Let’s remember the last time Dino Rossi won an election, on this day in 2000 (November 7)
In 2000, nineteen years ago, Barack Obama was a member of the Illinois Legislature and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was in grade school. For residents of Washington state, it should also be recognized as the last time perennial Republican candidate Dino Rossi last won an election. Rossi was first elected to the Washington Senate in 1996 and re-elected in 2000.
It’s not for a lack of effort, it’s just that people outside of the Washington Republican Party just really don’t like him. He came close to becoming governor in 2004, losing the nation’s closest-ever gubernatorial race by just 129 votes. But since then, he ran again for governor in 2008, Senator in 2010, and Congress in 2018. All unsuccessful races (and all had women candidates as victors: Christine Gregoire in 2004 and 2008, Patty Murray in 2010, and Kim Schrier in 2018). He also returned to the Senate in 2012 and 2016 to finish the terms of two Senators (one, Andy Hill, died in 2016).
The question one should ask is why the Washington GOP kept putting up the constant also-ran in so many races, but the bench is remarkably thin. Over that time, the GOP side of the legislature has been populated with kooks, morons, idiotic zealots, unhinged lunatics, and perverts.
But the GOP has kept him around for so long, indulging his sad quest for better things, because he serves an important function: he can’t win anything beyond the State Senate, but he doesn’t cause too much embarrassment for the party when he is inevitably forced to concede. He’s genuinely good at that, and we all have our roles to play in this system. Losing to Democrats honorably is his.
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