Rob McKenna to officially launch gubernatorial campaign tomorrow in Bellevue

It’s been said that Wash­ing­ton State Attor­ney Gen­er­al Rob McKen­na’s guber­na­to­r­i­al ambi­tions are the biggest open secret in Wash­ing­ton pol­i­tics. Tomor­row, McKen­na is expect­ed to offi­cial­ly con­firm those ambi­tions (and more) when he for­mal­ly announces his 2012 cam­paign in Bellevue.

The King Coun­ty Repub­li­can Par­ty, act­ing as a proxy for McKen­na’s cam­paign, has rent­ed the per­form­ing arts cen­ter at Sam­mamish High School (where McKen­na spent his for­ma­tive years) for the announcement.

Actu­al invi­ta­tions are sup­posed to go out tomor­row, but word of the event has, not sur­pris­ing­ly, leaked out ahead of time.

McKen­na’s announce­ment tomor­row will put pres­sure on Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire to declare her inten­tions. Few in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty expect Gre­goire to seek a third term, and don’t believe that she could win in 2012 even if she want­ed one. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee is expect­ed to be U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jay Inslee, who has been wait­ing patient­ly in the wings for months as he con­tem­plates a run.

Mean­while, the race to suc­ceed McKen­na as Attor­ney Gen­er­al has already begun. In antic­i­pa­tion of McKenna;s guber­na­to­r­i­al bid, Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Bob Fer­gu­son declared sev­er­al months ago that he would seek the posi­tion. His col­league on the coun­cil, Repub­li­can Rea­gan Dunn, has also indi­cat­ed he might run. It may be that they will be pit­ted against each oth­er, which would be interesting.

McKen­na is viewed by many observers as the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s best chance to cap­ture the guber­na­to­r­i­al man­sion, which it has not con­trolled since the mid-1980s. McKen­na is far more lik­able than Dino Rossi, who unsuc­cess­ful­ly ran against Gre­goire twice. One Demo­c­ra­t­ic activist I’ve talked to recent­ly about the 2012 cam­paign called McKen­na “a per­fect­ed ver­sion of Dino Rossi.”

I rather expect, how­ev­er, that the state Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty will be spend­ing more time com­par­ing McKen­na to Wis­con­sin’s Scott Walk­er, and not Rossi.

Hav­ing been invit­ed by McKen­na’s staff on sev­er­al occa­sions to sit down with him at his offices, I can attest that he is a far nicer per­son than Dino Rossi, whose cam­paign infa­mous­ly put up cau­tion tape at a pub­lic park to keep away non-sup­port­ers. McKen­na is sim­ply not afraid to engage with peo­ple he does­n’t agree with. And that is a valu­able trait for a can­di­date to have. Espe­cial­ly a Repub­li­can run­ning in a state that usu­al­ly votes Demo­c­ra­t­ic in top-tick­et races.

McKen­na’s agen­da, on the oth­er hand, won’t be nice at all. If McKen­na’s legal maneu­ver­ing on the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act is any indi­ca­tion of what he real­ly wants to do, the Scott Walk­er com­par­isons won’t be off the mark.