Governor's race over, but the fighting isn't

OLYMPIA — When Tom McCabe filed his first lawsuit against Christine Gregoire, he was running the homebuilders association from a tiny office with one assistant.

Fifteen years later he carries on the fight against Gregoire from an elegantly restored mansion that is headquarters to the Building Industry Association of Washington and its 30 employees.

In recent days McCabe, executive vice president of the BIAW, has assigned the entire staff to stop Gregoire from getting her own mansion.

Today she will, as she's sworn in as governor and can move into the official residence.

McCabe's crusade will continue. With the tough-guy tactics that allowed him to build the power and finances of the BIAW, McCabe has temporarily turned his operation into a corps of private investigators. He's looking for wrongdoing that could help Republican Dino Rossi's court fight to have the election thrown out.

He's looking for felons who voted — in itself a crime in Washington.

In Pierce County he found a list of 48 suspects by matching names and addresses. Further review of those by The Seattle Times found 19 possible felon voters and confirmed two of the cases. The other 29 didn't match in other ways, such as birth date. Out of 64 Snohomish County cases found by McCabe and provided to The Times yesterday, an analysis found 13 didn't match.

McCabe hired a handwriting expert to look at ballot signatures. He is spending money for radio commercials and full-page newspaper ads calling for a revote.

He said he couldn't say what he has spent since the election without first checking with the association's board. It is not reportable, he says, as a campaign expense.

The BIAW spent about $750,000 on the governor's race before the election and has "a lot invested in this," McCabe said.

He thinks Rossi would be good for builders. But never far from any conversation about the governor's race is his antipathy for Gregoire. That has made him a major force in the effort to get a new election.

"There are a number of organizations that have been helpful, but as far as the money and staff resources spent, I don't think there is one that has been more active than BIAW," said Afton Swift, Rossi's campaign manager.

McCabe said he began collecting information for a possible legal challenge in mid-November, when Rossi was the apparent winner and many people didn't think it necessary to begin an investigation. When Gregoire won the second recount, he said, some insiders wanted Rossi to give up to maintain viability for a 2006 run for the U.S. Senate.

McCabe said he has heard that some Rossi advisers think the BIAW's probe and public-relations campaign could backfire.

"If any of them are man enough to call me, I'll ask, 'How am I hurting him by finding illegal voters?' " McCabe said. "I think we're providing a service that no one else was providing."

What drives McCabe?

"Her philosophy is completely and directly opposed to what we stand for," McCabe said of Gregoire.

McCabe, 47, is a burly man with strong blue-collar roots. He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., his father a toy-factory worker and his mother an elementary-school teacher. He recently gave his brother one of his kidneys.

He doesn't much like government or big business.

McCabe's philosophy is rooted in a lifetime dedicated to the GOP and an allegiance to conservative icons, particularly Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

A free-market philosophy serves homebuilders best, he says.

"The people I work for are constantly beset by government, by regulations, taxes, rules," he said. "I won't say they are anti-government, but most of their dealings with government are negative."

Gregoire spent about four years directing the Department of Ecology and 12 as attorney general representing other state agencies. In that time, McCabe estimates, he sued the state dozens of times.

"When she has been forced to choose between government and citizens who are being harassed by government, and maligned by government and taxed by government, she chooses government," he said. "It's that simple."

There is a personal element. Gregoire's deputies advised the Public Disclosure Commission in a 1997 campaign-spending investigation of the BIAW, which ended with most of the allegations being dismissed and a judge saying the state illegally withheld documents from the BIAW.

"This was a malicious attempt to basically run me out of town and kill me, from a professional standpoint," McCabe said.

Gregoire says she's never met McCabe, wouldn't know him if he walked into her office and "doesn't have any personal feelings about the man," said Gregoire spokesman Kim Contris.

"She feels that he's been angry at some of the clients she's had to represent as attorney general and maybe blamed her for representing her people," Contris said.

Democrats do not much like the BIAW.

"They're the biggest bullies in the state Capitol," said Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, who is communications director for the Washington State Labor Council.

"You can't run a government, you can't legislate, when you are bullied," she said.

McCabe, says friend and former co-worker Carolyn Logue, is a candid political player, unafraid to offend even potential allies.

"If you're on his good side you can count on him until his last breath," said Logue, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. "But he holds that same zeal and commitment if he feels that you're wrong."

Seattle Times reporters Cheryl Phillips and Justin Mayo contributed to this report.