Democrats go hard after Rossi on flood words

The state Democratic Party continues its assault on Dino Rossi with a call for him to apologize for what they say is making a political issue of the Lewis County flood relief action done by Gov. Gregoire. The news release titled, "Memo to Rossi: Tragedy Not a Prime Campaign Issue," takes its cue from a piece David Postman wrote today describing the differences between Rossi's feelings on state flood relief plans and the words of other state Republicans, particularly Minority Leader Richard DeBolt (R-Chehalis), who said "the governor's office was great to work with" in the article.

"Republican Dino Rossi continues his relentlessly negative, no-new-ideas campaign for governor, and has now sunk to a new low - crass exploitation of one of the worst natural disasters in Washington state history," said Democratic Party spokesman Kelly Steele in the release.. "While local Republicans have overwhelmingly praised the bipartisan cooperation between grown-up public servants in response to true human tragedy, Rossi has proven he'll say or do anything in pursuit of his personal political agenda."

The state Democratic Party also released a video to highlight their point, seen here. The video begins with slow, sad piano music while images of flood victims fill the screen. Around fifteen seconds in the scene switches to footage of Republican leaders advising against using the events for political gains. Halfway through the piano music stops, and recordings of Rossi speaking agains Gregoire's plans and highlights portions of stories about his statements from Centralia newspapers while ominous music plays in the background. The video concludes with the words, "tell Rossi to stop playing politics with tragedy, tell Rossi to apologize" on the screen and gives the phone number of his campaign.