Thanks, but no thanks: Dave Reichert takes a pass on challenging Jay Inslee for Governor

Dave Reichert is out. Again.

The for­mer King Coun­ty Sher­iff and Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive declared today that he will not be a can­di­date for Gov­er­nor of the State of Wash­ing­ton in 2020, say­ing that he enjoys his cur­rent work and deeply val­ues his time with his family.

Reichert’s state­ment appears to be a refresh­ing­ly sin­cere and can­did state­ment of his pri­or­i­ties. I think he’s find­ing retire­ment to be very pleas­ant, and, at Gor­don Thomas Hon­ey­well, he is work­ing on a noble issue he cares a lot about.

Why walk away from that? There’s just no upside.

Here’s Reichert’s full statement.

I am hon­ored and hum­bled to have recent­ly been asked to con­sid­er run­ning for Gov­er­nor in 2020. After much thought­ful prayer and dis­cus­sion with fam­i­ly and friends, I have decid­ed not to run.

I am enjoy­ing my cur­rent role at Gor­don Thomas Hon­ey­well Gov­ern­men­tal Affairs help­ing Cen­tral Amer­i­can coun­tries cre­ate miss­ing per­son data­bas­es (through DNA) that will help to iden­ti­fy miss­ing per­sons and pre­vent chil­dren from being abduct­ed in the dead­ly world of human traf­fick­ing. I am eager to con­tin­ue that work and save lives. My wife, kids and grand­kids have made great sac­ri­fices over my near­ly five decades of pub­lic ser­vant­hood and we are now able to enjoy much qual­i­ty time with each other.

I’m con­fi­dent a qual­i­ty Repub­li­can can­di­date will enter the race and I look for­ward to the first Repub­li­can serv­ing as Gov­er­nor of this great state since Gov­er­nor John Spell­man in 1985.

Notice that Reichert did not offer an endorse­ment of any of the Repub­li­cans cur­rent­ly run­ning for gov­er­nor. It would seem he’s hold­ing out for a more cred­i­ble can­di­date. So is State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Caleb Heim­lich, the per­son respon­si­ble for float­ing the Reichert for Gov­er­nor tri­al bal­loon a few days ago.

Heim­lich had thought Reichert might be his man.

But now that Reichert has tak­en a pass, it’s back to the short­list, which I imag­ine is a very short list con­sid­er­ing how thin the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s bench is.

Reichert pre­vi­ous­ly opt­ed against run­ning for Gov­er­nor in 2015, so this is actu­al­ly the sec­ond time he’s decid­ed not to take on incum­bent Jay Inslee.