As reporters and activists have long expect­ed, Jay Inslee has decid­ed to run for gov­er­nor of our great state of Wash­ing­ton in 2012.

Inslee’s cam­paign issued a media advi­so­ry an hour ago invit­ing reporters to next week’s series of kick­off events, which will begin in Seattle.

Refresh­ing­ly, the release was very straight­for­ward. It did­n’t say, Jay Inslee to Make Spe­cial Announce­ment, or Jay Inslee to Dis­cuss Plans for 2012. It sim­ply said, Jay Inslee to Announce Run for Gov­er­nor.

The first kick­off event will take place Mon­day in Seat­tle’s South Lake Union neigh­bor­hood at 9 AM. It will be fol­lowed by an event in the Yaki­ma Val­ley (where Jay was first elect­ed to office) the same day. On Tues­day, Inslee will stop in addi­tion­al cities (Taco­ma, Van­cou­ver, and Spokane) to meet with supporters.

Inslee’s offi­cial entry into the race cre­ates a matchup with Repub­li­can Rob McKen­na that promis­es to be one of the fiercest con­tests for gov­er­nor Wash­ing­ton has ever seen. Inslee and McKen­na are wide­ly expect­ed to secure the nom­i­na­tions of their respec­tive par­ties pri­or to the win­now­ing elec­tion in August 2012, where they are very like­ly to be the two can­di­dates that advance to the runoff in Novem­ber 2012.

(I say runoff because the “Top Two” sys­tem the Grange and Sam Reed brought us in 2004 with Ini­tia­tive 872 is not a pri­ma­ry. In a real pri­ma­ry — whether open or closed — vot­ers iden­ti­fy­ing with a polit­i­cal par­ty get to do the nom­i­nat­ing for their par­ty’s candidates).

The advi­so­ry released by Inslee’s cam­paign notes that he will be unavail­able for inter­views or for com­ment until Mon­day. That makes sense, since oth­er­wise the offi­cial kick­off would be pre­empt­ed. A cam­paign has to be in con­trol of its own mes­sage, and it looks like Jay’s is.

We look for­ward to Jay out­lin­ing his future for Wash­ing­ton on Monday.

POSTSCRIPT: JayInslee.com has just been relaunched, and the ban­ner fea­tures the tagline, Build­ing a Work­ing Wash­ing­ton. That sounds like it just might be the cam­paign theme. If so, I’d say it’s a good choice.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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