Lowered expectations

As we saw during the Presidential primary season, as politicians get closer to an election or a fundraising deadline, they like to play the expectations game. Sometimes, a strong candidate can use the expectations game to keep the bar low while surpassing it with ease and surprising the competition. We saw that with Barack Obama's fundraising early on in the primaries. In later primaries, both Obama and Hillary Clinton lowered expectations in states where one or the other expected that their competitor would win.

But more frequently, candidates lower expectations when they fear that they're not going to live up to the hype their campaign is trying to generate. This way, when the candidate gets the disappointing result that they are expecting, they can express some satisfaction that they're "right where they're supposed to be." Or as Joe Lieberman claimed in a moment of delusion when he finished a distant fifth in Iowa in 2004, "we are in a 3-way split decision for third place."

Enter Dino Rossi, he of the G.O.P. Party (that's Graveyard of Progress), who is now blaming polls, past election data, and unions for what he expects to be a less than stellar showing on August 19.

It turns out the Moore Information poll Rossi commissioned last month that showed the two rivals tied at 45 percent also showed that Gregoire enjoyed a 51 percent to 42 percent lead among voters who have voted in the last four elections.

And with turnout in the primary predicted to be just 46 percent — Rossi believes it could be lower — those voters will have a greater effect on the outcome of the primary.

The campaign also cites past elections data suggesting Republicans have a tendency to poll poorly in the primary. Secretary of State Sam Reed suggested that last week, though he couldn’t point to data that would support that.

Rossi’s campaign also argues Gregoire’s TV advertising and union organizing will boost the governor’s numbers.

But the blame doesn't stop there. Rossi has a new ad out that blames Governor Gregoire for raising the state's gas tax and talks about "the Olympia blame game". What Dino fails to tell the public, is that he voted in 2003 to raise the gas tax when he voted yes on Substitute House Bill 2231 not once but twice (click on the View Roll Calls link for Senate votes). SHB 2231, which was signed into law by Governor Locke, clearly states in Section 401, Subsection 2:

Beginning July 1, 2003, an additional and cumulative motor fuel tax rate of five cents per gallon applies to the sale, distribution, or use of motor vehicle fuel. This subsection (2) expires when the bonds issued for transportation 2003 projects are retired. [emphasis mine]

Dino Rossi obviously is intimately familiar with "the Olympia blame game," scapegoating anyone and everyone, including amateur cameramen who attend public press conferences. In the end though, regardless of his own lowered expectations, we're seeing the Dino Rossi we've come to expect. Dino Rossi will say anything to get elected.