Sausage Links, no pun intended edition

Seattle Post-Intelligencer political writer Chris McGann reports how Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi's opposition to abortion, gay marriage, gun control, stem cell research, and gay rights' expansion has been underplayed by his campaign in an effort to sway liberal voters. Rossi, however, says those aren't the issues he's running on. Meanwhile, Josh Feit at The Stranger has some potentially bad news for Gov. Chris Gregoire — the ominous Obama-Rossi yard sign juxtaposition. ...

According to the latest polling and elections data, the race for governor remains as tight as ever. Gregoire leads Rossi by just two percentage points, says a Republican-backed polling firm, Strategic Vision. Fundraising reports for July also show both candidates have raised nearly the same amount of money, with Gregoire leading Rossi by just $200,000. ...

(Insert Critical Mass pun here): Erica C. Barnett at The Stranger argues everyone else has missed the boat by blaming the bikers after last Friday's incident during the monthly Critical Mass ride. She reports about the city ordinance which makes it a gross misdemeanor, with the possibility of jail time, to knowingly assault someone with a vehicle. ...

(Insert Swift Boat pun here): Eric Earling at Sound Politics says presumed Republican presidential nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain's latest ads attacking U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, in which the narrator likens Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, had to be aired to pop the "protective bubble of Obama's celebrity." ...

Smart? The state Supreme Court rules 6-3 that the identities of public school teachers with unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct against them are exempt from the Public Disclosure Act. ...

Dumb: The Oregonian reports that Oregon's Medicare hotline has an average hold time of 16.6 minutes and doles out incorrect information in 90 percent of the phone calls the system receives. ...

Dunn deal: Just when state Rep. Jim Dunn, R-Vancouver, thought things couldn't get any worse, they did. He's raised a grand total of $835 in two months. ...

The audacity of hope: Gas is below $4 a gallon in some Pierce County and Idaho locations. ...

The audacity of smoke: P-I columnist Robert Jamieson says the state's 25-foot anti-smoking rule isn't really working. ...

The audacity of television news: And finally, Adam Wilson at The Olympian reports how a throw-away blog post about Gov. Gregoire getting carded at a bar turned into the more sensational-than-thou TV news media's story of the day. ...