Well, the daughter of the short order cook beat the son of a minister in the Democratic runoff for governor. She’ll go up against the Republican son of a waitress Nov. 2.

Some of the pitches for high office this year sounded more like scripts for a soap opera. Poor Chris Gregoire hardly knew her father but she never told us why. Maybe he was like Indiana Jones’ father, who was so busy trying to track down the Holy Grail, Indiana was spending his spare time with all sorts of unsavory characters. Gregoire also had to toil her way through college.

The GOP’s Dino Rossi lived in Alaska with his mother and only saw his school teacher father when he visited during summers while school was out.

Like Gregoire, he too, Dino, that is, worked his way through college.

Poor babies. Is one to presume that all the other students had their way paid by wealthy parents or scholarships? Which brings up the question of whether Gregoire or Rossi were bright enough to wangle a scholarship or two to help them out.

The loser in this race, King County Executive Ron Sims, sounded more like the guy who runs things in a small western town. I want to tax you on the money you earn, not on what you spend, he told voters, and whatever land you own, you’re going to have to leave 65 percent of it in its natural state and only build on 10 percent of what’s left. I never did understand what was to become of the remaining 25 percent. At 65-10-25, the smaller your lot, the taller and skinnier your house will have to be. There’s a market here for used lighthouses.

Sims, by the way, was gracious in losing.

Of all the losers, Mark Sidran looked the most bewildered. He lost the Democratic nomination for attorney general to Deborah Senn due to a bunch of attack ads run against the onetime state insurance commissioner by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The ads were brief so here’s a more complete version. Commissioner Senn fined Prudential Insurance Co. $700,000 for misleading sales tactics, $600,000 of it suspended if the company promised to pay $600,000 to hire four new staffers for her office and fund a toll-free telephone line for Washington policyholders.

The Republicans accused her of avoiding legislative oversight of money that belonged in the state treasury. The Legislature wanted the whole $700,000, not just a piece of it while she kept the rest, spending it as she pleased. There was a big flap when Senn ticked off Atty. Gen. Gregoire by saying Gregoire’s office made deals like that, so Senn backed off, reinstated the $700,000 fine to go into the treasury and fined Prudential another $600,000 to pay for her hot line and other expenses. And that’s the rest of the story.

Commissioner Senn, who served from 1993 to 2001, was blamed for the virtual collapse of individual health insurance policies when people were allowed to sign up when they were sick or pregnant, then drop out and avoid paying any premiums until they needed help again. Costs soared and companies stopped selling the policies.

She had a reputation for arrogance ad abrasiveness but could be Miss Congeniality when she wanted to. She gave homey speeches, about growing up in Chicago, in a family that came from Russia and Rumania, and she and her siblings were the first in the family to go to college. See, and here you thought Maria Cantwell was the only one.

Senn ran for U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton’s seat in 2000, and believed she was a sure winner. “I beat the insurance commissioner incumbent in 1992 with over one million votes,” she said. “I was re- elected in 1996 with over one million votes. Slade has never had a million votes in any race he’s run.” Neither had Maria Cantwell, but she beat Gorton, and Senn slipped out of sight until now.

This state likes to elect women. Gregoire and Senn will both be hard to beat.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA, 98340.).