The Longview Daily News, which endorsed her, is calling on Democrat Christine Gregoire to concede. Gregoire and the Democratic party in Washington just cannot bring themselves to accept the following reality: They lost the race for governor.

Despite rulings from sympathetic judges in the most populous King County and a machine recount with terms favorable to Gregoire, she still refuses to concede and repeats the standard Democratic mantra of "all the votes must be counted."

Whenever you hear a Democrat say that we must "count the votes" - translate it to mean "all the votes must be counted, recounted and counted again until the result I want is achieved." That is exactly what the Democrats in Washington state are aiming for. They could care less about an honest outcome to the election. They are trying to turn a legitimate win by Republican Dino Rossi into a stolen election by Christine Gregoire. They will count, recount, manufacture and remanufacture votes until they achieve that result.

Here is the editorial by the Longview Daily News:

"A 42-vote margin, my friends, that is a tied race." So said Christine Gregoire, the Democratic candidate for Washington governor, after coming out on the losing side of that 42-vote margin last Wednesday.

She is wrong. A zero-vote margin, that is a tie. To have more than 2.8 million votes cast in a race and have the difference come down to a mere 42 votes is amazing. Statistically astounding. And, no doubt, excruciating, if you're on the wrong end of that number. But it is not a tie.

The votes have been counted and, by state law, recounted. Republican Dino Rossi first won by 261 votes, then by the 42. Gregoire has every right to pay to have the ballots now be recounted by hand, and every indication is that she will do so. But she would be doing the state a greater service if she were to instead concede defeat.

The Daily News endorsed Gregoire for governor. We still believe she was the best candidate. Almost half the voters in the state agreed with us. Almost. We now believe the state would be headed down a path of bitter partisanship that would not serve us well over the next four years if repeated counts were to turn the governorship over to Gregoire.

She would rightly be seen as Seattle's governor. Suspiciously so.

Already, Gregoire's strategy is clear. She, with the increased involvement of national Democratic Party, has been attempting to squeeze every vote she can out of Seattle's King County. The first recount gave us an uncomfortable taste of what's ahead if we move to a hand recount.

If, as expected, the Democrats choose King County for the recount, all Gregoire would need is to gain 42 or more votes. Given the results of the first recount, that seems easily attainable. Unlike the rest of the state, recounting in King County seems to make a big difference.

Of the 856,963 votes cast for either Gregoire or Rossi in King County, the recount swung 245 in Gregoire's direction, almost enough to make up that 261 vote difference in the first statewide count. Of the almost 1.9 million votes cast in the rest of the state, there was only a 26 vote swing after the recount, in Rossi's favor.

The state's four biggest counties, excluding King, all went handily on Nov. 2 for Rossi. In the recount, little changed. In Pierce County, Rossi gained 19 votes. In Snohomish County, Gregoire gained one vote. In Spokane County, Rossi gained 13 votes. In Clark County, Rossi gained four votes. Those four counties had 942,228 votes cast for either Gregoire or Rossi. and the difference after the recount was only 35, in Rossi's favor.

If the ballots in King County are recounted by hand we can expect bickering, bullying and lawsuits aplenty for Christmas. Reminiscent of the Florida presidential mess in 2000, we'll have political partisans peering over the shoulders of elections officials as determinations are made as to a voter's "intent." Should that slight pencil mark near the Gregoire oval be counted? Should that dimple go to Dino?

If Gregoire and the Democrats insist on putting us through this, we ask that Gregoire pay to have the entire state recounted. It wouldn't be a bad political strategy on her part, considering that outside King County the results probably wouldn't change much. On the other hand, if the recounting is done only in King County and she picks up the votes she needs to pull ahead, taxpayers are automatically on the hook to pay for a hand recount of the rest of the state.

But it would be better for all if Gregoire took the proper step and avoided all that. It's time for Christine Gregoire to swallow hard and congratulate Dino Rossi for his victory in an historically close race.

It might be giving Christine Gregoire too much credit to assume that she understands that a 42 vote margin is not a tie. This, after all, is the woman who as Washington Attorney General cost the state $18 million because she couldn't even meet a jury verdict appeal deadline. To expect her to now understand that a 42 vote advantage is not a tie might be stretching her capacity a bit.

Yes, Gregoire does indeed have the right to request a hand recount.
The question is whether she should do so, and if she does what are the consequences for the political environment in Washington? Has she thought it through, and if she has what does it say about her as an individual that she is willing to put the state through that kind of intense partisan rancor?

Just because she can request a manual recount does not mean that Gregoire should.