Did you hear that rumble last Tuesday night?

I felt the Earth trembling, forming a tectonic triangle from Louisiana to Washington state, north to Alaska, south to Hawaii and back east to Washington.

The epicenter was in a conference room at the Bellevue Hilton hotel where some 500 serious, hard-working citizens gathered to hear the governors of Louisiana and Hawaii give enthusiastic support for candidate Dino Rossi. The enthusiasm surrounding the vice presidential candidacy of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was an unspoken, but clearly felt presence.

What is so special about the governors of Hawaii and Louisiana? In an election cycle that should favor Democrats, the real changes happening across the United States are in states like these, where Republican governors are at the helm. Dino Rossi looks to be the next up to bat in this pedigree of incumbent-busting governors. They are part of a new breed of politician that has emerged in states where decades of same-party rule (or same family, in the case of Alaska) have worn out the patience meter of voters.

These voters are tired of the election cycle where incumbents and the incumbent party continue to raise taxes, promising solutions to broken highways, bureaucratic gridlock in state agencies, bickering between unions and management, incoherent regulations on businesses and more, only to forget their promises the morning after the election. Instead, they spend their next term paying back their friends that helped get them elected (such as exempting certain tribes from paying taxes on their casino profits… yes, I’m looking in Olympia’s direction).

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal, at 34 years of age, is the youngest sitting governor in U.S. history and is the first elected Indian-American governor (his parents were first generation immigrants from Punjab, India). He is the third Republican governor to preside there since 1880. He is tremendously popular and has accomplished major restructuring of the state budget, expansion in critical areas of highway infrastructure, education reform, mental health care reform, public safety regarding more strict monitoring and punishment for sex offenders and reorganizing prison rehabilitation services. Jindal has done this while eliminating entire government offices that were depleting resources while sitting vacated for years. He has accomplished these things with large Democrat majorities in his state Legislature.

Jindal has accomplished change while cutting spending and taxes. It’s called being a good steward of the people’s money. We in Washington state should try it sometime.

Gov. Jindal offered his support to Dino Rossi (by way of videotape due to hurricanes). Jindal named specifically Rossi’s transportation plan and goals regarding public safety and a friendlier business climate as being similar to what he has accomplished in Louisiana.

Jindal primed the crowd for an even more inspiring speaker, Gov. Linda Lingle of Hawaii. The first Republican governor in 40 years, Lingle was elected in 2002 and re-elected with the highest majority in state history in 2006. She roused the crowd with her viewpoint that being a governor is not about party politics, but about problem solving. She, too, has to work “across the aisle” as her state Legislature is heavily Democrat.

She cited the problem of homelessness in Hawaii and her bold move using the governor’s full authority to declare action on homelessness with an “Emergency Proclamation.” This enabled her to mobilize state agencies and private charities to construct temporary housing with services directed toward families and single adults living on the beaches, while circumventing bureaucratic red tape like building permits, union rules, etc.

Using the citizens’ tax dollars, she was able to address the problem head on, requiring accountability to the citizens being served. All children were required to be in daycare or school, adults were required to be evaluated for mental health needs, job training or education services, which were then provided by the state. Hawaii was one of only 12 states that actually showed a drop in the number of people living in poverty in the past six years. And, Hawaii moved in rank from the bottom of 50 states in how it treats people with mental illness to 11th in the nation.

“Democrats talk about compassion, but what they deliver is dependency. They need to expand dependency to stay in power,” Lingle charged to the cheering crowd.

Solving problems — and building up the economy while still ensuring that the vulnerable are cared for — is what both Jindal and Lingle offered as the job of good governors. Dino Rossi is the man for the job, they insisted.

The aftershock from these thundering speeches came at the end of the night when emcee John Carlson revealed results of a newly released focus group. In Washington, a group of 18 union members participated in a political action focus group. While 14 of the members said they were definitely voting for Barack Obama for president, 15 of this same group chose Dino Rossi as their pick for governor.

Now that’s what I call crossing party lines! And that’s the kind of change I can believe in.

Federal Way resident Angie Vogt can be reached at vogt.e@comcast.net.