As promised, I just got off the phone with Jim Pinkerton. If you ever plan on calling him, I hope you can type fast.

"We're looking at our legal options. Bear in mind this is only Tuesday. What we're pointing to is that, first and foremost, what happened on Saturday was not a legal thing -- it was a political thing," Pinkerton said.

He called it a "political ripoff" and said Esser "announced results before results existed."

[More:]

"I was struck to see in one of the Seattle papers this morning that Chris Vance, a former Republican party chairman and declared McCain supporter, said that nobody won or lost anything on Saturday. So that's an interesting concession to make. So, why did Mr. Esser say that he had the results, Pinkerton asked rhetorically."
(I just want to take a minute to clarify that Pinkerton said that part about Pinkerton asking rhetorically himself. As you will read, Pinkerton is a quote machine.)

"I think he wanted to break our momentum."

Huck's adviser said he read with interest that Esser has ties to Attorney General Rob McKenna, who is McCain's state campaign chairman.

"What he did certainly greatly, enormously served the interest of the McCain campaign ... I find that outrageous and I think he should apologize."

I told him that Esser said last night that he wasn't sorry for calling the race. He said something like, "Iowa's now reporting that 98 percent of their precincts are counted ... "

He quipped that he's sure Esser wouldn't apologize: He's looking for an ambassador position for the McCain administration.

"All we're saying is that the state party chair, Mr. Esser, ought not to put his thumb on the scale.

"On Sunday we tried to reach him to say, What did you do, Mr. Esser? He wouldn't take the calls from our campaign counsel. When our campaign counsel accidentally got through, he mumbled ... and then hung up on her."

He said hanging up on someone is a "real statement. It's a real you-know-what. And he did. So that kind of tells us, or tells me at least, everything we need to know."

I asked him if, as some have said, making a fuss over this could hurt Huckabee's campaign in the days leading up to Washington's primary (Feb. 19, if you haven't seen the posters).

"I mean," then he laughed - loud, "it's hard for me to imagine a world in politics when somebody cheats you and you don't call them on it. When somebody breaks the rules and you throw the flag, does it hurt you? I don't think so.

"The perception that the boss of the party, Mr. Esser, is trying to throw the game will get our supporters even more riled up. We're not going to let the party king, King Luke, decide this for us," he said.

Then he paused for a second.

"King Luke, I like that! Boss Esser or King Luke, you take your pick. Use both!"

This from Pinkerton: "blog post looks great, but I would better characterize Chris Vance as a DECLARED McCain supporter, according to Janet Tu, and as a former CHAIRMAN of the Wash GOP"
Done.
Also: "and our campaign counsel is a 'she' -- all the ruder of King Luke!"
Noted.