"UPDATE - Democrats slam McKenna over ‘big-oil’ fund raiser"

Brad Shannon (The Olympian):

Rob McKenna is taking his campaign for governor to Texas this evening for a fundraiser led by the Lone Star State’s attorney general Greg Abbott in San Antonio. The event is hosted by the Tesoro oil-refining company, a payday lender and three other interest groups, and Democrats today were doing their best to rub McKenna’s nose in the petroleum.

The Democrats didn’t mention that their own gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee paid a visit to a campaign fundraiser sponsored earlier in the year in New York by former Empire State governor Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer once crusaded successfully against Wall Street shenanigans but saw his political fortune blow up in a scandal over going to high-priced prostitutes.

Washington Democratic Party chairman Dwight Pelz, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman and a machinists union leader all got on a conference call with reporters this morning to point out that McKenna was ducking out of town today – the same day presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is in town. Pelz summed it up with a news release that noted McKenna, who has not endorsed Romney, is skipping the presidential fund raiser in Medina:

Republican Rob McKenna is actually missing the event, yet another time he has hidden from his own party's presidential candidates. But he may not be running from Romney so much as he is hoping no one will notice that he is in Texas, raising money with an uber conservative attorney general, Big Oil companies and a payday loan company.

MORE...