Exile

You know how some bloggers disappear for a day or two, and then come back and say they were working on "a project" which they can't tell about, so they're all so mysterious?

Yeah, I hate that, too. Instead I will direct natives of Washington State to this article in the Sunday Seattle Times about gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi and what he's been up to for the past few years since the extremely tight election of 2004.

And the answer is: Took a year off, then came back and started giving speeches to Republican groups that were close enough to his campaign speeches to get himself investigated for violating campaign law. Working with a non-profit that seemed awfully like a campaign, such that when he left it, it ceased to exist as a meaningful entity. Writing a book. And making a lot more money from the contacts he made in his first run, despite complaining that no one wants to talk to him anymore.

Its a pretty interesting and mostly balanced story - meaning that if you didn't care for him before you have some good reasons to back up this view, and if you like him, you can use the article to show how he's been in exile. Yeah, if you READ the article, it doesn't seem like much of an exile, but then, that's where the headlines lead you.

Actually, though, its the companion article that I found interesting - the one titled "Real Estate, Book, Helped Rossi Top $250k". And the bulk of the article is about the book, but the numbers, well, they just don't add up. Trust me on this one as an author. Even for a vanity project, sold through a giveaway for fundraisers, you can't jimmie the numbers well enough to turn 13,000 copies of ANYTHING into a significant percentage of $250,000 dollars. The headline might as well have been "Real Estate, Cash Found in the Couch, Helped Rossi Top $250k". The real estate is where the money is. The whole book thing? A bit of distraction, the icing on the cake.

Of course, we aren't going to find out how much the book contributed to the candidate's total take, or how much the total take really is, as Rossi won't share his tax returns (His opponent, the governor, has already made public hers at the request of the media). Here's the quote - "We've disclosed everything we need to disclose and by law are required to disclose, and that's what we're going to do," Rossi said. "Nothing more, nothing less."

That statement is completely true. And I think that would look dandy on a yard sign - "Nothing more, nothing less."

Nothing more later,