Dwight Pelz

On the day that Republican presidential candidate John McCain comes to Washington for the first time since becoming the GOP's presumptive nominee, the state Democratic Party is doing its best to run interference on his visit. Today they released a video highlighting Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi's reference to McCain as "my guy" in an Aberdeen Daily World article earlier this year along with the Air Force tanker contract that McCain helped guide to a foreign competitor of Boeing.

"Republican Dino Rossi has demonstrated that his partisan GOP allies in Washington DC are more important than standing up for thousands of jobs here in Washington state," said Washington State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz in a statement. "While Gov. Gregoire has sharply criticized the contract that shipped our jobs overseas and supported an appeal of the decision, Rossi stands by his man - further evidence that Washingtonians simply can't trust Rossi with our future."

Washington's superdelegate count stands at five for Obama, five for Clinton and seven undecided. State Republican deciders may know something the Democrats don't know, since they've been campaigning against Obama, without a single mention on Clinton in recent letters. The Republican decidee is coming to town, and you can meet him for dinner for only $33,100.

One of Washington's undecided slate of Democratic National Committee superdelegates, David McDonald, spoke to the press about his status today, but only to announce that he would not be throwing his superdelegate weight around until after the May 31 meeting of the DNC rules committee. That meeting will decide how to seat the delegations from Florida and Michigan who were penalized for moving their primaries earlier than DNC rules allowed.

McDonald is on the DNC's rules and bylaws committee that initially voted to strip Florida's and Michigan's delegates as a punishment. It was a move that McDonald supported. He told The Olympian today that he hoped to reserve the appearance of impartiality prior to that meeting.

In response to the news that some Legislative Districts have decided not to hold candidate nominating sessions as state Democratic Party rules stipulate by the vote of Precinct Committee Officers (PCOs), first reported here at PolitickerWA.com, State Party Chair Dwight Pelz has urged party leaders not to waver any further. The Times' Postman has details.

Pelz wrote an e-mail over the weekend to party leaders reminding them of the tough hand they were dealt by the Supreme Court decision upholding the "Top Two" primary, and urged them to follow the lead of some of the LDs and counties who have made nomination endorsements already.

As Legislative Districts around the state move to nominate candidates for local offices before their party conventions, many are running into a fresh problem. With the recent decision by the United States Supreme Court to uphold Initiative 872, better known as the "Top Two" Primary, the party nomination process has been turned on its ear, leading some local LDs to openly buck state party rules.

No longer is it up to party voters to decide who their candidate is in races like those for State Representative since the "Top Two" primary ballots do not allow for partisan sections and labels. Still, that ruling does not mean the Parties will just sit idly by and allow their candidates to be chosen for them.

Instead, they have been forced to come up with new nomination processes. Now, at least in the Democratic Party, is up to a small cadre of party activists at the LD level made of up Precinct Committee Officers (PCOs) who have been both elected and appointed to those pots.

But not all party officials have come on board. In the last week and a half, two Legislative Districts' Executive Boards have voted to eschew the party rules and are choosing not to officially nominate any candidates at the State Representative level.

U.S. Sen. John McCain: Photo by Getty ImagesPresidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, is expected to come to Seattle in two weeks for a global warming event in what will be his first visit to the state since the Feb. 9 caucuses when he visited the Seattle Westin on a routine campaign stop.

The Democrats are already baring their teeth in advance of his visit, having sent out a press release this week highlighting what they say is his prominent role in Boeing's recent loss of a multi-billion dollar Air Force contract. State Chair Dwight Pelz even warned McCain not to come around here after that sour deal.

It turns out that the Democrats may have their hands full with candidate McCain this summer. The McCain campaign has recently said that they plan to seriously pursue Western states this election, notably the three West Coast states of California, Oregon and Washington.

Coming just days after the Indiana Democratic Senator and prominent Hillary Clinton supporter Evan Bayh advised his Hoosier State colleagues not to endorse any candidates despite his own actions, Washington state Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz is tacking a similar maneuver.

Yesterday the Times' David Postman mentioned a quote from Pelz in the NY Daily News where Pelz said, "It's time for us to end this. The candidates are tearing each other apart, and it's not good for the party. I think we need to have a candidate."

State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz reacts to Sam Reed's release on the "Top Two" primary ballot by, of all things, sticking up for other parties.

Here is the statement, via Cornfield.  read more »

SEATTLE -

At the beginning of the today's campaign stop, when state Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz spoke to the assembled crowd of about two hundred here at South Seattle Community College, chants of "Four more years" competed against "Save our Sonics".  read more »

Coming hours after Republican gubernatorial candidate sent out a press release knocking Chris Gregoire's tenure as Governor, the state Democratic Party has issued one of its own panning Dino Rossi for having what they call a "relentlessly negative, no-new-ideas campaign."