Remember when I told you that Dino Rossi burst into song during his speech this morning to a bunch of Rotarians at the Washington Athletic Club? Here's the video:

Catchy.

But here's the context: Rossi was recounting how the Service Employees International Union once staged a protest at his state senate office during a contentious budget debate—and, for the benefit of the Rotarians, Rossi then performed the song those union members were singing through bullhorns as they tried to, as he put it, "bludgeon" him into doing their bidding. After his musical interlude, Rossi went on:

The cheap thing, you know—my wife has a term for me but I prefer the word 'frugal.' The mean part I did take exception to. You know, I was the guy who was actually restoring the cuts for the mentally ill and others that had already been proposed.

And, you know, I thought about these folks, because what they were trying to do was scare me into what they wanted me to do. We had one of the higher unemployment rates in the nation at that point in time, and they wanted me to raise taxes on you to give government employees raises—people who had no chance of losing their job. I said no.

That's why they were mad at me. So I stood at my window as they sang, and I went like this [pantomimes an orchestra conductor], because I wanted them to know they weren't going to be able to scare me. That's really the only way we're going to be able to solve some of these problems in Washington, D.C. To have some people back there that are not worried about the next election.