RGA

ELLENSBURG - Dino Rossi (R-Sammamish) is feeling good about the impression he has made in the four gubernatorial debates so far.

"In Spokane I did quite well," he told PolitickerWA.com after a Saturday rally about the Friday debate he had with Gov. Chris Gregoire. "We got a lot of terrific feedback from people. I think even in the online polls of the tv station, people thought we won that debate."

He said his main goal in these debates was to convey to the public what he was all about, but felt that he had been doing so in a hostile environment next to Gregoire.

"For the most part I got yelled at for an hour by my opponent and I just talked to the voters of the state of Washington," he said. "She seems to be very angry all the time."

The Democratic Governors Association, a Washington, DC-based organization dedicated to supporting Democratic incumbent governors and challengers, is one of the main groups behind today’s launch of an independent group attacking Washington State Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi.

The group Evergreen Progress says on its website that the DGA is among its top five contributors. A spokesman for the DGA confirmed that it had given Evergreen Progress $250,000.

As PolitickerWA.com’s Bryan Bissell reports, the three hard-hitting television advertisements Evergreen Progress have begun airing, focusing on Rossi’s record on children's health care, prescription drugs and a patient's bill of rights. Rossi, a former state Senator, is challenging Democratic incumbent Christine Gregoire after a narrow loss in 2004.

California’s next gubernatorial election is more than 31 months away, but a national Democratic organization already sees the now-Republican seat as a prime target in 2010.

“California is certainly one to look at,” said Nathan Daschle, the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, an independent, Washington-based organization devoted to supporting Democratic gubernatorial incumbents and nominees across the country. “That’s a seat I can see going our way.”