Gov. race heats up as both sides trade attacks on fundraising 'loopholes'

On the heels of Gov. Chris Gregoire's announcement last week that she would refrain from raising money until she had completed bill signing, the Washington State Democratic Party has unleashed its own attack on Republican Dino Rossi's fundraising. The latest round in an increasingly heated gubernatorial campaign was spurred on by a release from Dino Rossi's campaign in late February calling on Gregoire to freeze her fundraising that said the following:

"Even if a loophole allows this to legally take place, Gov. Gregoire should make a personal decision to uphold the integrity of our state government's lawmaking system."

The Democrats stated that they had planned on refraining from accepting campaign contributions all along. They hit back in Tuesday's press release by calling Rossi a hypocrite for taking advantage of a loophole to refrain from releasing some donors from his Forward Washington Foundation, which they called a "sham" group.

"This is particularly ironic and hypocritical, because even though a loophole allowed it to legally take place, Rossi has repeatedly refused to make public the finances and identity of high-dollar donors to his sham non-profit, Forward Washington Foundation, which was nothing more than an unregulated front group for his 2008 gubernatorial bid.

Today, Washington State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz renewed his call for Rossi to honor the spirit of the law by finally coming clean and opening the books from his campaign front group - a call also made by the editorial board of The Seattle Times and even the PDC commissioners that voted to acquit Rossi, who suggested they were powerless to regulate Rossi's activities due to a "loophole" in the law.

Democratic chair Dwight Pelz continued on with an attack on Rossi comparing him to President Bush.

"Republican Dino Rossi's lectures are akin to his draft-dodging friend George W. Bush questioning the patriotism of war hero John Kerry," said Washington State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz.

The release was harshly worded, including a subheading that said, "Rossi drove a truck full of money through campaign finance loophole." It also included the testimony of members of the PDC Committee that acquitted Rossi of any wrongdoing with regard to his Forward Washington disclosure, but who nevertheless cast doubts on the intent of the actions.

The Rossi campaign returned fire at Gregoire in an e-mail to The Politicker. Rossi Press Secretary Jill Strait referred a strategy of smear by the Democrats, and reiterated Rossi's lawful actions.

"Clearly Christine Gregoire's agents are just upset that their smear campaign against Rossi didn't work. After a long and extensive investigation by the PDC, all the baseless charges against Dino Rossi were dropped. From the very beginning, Rossi and the Foundation bent over backwards to make sure they fully complied with the law and followed all instructions given by the PDC."

Meanwhile, the fund race goes on alongside the war of words. The Rossi camp has just released its February numbers through the PDC, and brought in a total of $659,610 for the month. The figure gives them more than $2.8 million for the campaign and $2,001,032 cash on hand.

In accordance with the law banning contributions during the legislative session and the agreement to continue the freeze during bill signing, the Gregoire campaign has not reported any contributions since December 14, 2007. She has raised more than four and a half million so far, with around three million on hand.