Senate candidate Dino Rossi needs to address difficult GOP positions

DINO Rossi's entrance into the race against Sen. Patty Murray sets the stage for a real debate about government. He can be a credible challenger, but only if he addresses some issues that may not be welcome to all Republicans.

This is the year Republicans are standing against excessive federal spending and debt, assuring voters that this time, really and for sure, they mean it. With his record in the state Senate, Rossi offers more believability on this score than any Republican in the race. In 2003, working with Democratic Gov. Gary Locke, Rossi was responsible for the most fiscally responsible state budget in the last decade.

Murray is vulnerable on this score. But then, she is the sort of senator who with a phone call increased by tenfold stimulus grants for Washington State Ferries. A Sen. Rossi would initially have less power to bring home the bacon, and if he is going to run against debt and deficits, he will have to swear off doing it, much of the time. He has to acknowledge this.

One of the largest causes of debt and deficits is war. Rossi must not go along in the way of the Bush administration, supporting endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or any other wars Beltway alarmists think up. To support endless war means not to care about deficits and debt, or about the living standards of Americans.

Republican voters are beginning to get this. Note that Dick Cheney endorsed a Republican senatorial candidate in Kentucky of the usual support-the-war flavor, and he lost. The winner was a skeptic on foreign intervention.

Rossi should call for American troops to leave Iraq and Afghanistan. It won't do to promise an exit when those countries get their security right, or democracy right. Those are excuses for endless war.

Another matter: For a long time now, Republican identification with business has meant not enforcing antitrust laws, not caring about media consolidation and not watching Wall Street. As a businessman, Rossi should support a pro-business policy that is not loaded down with favors for giants — a policy that returns economic power and jobs to Main Street, and to the state of Washington.