Dave Reichert takes a pass on challenging Jay Inslee for governor in 2016

Today in anti­cli­mac­tic announce­ments, Dave Reichert declared that he he will be seek­ing reelec­tion to Con­gress in 2016, and not run­ning for governor.

Like so many of you, I have been extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed in the deci­sions com­ing out of the Governor’s Office — regard­ing our schools, the health of our chil­dren, and most recent­ly a deci­sion to give the Green Riv­er ser­i­al killer a chance to enjoy life in a nicer prison. We deserve better.

Yet, I believe I can bet­ter serve you now, today, in anoth­er Wash­ing­ton where politi­cians are more inter­est­ed in fight­ing each oth­er than fight­ing for Amer­i­ca; where lead­er­ship has been in retreat, and courage has been on recess.

This is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant at a time when we con­front an uncer­tain future, where chal­lenges mul­ti­ply by the day, but the resolve to address them seems missing.

Take a moment to appre­ci­ate the irony of this statement.

Dave Reichert is a ten-year incum­bent who belongs to one of the most inef­fec­tive, use­less Repub­li­can-dom­i­nat­ed Con­gress­es in his­to­ry. His own cau­cus can’t even decide who to pick as the next Speak­er of the House. And yet here he is, talk­ing about how lead­er­ship has been in retreat and courage has been on recess.

But Reichert has decid­ed he would rather return to the zoo that is the Repub­li­can-con­trolled U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, rather than face Jay Inslee in 2016. That says a lot about the Repub­li­can Par­ty here in Wash­ing­ton State.

Every sup­posed guber­na­to­r­i­al hope­ful who Repub­li­cans have talked about has opt­ed not to run. Steve Lit­zow and Andy Hill took them­selves out of the pic­ture last month. And now, after hint­ing repeat­ed­ly that he was think­ing about run­ning, Reichert has decid­ed against a guber­na­to­r­i­al cam­paign as well.

Hilar­i­ous­ly, though, he told KIRO 7 today, “I would love to be Gov­er­nor one day. I would love to be Sen­a­tor one day.”

Sure. In your dreams, Dave! It will be inter­est­ing to see how Repub­li­can oper­a­tives like Kei­th Schip­per spin this lat­est recruit­ing failure.

With Reichert, Hill, and Lit­zow out, they’re left with Port Com­mis­sion­er Bill Bryant, Inslee’s only declared Repub­li­can challenger.

Bryant — who was endorsed last month by for­mer Gov­er­nor Dan Evans and for­mer Sen­a­tor Slade Gor­ton — put out a state­ment wel­com­ing the news.

“Today, Con­gress­man Dave Reichert announced his deci­sion to con­tin­ue serv­ing in the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives,” Bryant said.

“I am sure you join me in thank­ing Dave for his com­mit­ment to pub­lic ser­vice. I look for­ward to work­ing along­side him on issues con­fronting our state.

“My cam­paign for gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State now moves into a new phase; a phase focused on the chal­lenges con­fronting our kids, teach­ers & class­rooms, on the chal­lenges con­fronting com­mu­ni­ties across Wash­ing­ton that need fam­i­ly wage jobs, and on the chal­lenges fac­ing the Puget Sound and the salmon runs that are part of our his­to­ry, cul­ture and economy.”

Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Jax­on Ravens had a very dif­fer­ent take.

“Dave Reichert under­stood he was going to face an uphill climb hav­ing to defend his record to Wash­ing­ton vot­ers — a decade of feal­ty to Repub­li­can lead­er­ship in D.C. tak­ing vote after vote against Wash­ing­ton state val­ues,” said Ravens.

“Now the Repub­li­cans are left with lit­tle-known Bill Bryant, after every oth­er Repub­li­can approached to run turned down the offer.”

“Bryant has run a list­less cam­paign that has gained no trac­tion and has burned through mon­ey. This lat­est recruit­ing fail­ure must have heads hung pret­ty low at Repub­li­can head­quar­ters right now.”

Ravens not­ed that the Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors Asso­ci­a­tion had tried to entice Reichert into the race last month, to no avail.

Polling from ear­li­er this year showed Inslee with a com­fort­able lead over both Reichert and Bryant, as well as Hill. Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling found that Reichert did not fare any bet­ter than Bryant in a hypo­thet­i­cal 2016 matchup. That may have con­tributed to Reichert’s deci­sion not to run.

While Reichert may have a desire to be gov­er­nor, he knows build­ing a cred­i­ble statewide cam­paign would take a lot of hard work… and hard work isn’t Reichert’s strong suit. It’s under­stand­able that he would rather keep hold of his cur­rent posi­tion instead of run­ning a los­ing cam­paign for gov­er­nor. So he’s defer­ring to Bryant, who must still con­vince his own par­ty that he is wor­thy of being their stan­dard bear­er, despite hav­ing been in the race for months.