For instance, one party attorney said Republicans' list of alleged illegal voters would end up as toilet paper "in an outhouse on Blewett Pass" on the mountain highway route that leads to the Chelan County courthouse, where the case will be heard.

But the state Democratic Party's new fund-raising solicitation has a much more alarming tone.

"This is no joke! Don't stop reading until you've finished this letter," pleads the two-page mailing, sent to Democrats this week by state party Chairman Paul Berendt.

Fear is a tried-and-true motivator in political fund raising. And Berendt spun a scary tale of Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff and top political adviser, calling the shots in Republican Dino Rossi's case against the election of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire.

State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt

Berendt warned of "guerrilla tactics" by "right-wing attorneys" and "extremist operatives." He said they are "meticulously crafting a case to unseat Christine Gregoire."

To fight back, Berendt said, Democrats must renew their membership in the party.

"I am not an alarmist," Berendt wrote in the letter.

"This is not Chicken Little crying: 'The sky is falling.' "

"Renew your membership today at the most generous level you can afford and help me stop Rove's mignons [sic] in their tracks."

In an interview yesterday, Berendt described the letter as "more hard-hitting" than the party's regular fund-raising appeals.

"But we believe this, too," he said. "We believe that Rove is in regular contact with people here."

The election lawsuit was filed in January by Rossi and Republican supporters who allege that the election was flawed and should be thrown out.

Mary Lane, a spokeswoman for Rossi, said people in the White House are kept up to date about the case. "They're interested in what's going on. ... We talk to them about it," she said. "There's certainly no Karl Rove pulling strings."

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said no one in the Bush administration is involved in the lawsuit.

"As reluctant as I am to comment on an inflammatory fund-raising piece, those are just not the facts," he said.

"The White House is not directing any sort of strategy for the Rossi campaign and to suggest otherwise is to suggest someone is not very well informed."

Rossi's lead attorney is Mark Braden, a D.C. attorney who spent 10 years as chief counsel to the Republican National Committee.

That, Berendt said, shows the Republican case relies on outside direction while Democrats use local attorneys.

In his letter, Berendt summarized an article in the November issue of The Atlantic Monthly that detailed a 1994 Alabama state Supreme Court election Rove was involved in.

Rove's client lost by 304 votes and he launched an aggressive effort for a recount and a public-relations strategy "to drive home the idea that the election was being stolen," according to the magazine article.

There are parallels to the current dispute here over the governor's election. In both cases, Republicans held a news conference with the parents of a military voter to question whether overseas ballots were handled properly. Republicans in both states filed a lawsuit that named a long list of public officials as respondents. Both held rallies; business groups financed media campaigns.

In Alabama, the Republican candidate eventually won.

All that was fodder for Berendt's plea.

"Sound familiar?" he wrote. "Well it should, because that's exactly what they are doing in our state, and I have to tell you, the result in Alabama was a loss in the State Supreme Court in October of the year following the election!"

Berendt alleges in his letter that Rove's reach — on behalf of Bush — goes even further than the governor's election dispute. He says Rove is behind failed attempts to recall Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed and Democratic King County Councilman Dow Constantine.

"We know what they're doing," Berendt wrote, "and we're going to tell the world that it's the Bush team, with the Bush tactics, and Karl Rove pulling the strings that's trying to defeat us."

David Postman: 360-943-9882 or dpostman@seattletimes.com