Stumping for an announced candidate Saturday in Federal Way, unannounced noncandidate Dino Rossi was mum as ever about whether he would change that stance.

Desperate for help reading the Rossi tea leaves, I turned to someone close to the former state senator. Very close. Standing right next to him, in fact.

“I don’t know,” said Rossi’s 13-year-old son, Joseph, when I asked if his dad would run for U.S. Senate. “Hopefully.”

“If it was up to me, he would definitely be running.”

There you go. How influential is that endorsement? I have no idea, but remember Rossi’s reason for declining the last Senate race was that he didn’t want to move his family to D.C.

Earlier, at the campaign kickoff for state Senate candidate Tony Moore, Federal Way City Councilman Jim Ferrell introduced Rossi as “United States, I mean, former Sen. Dino Rossi.”

Rossi chuckled politely.