Gregoire takes reins with aggressive start

[merwin]

Gregoire takes reins with aggressive start
Election vote dispute lends political subtext to transition
By CHRIS McGANN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT

OLYMPIA -- As long as the Republicans' election challenge is in play, many in Olympia view Christine Gregoire as the governor with an asterisk.

She's been busy building an administration, preparing a budget and proposing legislation, as any new governor would be. But in Gregoire's case, the moves come with an additional political subtext.

With each passing day, Gregoire becomes further entrenched in the office she won by a 129-vote margin, and Republican Dino Rossi extends his wait to find out whether the courts will help him unseat her.

The conventional wisdom is that the former makes it more difficult to imagine the latter.

"It is very hard to remove a sitting governor, and the standard is rightly very high for doing so," said Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the Washington State Democratic Party.

...

[fob]

1. "It is very hard to remove a sitting governor" - Washington must not

have a recall law like Cali, because it only took a couple million to steal the Gov's seat here.

Good on ya, Gov Gregoire!

[merwin]

2. It's more difficult in WA to do that. The law on a recall is vague on

a couple points. It says that you have to prove that enough illegal/bad votes were cast to change the outcome of the election. But it doesn't say whether or not you have to PROVE who those people voted for, or just that there were more bad votes than the margin of difference.

In either case, Gregoire is doing EXACTLY the right thing by appointing people and getting directly down to business, asserting herself as the Governor.

[Walt Starr]

4. An analogy of the difference in the recall laws would be as follows

In California, the recall law is like being at a restaurant, tasting your food, and sending it back for being undercooked.

In Washington, the recall law is like being at a restaurant, eating everythin set in front of you, and trying to send it back because it was overcooked.

[Larkspur]

3. She's using the same strategy Bush did in 2000 after "winning" the

electoral vote. Good for her!

[MasonJar]

5. If Washington has a new election then Ohio, New Mexico, Florida

and many others must also. Enough Republican garbage is enough. Whatever happened in the California mayoral race, which legitimately should have gone to the write-in democrat?