The Governor's race gets murky.

With a mere 19 votes among nearly 2.5 million separating Rossi and Gregoire (today anyway) The Seattle Times reports an impending hand recount and the very real possibility of a second lawsuit against Yakima County for doing to the Republicans what King County was alleged to be doing to the Democrats, i.e., rejecting invalid provisional ballots without attempting to contact the voter to correct the invalidity.

More and more people are wondering aloud what effect Ruth Bennett's candidacy had on the race. I hve been saying uniformly that the Libertarian strategy this year was to appeal to the liberal voters by emphasizing parts of the Libertarian platform that would appeal to civil rights and freedom of lifestyle advocates. Thus, it has been, and is, my contention that Ruth took more votes from the Gregoire than from Rossi.

Now, I am wondering whether there may be a backlash from the Secretary of State's office if this does go to a hand recount. That is to say, if Ruth's presence in the race caused a dead heat among the frontrunners, some may argue that Ruth should not have been in the race. That would be a pity, of course. My fingers are crossed that my fears are unfounded.