Rossi happy with debate performance, criticizes 'angry' performance by Gregoire

ELLENSBURG - Dino Rossi (R-Sammamish) is feeling good about the impression he has made in the four gubernatorial debates so far.

"In Spokane I did quite well," he told PolitickerWA.com after a Saturday rally about the Friday debate he had with Gov. Chris Gregoire. "We got a lot of terrific feedback from people. I think even in the online polls of the tv station, people thought we won that debate."

He said his main goal in these debates was to convey to the public what he was all about, but felt that he had been doing so in a hostile environment next to Gregoire.

"For the most part I got yelled at for an hour by my opponent and I just talked to the voters of the state of Washington," he said. "She seems to be very angry all the time."

The next and final gubernatorial debate will occur on Rossi's birthday, October 15. He wouldn't predict what the tone of the debate would be, but insinuated it would continue to be on the same issues he has been pressing all year.

"The campaign she has been running has been very bitter, angry and combative and I don't know anybody who can say anything otherwise," Rossi claimed. "She's not really interested in talking about the deficit she created, or the 16,000 kids a year who are dropping out of school or the felons she released, or the 1300 sex offenders who are allowed to register as homeless. She won't talk about those issues that she actually has any control over, or taxation. She would rather talk about issues she has no control over, stem cell or whatever."

Similarly on the topic of nasty campaigning, many of Gregoire's supporters have recently denounced a direct mail piece sent out by the Republican Governors Association on Rossi's behalf showing disturbing photographs of sex offenders in an attempt to link them to the governor.

Rossi said that, being on the road lately, he has not seen the RGA mailer.