What to call them? Republican soccer dads? Metrosexual conservatives? Reagan babies? The labels don’t quite fit, but their presence is undeniable. As the Jan. 12 convening of the Legislature in Olympia draws near, a new generation of standard bearers has arisen in the state Republican Party: former state Sen. Dino Rossi, 44, is running for governor; King County Council member Rob McKenna, 41, is campaigning for attorney general; state Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, 34, was just elected Senate Majority Leader; and Luke Esser, 42, is the state Senate’s new floor leader.

Besides their relative youth, they have at least four other things in common: their residence (the Eastside suburbs of King County), their demeanor (nice guys), their physical appearance (good looks), and their political philosophy (Republicans should focus on pocketbook issuesthe business climate and controlling government growth not social issues).

“We are starting to build a team again,” says state Republican Party chair Chris Vance. He likens the emergence of these four to the generation of Republican leaders that emerged in the 1960sDan Evans, Slade Gorton, and Joel Pritchard. Vance adds, “This sort of thing needs to happen to invigorate the party.”

Vance says the four also share an ideology that is ascendant within the GOP. “It’s not enough to pretend that the free market can solve every problem, but we reject the liberals’ point of view: ‘Government can fix everything.’ It’s a third way, between government should not be involved and government should solve it all.”

Rossi, McKenna, and Esser date the emergence of their political identity to the 1980 presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan, who made it cool for young people to be Republicans. “The bright hope and vision for the future became very clear when Ronald Reagan started talking,” says Rossi. He moved to Sammamish when he became a father, while the other three grew up in the Eastside suburbs. They all speak cul-de-sac. “They have a lot in common with soccer momsthey are married to them!” observes Randy Pepple, a longtime ally who is a consultant at the Rockey Company. (The exception is Esser, who is single.)

THE SUBURBAN EXPERIENCE is part of their political grounding, says Rossi: “Car pooling and soccer teams.” That translates into the way they behave, says Vance. “A snarling, angry demeanor puts people off,” he says. “Most people who live in a $500,000 house and work at Microsoft are not mad at the world, and they don’t want to vote for somebody who is.” Notes Esser: “Harsh, old-school politics doesn’t work in the state of Washington.”

Paul Berendt, state chair of the Democratic Party, says the aspect of the four emerging GOP leaders to focus on is their ideology, not their personalities. “They are people who are far more conservative than their constituents,” Berendt says. When it comes to abortion rights, education funding, transportation alternatives, and environmental protection, he says, the Republicans are increasingly at odds with the suburbs. “The Republican Party has been hemorrhaging in the suburbs for some time. They’ve decided to put some of these suburban Republicans in these key spots in a last-ditch effort to stem the bleeding.” As examples of the political trend, Berendt cites the examples of Democratic victories by state Reps. Ross Hunter of Bellevue, Laura Ruderman of Kirkland, and Judy Clibborn of Mercer Island.

Rossi says it’s the Democrats who are about to find themselves on the outs with voters, because they have mismanaged the state’s economy. “You can’t keep doing the same things we’ve been doing the last 20 years and expect to be successful. We need to improve the business climate. I do understand the free enterprise system. I’m going to figure out what is right and I’m going to go and sell it.”

POLITICS AS SALES: DINO ROSSI

Rossi is a great salesman. He has made his living in commercial real estate, negotiating megadeals. He was elected to the state Senate in 1996, but he didn’t have a chance to let his private-sector skills shine until last year, when he became chair of the Ways and Means Committee. The first thing Rossi did was hop in his car and drive around the state to meet with Democrats in their home districts. He made a decision to try to build a “philosophical majority, not a partisan one,” to solve the state’s $2.6 billion budget crisis. “I didn’t want to do to the Democrats what they had done to mecram a budget down their throats. I decided to turn the other cheek.” He says he passed 50 bills off the Senate floor related to the budget with bipartisan support and successfully closed the deficit without raising taxes.

The business community applauded his budget, and advocates for the disabled and seniors gave Rossi kudos for protecting key funding. Others, including unions, education boosters, and many human-services supporters, were not so pleased. Home-care workers protested Rossi’s budget by singing, to the tune of “Frere Jacques,” “Dino Rossi, Dino Rossi, cheap and mean!”

Rossi promises to continue his nonpartisan approach to solving the state’s problems if he is elected governor. Earlier this month, he left the Senate so he could campaign full time. A poll of statewide voters by Mark Mellman shows that Rossi trails Democratic gubernatorial front-runner and Attorney General Christine Gregoire, 46 percent to 27 percent. Rossi remains unperturbed by such numbers, pointing out he is not well known statewide and only got into the governor’s race in November. He hopes to raise $5 million to better acquaint Washington’s voters. His first month’s total of $300,000 indicates he will be competitive in the money race.

BRAINIAC, PAVEMENT LOVER: ROB MCKENNA

Many would regard Rob McKenna’s pedigree as impeccable: Eagle Scout, father of four, and attorney for seven years at Perkins Coie, one of the state’s most prestigious law firms. He has served on the King County Council since 1996, representing District 6 (Bellevue, Mercer Island, Medina, Newcastle, and Renton). McKenna has earned a reputation as a brainy, articulate advocate for limited government and road building. He backed Tim Eyman’s property-tax limitation measure, Initiative 747, and is championing a major expansion of Interstate 405. He has tempered that conservatism by supporting human services at the county, albeit while advocating that some services be contracted out.

McKenna has three main planks to his platform for Attorney General. He says the state is paying out $150 million per biennium for legal settlements, losses, and self-insurance. He wants to reduce that by developing a risk-management program at the AG’s office. “I’d like to use those savings to reduce class size” in schools, he says. Secondly, McKenna hopes to bolster support for law enforcement around the state. He says the AG has a small criminal-justice division, but more and more county prosecutors around the state need help with complex cases. Finally, he wants to bolster consumer protection by going after cheats and frauds, particularly on the Internet. McKenna will have to defeat another suburban 40-something Republican, Mike Vaska, in the primary before going up against the survivor of the “caustic cousins” fight between former state Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn and former Seattle City Attorney Mark Sidran, who are vying for the Democratic nomination.

If he and Rossi win, McKenna says, “it will be the biggest generational shift in the Republican Party since the 1970s.”

FISCAL CONSERVATIVE: BILL FINKBEINER

Finkbeiner won a state House seat at age 23 as a Democrat in 1992, but he switched parties two years later after watching his caucus pass tax increases and “a complicated health-insurance plan” and got elected to the Senate. He has worked as a contractor at Microsoft, was among the first legislators to offer his constituents a way to e-mail him, and is married to a former staffer at Washington Conservation Voters. When not representing the 45th District (Redmond, Duvall, Carnation, and parts of Kirkland, Woodinville, and the Upper Snoqualmie Valley), he runs Finkbeiner Development, a company started by his father.

Finkbeiner’s Senate colleagues, both Republican and Democrat, praise him as a congenial guy who is good at compromising. But don’t confuse his demeanor with a centrist economic outlook. “I’m a fiscal conservative,” he says, and “99.99 percent of the bills we vote on in Olympia have to do with the size and scope of government. Our approach doesn’t mean gutting programs, but it does look with a skeptical eye at the expansion of government. The budget Dino Rossi put out this year was the epitome of what it means to be a Republican.”

One of Finkbeiner’s top priorities for the coming session is to renew two controversial tax credits for research and development at high-tech companies, including software publishers, Internet businesses, and biotechnology companies. The measures cost the state around $57 million per biennium in reduced tax receipts. His Democratic counterpart, Spokane’s Sen. Lisa Brown, wants to see accountability measures added to ensure that the companies getting tax credits actually create jobs. When Finkbeiner originally sponsored the tax credits 10 years ago, they were the first in the nation, but now many states have them. Finkbeiner contends Washington’s business climate will worsen if the state fails to renew them. “It’s a bottom-line decision,” he says.

NEW JOB, NEW LOOK: LUKE ESSER

Luke Esser is a careful politician who prefers rational argument to passionate oratory. A rare departure came when he eulogized Dr. Robert Atkins on the floor of the Senate. Esser lost a lot of weight on the Atkins diet and has a whole new look for his new job as Senate Floor Leader.

Esser started serving in the state House in 1998 and has only been in the Senate 11 months, representing the 48th District (Kirkland, Redmond, and Bellevue). Since 1996, he has been on McKenna’s staff at the King County Council. (In theory, being a state legislator is part-time work, and many senators and representatives have other jobs.) He also is a sportswriter and once wrote a football column for Seattle Weekly.

As Floor Leader, Esser will be involved in GOP strategizing and needs to be familiar with the parliamentary procedures of the Senate. He describes the latter aspect of the job as being similar to a courtroom attorney. He believes the fact that he’s a lawyer helped him win the post.

One of his top legislative priorities is Bio 21, the effort to provide major research-and-development funding for biotechnology projects. Esser has served on the task force that will provide direction to Gov. Gary Locke on the size and source of the revenue package proposed. Esser says Bio 21 would tap tobacco settlement money to provide $250 million over five years for R&D. Private companies would be required to come up with two dollars for every dollar of state money.

Democratic leader Brown says she’s surprised that Bio 21 would tap tobacco money. “We are one of the few states that has remained true to using that money for health care,” she says. Esser replies, “Economic development is a good sell right now.”

THAT’S ANOTHER THING the four men have in common. They plan on winning. They want to reverse the Democrats’ lock on higher state offices and make Republicans as dominant in Olympia as they are in the other Washington. As Rossi puts it, “Nice guys don’t have to finish last.”

ghowland@seattleweekly.com