Six years ago Rossi fought a tough campaign against then-Attorney General Christine Gregoire in an attempt to reverse two decades of destructive Democratic ownership of the Governor’s Mansion. Like this year, it took many days to receive and count ballots (ballots postmarked on election day could take days to arrive and be counted at elections facilities), and on the final day to certify election results, Rossi led with 261 votes. A state-wide recount was triggered, resulting in his lead being narrowed to 42 votes out of 3 million, and he was certified winner.

It was when the Democrats demanded a manual recount that the fraud began. Suddenly ballots in Democrat-heavy King County were declared “missing” and Democrats began a mission to “find” such ballots… and they did. Over. And Over. More and more ballots, tipping the scale for Gregoire with considerable margins.

Today, Washington state has an all-absentee voting format (with the exception of Pierce County), and as such, “No one knows how many ballots are left to count, since large volumes are in the mail and final return rate isn’t knowable,” according to a spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed. So what’s stopping King County from “finding” additional ballots in a “tray in a warehouse,” behind a copy machine or in the trunk of a car?

While we are celebrating the fact that we have taken back the House and sent true conservatives to the Senate, we must not lose our attention on the race in Washington State. Now is the time to send resources—volunteers, lawyers, money—to Seattle to ensure there is a fair and legal counting of legitimate ballots.

Many have also questioned the handling of military ballots during these midterm elections. Washington has a considerable military population, many of whom are deployed overseas, and their votes, while likely still in the mail, must be counted.

The last day for counties to certify election results is November 23. That may only be the end of the first chapter for Washington’s Senate election.

Follow me on Twitter at @zacholdham

I brought both parties together to balance the budget without raising taxes, while still protecting the most vulnerable in our society.  I did it by seeking out a fiscally conservative majority, rather than a partisan majority.  Now I want to help do the same thing in the other Washington.  It’s going to take common sense, bold leadership, the right vision and values, and the ability to say ‘no’ to the Washington, D.C., establishment and the special interests.

While this marks a very late entry into the primary race, a poll by the University of Washington this week shows a very competitive general election match-up despite a complete lack of campaigning by Rossi (see Neil’s analysis here).

One snag, however: the grassroots activists on the ground have told me they’re angered by Rossi’s long decision making process which has thrown the primary into turmoil over the past few months. The constant “is-he-or-isn’t-he” has stifled fundraising in the already-crowded field, and now that he’s in the race, many aren’t willing to abandon their candidate for what many see as the establishment pick.

Sarah Palin’s endorsement of former NFL player Clint Didier last week certainly raised the stakes (and accentuated the divisions within WSRP circles) in the race, but it all comes down to who can defeat Patty Murray in November.

While I’ve met the other candidates and find some of them to be refreshing conservatives, if none stand out in their ability to retire the “mom in tennis shoes” then I will be casting my vote for Dino Rossi in the August primary.

Follow me on Twitter at @zacholdham

You may recall Alexi Giannoulias–Illinois’ Democrat US Senate candidate, friend of Barack Obama and Tony Rezko, and banker to the mob. The NRSC was quick to put out an effective YouTube spot highlighting his shady connections, which hopefully cast some doubts in the electorate about his suitability to serve (not that shady dealings prevented other Illinois politicians from winning high office).

Meet Tom Marino, who will certainly be in the DCCC’s crosshairs if he wins the GOP primary in Pennsylvania’s 10th to go up against Rep. Chris Carney (proud member of the Stupak Sellout crowd instrumental in voting ObamaCare into law last week). Marino, a former US Attorney, has his own shady dealings which will make for good campaign fodder in the general.

During Marino’s tenure as US Attorney, local businessman Louis DeNaples was under investigation by the US Attorney’s Office for his ties to William D’Elia, head of the Bufalino crime family. It seems DeNaples lied about his relationship with D’Elia to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board when applying for a licence for the Mount Airy Casino. Listed as a personal reference on that same application was none other than US Attorney Tom Marino, the very man running the office investigating DeNaples’ organized crime ties.

The Department of Justice got wind of the conflict of interest and ordered Marino off the investigation, and shortly after the media broke the story he resigned his post… and went to work for Louis DeNaples. (The charges were eventually dropped when DeNaples agreed to place the casino project in the name of a family member.)

The reality is just as bad as–if not worse than–the optics of this scandal. Do we really want someone like Marino representing the GOP in what will be a battleground district this fall? Rep. Carney, the Pelosi-enabling, abortion-funding “Blue Dog” Democrat from a conservative district in northeastern Pennsylvania will have a hay day with Marino’s record. I’ve spoken with people in the district who feel uneasy about Marino and will likely just stay at home rather than having to choose between him and Carney.

One of the keys to a Republican resurgence is not only ensuring we have credibly conservative candidates running for office, but also candidates with a personal and professional record we can be proud of and defend. Tom Marino doesn’t fit the bill.

Consider this exchange between Stupak and a constituent at a town hall meeting in Cheboygan, Mich., on October 24, 2009 (h/t Dr. David Madeira, who, incidentally, is running to unseat ObamaCare supporter Chris Carney in PA-10):

Constituent: I guess it still bothers me that at the end of the day, yes, you would have said your voice but the one more voice would be that vote at the end of the day that would be “ok even though I didn’t get what I wanted I am still going to vote in favor of taxpayer-funded abortions.

Rep. Bart Stupak: But isn’t that the way our country works?  If the majority of people vote against us and they want to put it in there–

Constituent: But you will still have a chance to vote on behalf of the fact that you have the Michigan Right to Life endorsement and 62% of Americans don’t want this, you would vote against the bill at the end of the day?

Stupak: Well I may not.  It depends on what– I don’t want to see abortion in there. And I gotta get a chance to vote on that somewhere along in this process.  But that doesn’t mean– and if I lose that vote, that doesn’t mean I vote against the whole bill then.

Constituent: It doesn’t?

Stupak: No.

[Crowd Boos]

Moral of the story: there’s also no such thing as a “conservative” or “moderate” Democrat. Check out Stupak’s GOP challenger Dan Benishek and work to throw out every Pelosi-enabler in Congress, starting with those who masquerade as moderates.

Recently here at RedState, ericathunderpaws wrote an open letter to Google outlining its censorship of search results critical of Islam, statist politics and the Chinese government.  But this week, the New York Times brought to light the fact that Google doesn’t only use it’s overwhelming power to censor speech–apparently Google has now deemed itself worthy of deciding which small businesses thrive or fail.

After a 30-year career in the law, Dominique Barella left his job as president of the main union for French judges in 2006 and started a Web site, Ejustice.fr, that lets users search for legal resources in France.

…

[W]ithin a few months, it was attracting up to 20,000 visitors a day and selling a modest amount of advertising.

That, Mr. Barella says, is when the trouble with Google began.

Overnight, traffic plunged — because, Mr. Barella says, the company stopped indexing pages from Ejustice.fr for inclusion in Google’s search engine.

If Google can effectively shut down a small business, which, arguably, isn’t even in competition with Google, what restraint DOES the company have?

In the late ’90s, the Department of Justice took Microsoft to court over the bundling of their Internet Explorer browser with the Windows OS.  At the time, the company had about 85% of the OS market share and, Justice charged, it used that power to shut out competitors.  Today, Google’s market share of search engine queries hovers around 80%.

Surely Google’s programming of their search algorithm to censor political speech and strong-arm small businesses throughout the world deserves a government inquiry.  And if it is found that the world’s most-used search provider is employing a command-and-control strategy for the Internet, it must answer for its actions.

RedState readers were a vital component to our success in flipping “Teddy Kennedy’s seat” from a D to an R, and for that we should all be proud of our efforts.  However, when Sen. Brown was sworn in, were we expecting a Republican senator from deep-blue Massachusetts to vote in line with future-Senator Marco Rubio or moreso with fellow New England Republican Olympia Snowe?

This week, Sen. Brown has drawn the ire of many conservatives for his vote in support of Harry Reid’s deceptively-named jobs bill.  Make no mistake: the bill is yet another worthless, behind-closed-doors, lets-spend-billions-to-make-the-American-people-think-we’re-actually-helping-them bill which no Republican should have voted for.  But the political reality is that Scott Brown has a left-wing constituency, and with a re-election battle looming in 2012 he will have to sometimes vote with the Democrats to have a chance at keeping one of Massachusetts’ Senate seats under GOP control.

Scott Brown’s election was the first win in what should be a tidal wave year for GOP gains in Congress.  Which brings me to lesson we must keep in mind for November:  more “R’s” in Congress doesn’t necessarily mean less overreaching government.  We all saw how government operated under GOP control–the overspending, the entitlement expansions, etc–and it is imperative to avoid a repeat once the nightmare of Democrat control has ended. 

As conservative activists (that’s YOU), we must not be remiss in supporting conservative candidates in conservative districts and states this year.  That means guys like Marco Rubio in Florida, Mike Lee in Utah, Les Phillip and Rick Barber in Alabama.  Moderate Republicans will ride the wave into Washington this fall–and that’s to be expected in places like Massachusetts.  But there is NO reason to support squishy candidates in races a conservative can win.  And it’s imperative we all work tirelessly to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Otherwise there will be a lot more to howl about than a lousy vote for a lousy “jobs” bill.

–follow me on twitter at twitter.com/redhk