business backgrounder | economy
Kelley returned fire, questioning whether Watkins
had really presided over 150 performance audits, as
Watkins claimed.
Moderator Peter Callaghan, columnist for The News
Tribune, tried steering the conversation to other topics,
but the candidates seemed determined to trade attacks.
Attendees were not impressed, and neither was the AWB
board of directors, which decided not to endorse either one.
Next up were the secretary of state candidates. Compared to the first debate, the exchange between Thurston
County Auditor Kim Wyman, a Republican, and Democrat
Kathleen Drew, a former state senator and aide to Gov.
Chris Gregoire, seemed positively mellow.
Moderator Austin Jenkins, political reporter for the
Northwest News Network, asked a number of questions
Fix the Debt:
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Frank Luntz:
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Ron Brownstein
National Journal:
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related to the integrity of the office in the context of the
contested 2004 Washington governor’s race.
AWB’s board liked what they heard from Wyman and
voted the next day to endorse her candidacy.
The final debate of the summit, between incumbent Lt.
Gov. Brad Owen, a Democrat, and challenger Bill Finkbeiner,
the former Senate Republican leader, picked up where the
auditor debate left off, with Finkbeiner making an issue out
of Owen’s use of surplus campaign funds and Owen ang