NASA's recent activity on Mars may have caused a slight realignment of the celestial order, because today's P-I contains a remarkably fair story discussing outside money on both sides of the Governor's race.

The coverage does a more than reasonable job of laying out the difference between hard and soft money. More importantly, it makes clear there is a lot of cash in this race outside that that is being contributed to the candidates themselves; cash Gregoire and Rossi have little to no control over as it gets spent.

What is interesting at this point in late June is Christine Gregoire was lain down a peculiar marker for the campaign season by claiming we've "already hit rock bottom" with the latest BIAW radio ads, which are critical but not brutal. What happens when Democratic-aligned groups inevitably come out with their own ads disparaging Rossi in harsh terms?

What happens when a group goes up with TV ads, which are inevitably more jarring then mere radio? Will we have hit "rock bottom" then too simply because a candidate for major office is being criticized in direct language over the airwaves?

Clearly, this gives independent groups added motivation to be able to defend the charges in their ads since Gregoire's own statement gives the press license to give extra scrutiny to such advocacy between now and November. Any group broadcasting poorly supported charges will now face more public blowback given the low bar Gregoire has set for "rock bottom."

Lastly, it would be unfair to comment on this article without mentioning this gem of a quote from state Democratic spokesman Kelly Steele:

"Presumably people or groups supporting the governor share the vision of a majority of Washingtonians -- affordable health care, investments in public education and support for working families all across this state," Steele said. "Rossi's backers oppose that agenda and represent the narrow agenda of moneyed special interests."

Party spokespeople are supposed to come up with such grave sound nonsense, but it really is laughable. We are to believe that the interests of the BIAW, not to mention the NFIB, the Farm Bureau, etc., are simply "moneyed special interests" while groups supporting the other side are merely interested in the common good.

Hooey.

Groups supporting Democrats do not just "presumably" support broad public policy goals. By chance, unions funded by public employees might have an interest in the pay and benefits of their members (not to mention the number of them). By chance, unions whose collective bargaining efforts are affected by state law may have an interest in legal regimes that benefit that bargaining as well as other benefits those union members might receive (regardless of the impact on the businesses that hire those members). By chance, the tribes might just have...

Oh, never mind. I think we've already covered that last part lately.

The point being, both sides have self-interested groups advocating on their behalf. At least at this point the BIAW is being up front about it while Gregoire and her Democratic allies are playing the bogus public interest card.