Vote for
GARY LOCKE
(Rumored to be a Democrat)

John Carlson is right: Gary Locke lacks leadership. Locke tiptoes around Olympia, avoiding any issue that might create controversy, performing the role of governor as if he were afraid to wake his children. Four years into Locke's term, the governor doesn't have much to show for himself besides a too-little-too-late blue-ribbon panel currently studying our transportation problems--problems that were already at the crisis level when he took office in 1997. Locke didn't even bring that panel together until it was clear that his Republican challenger intended to make gridlock an issue. Locke's only legitimate claim is that he's been a strong supporter of education--which is nice, but hardly daring. Conservatives have embraced education as well, and every Republican from George W. Bush on down is promising more money for schools.

But we're voting for Locke because we'd rather spend the next four years idling in neutral than being taken for a ride by former talk-show host and conservative initiative-author John Carlson. Carlson has lots of plans for Washington state, and would lead the state in new, dangerous directions. Carlson supports anything and everything that pops into Tim Eyman's head, wants to expand the number of crimes that qualify as "strikes" in three-strikes-you're-out life sentences, and has promised to govern by initiative if he can't get his way in the legislature. Carlson ran three successful initiative campaigns without being in the governor's office. If that's the way he wants to govern, he doesn't need the governor's office to do it.