has with him. The hapless Republican really is ripe for some good stories. The folks at The Stranger must have been working on this one for weeks, fingers crossed that they'd be able to run it.
(Click the image to see it full size at The Stranger.)
Among the highlights:
While his political career has been marked mostly by failure, Rossi's career as a real-estate investor and salesman has been considerable more successful (and lucrative). Problem is, Rossi got his start in real estate with a man named Melvin G. Heide, who ended up under investigation by the FBI and the King County Prosecutor's Office shortly after he hired Rossi. Heide ultimately pleaded guilty to fraud and making false statements related to real-estate deals gone bad, and then spent three years in the federal pen. As for Rossi, instead of getting out from under Heide's wing as the allegations surfaced, he stayed with his troubled mentor, following Heide from firm to firm. In September of 2004, Rossi told the Seattle Times that he hadn't realized what was going on because "I didn't take a newspaper at the time."
The night before he announced he was running for U.S. Senate, Rossi made a paid appearance at a Bellevue seminar designed to, among other things, teach investors how to profit off of foreclosures. Not illegal, not unheard of (someone has to buy foreclosed property), but definitely politically tone-deaf. At the seminar, wearing a gold tie over a crisp white shirt, Rossi told attendees: "Now is the time to buy--especially investment property." The next morning, he released a YouTube video announcing his candidacy--and in that video, he bemoaned the fact that "housing values have plummeted" and that America is "on the edge of a fiscal cliff." Well, which is it? Bad times for Americans with worthless homes? Or good times for people like Rossi, who know how to make a profit from the financial nightmare of others? Real-estate types who wring their dollars out of the common man's misfortune are not so popular these days.
And this, most precious of all:
But look at this smile! Despite all his baggage, here is what Rossi told a group of Republicans in 2007 about his winning grin: "I've found you can do pretty much anything you want if you do it with a smile on your face. It's amazing what you can get a way with if you do it with a smile."
That's Rossi, smiling all the way to the bank with the profits from speculating on all those foreclosed properties.