Archives for April 2006

Um… I guess the good news for President Bush is that he’s still more than twice as popular as Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Political reversals at home and continued bad news from Iraq have dragged President Bush’s standing with the public to a new low, at the same time that Republican fortunes on Capitol Hill also are deteriorating, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey found that 38 percent of the public approve of the job Bush is doing, down three percentage points in the past month and his worst showing in Post-ABC polling since he became president. Sixty percent disapprove of his performance.

[…]

A majority of registered voters, 55 percent, say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in their House district, while 40 percent support the Republican candidate. That is the largest share of the electorate favoring Democrats in Post-ABC polls since the mid-1980s.

This grim news for the GOP is offset somewhat by the finding that 59 percent of voters still say they approve of their own representative. But even these numbers are weaker than in recent off-year election cycles and identical to support of congressional incumbents in June 1994 — five months before Democrats lost control of Congress to Republicans.

The emphasis is mine… and well deserved.

Yeah, sure… when I talk up Darcy Burner, you can dismiss that as partisan puffery. But when Roll Call says “Reichert May Face Tough Challenge From Neophyte,” um, well… you can bet the R’s are more than a little bit nervous.

While McMorris, whose district sits safely east of the Cascade Mountains in strong GOP territory, likely will coast back to Congress, Reichert may have to fight tooth-and-nail to become a sophomore.

Reichert represents a classic swing suburban district outside of Seattle that is becoming more Democratic. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) took the 8th district with 51 percent of the vote in 2004, compared to President Bush’s 48 percent, and Reichert won with just 52 percent last time.

“The 8th is a swing, Democratic district,” concedes Reichert’s political consultant Bruce Boram. “Any Democratic opponent who runs against Reichert starts at 43 percent [of the vote].”

Add that more than 60 percent of 8th district voters currently believe the country is on the wrong track, according to recent polls, that the popularity of Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress are at all-time lows and that the district “is definitely trending in the Democrats’ favor,” and “it’s an environment where you have to take that seriously,” Boram added.

The factors Boram ticks off combine to make a potent electoral cocktail, but what could make it a double for Reichert is money.

Democrat Darcy Burner surprised national Democrats, Republicans and probably Reichert by outraising him 2-1 in the first quarter of this year.

She still trails him in overall cash on hand, but she dramatically narrowed the ratio with a stellar three-month period that saw her bring in $140,000 in the last 10 days of March.

Boram said Reichert likely began April with more than $700,000 while Burner had $355,000 in the bank.

Burner gave her campaign $25,000 and loaned it $10,000 but is not expected to seriously self-fund.

“Darcy Burner has done a phenomenal job establishing herself as an aggressive candidate for change right out of the gate,” said Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “She’s really demonstrated she’s going to make a run at this seat.”

She certainly has.

We all know that 4th Congressional District Rep. Doc Hastings is an incompetent, partisan hack… but who knew he was so modest? The General went browsing around Hastings website today, and couldn’t find any mention of his “leadership” of the House Ethics Committee, a tenure during which not a single ethics case has been heard.

You’ve obviously scared everyone in Congress into faithfully following ethics rules. Otherwise, your hearing schedule would be packed. Of course there will always be misunderstandings like Duke Cunningham’s incarceration, the free market lawmaking approach taken by representatives DeLay, Noe, Pombo, Blunt, Doolittle, Harris, Hunter, Ney, Chocola, yourself, and others, and Don Sherwood’s penchant for strangling mistresses, but you’ve obviously found a way to clear their good names without resorting to hearings. That’s one heck of an accomplishment.

You’re doing yourself a tremendous disservice by not publicizing all of this great work. Do yourself a favor and add your Ethics Committee accomplishments to your website. And while you’re at it, put your name and photograph on the Ethics website as well. I couldn’t find either anywhere there. It’s almost like you’re ashamed of the things you’ve accomplished as Chair.

Hmm. Wouldn’t it be nice if Washingtonians could erase our shame by removing any reference to Hastings from our congressional delegation? Jimmy over at McCranium has some suggestions.

Despite the fact that he is “extremely proud of all that we have achieved in the last eight months,” Mike McGavick’s campaign manager, Ian Goodhew announced his resignation yesterday. In a prepared statement, Goodhew said that “our early success has taken more of a personal toll on me than I had anticipated.”

Um, yeah… success always does that, I guess.

For his part, McGavick sent Goodhew off with a glowing letter of recommendation:

“Ian has shown great leadership throughout this campaign. Because of his dedication and hard work, we are in a great position. Our grassroots effort is strong, we have had early fundraising success and a great team has been assembled.”

Which of course explains why Goodhew was booted resigned on his own volition.

No doubt the campaign has taken a personal toll on the relatively inexperienced Goodhew, but clearly, the handwriting was on the wall. As Daniel points out, even Republican pollster Strategic Vision shows McGavick mired in a double-digit deficit, even after months of television ads. Other polls confirm McGavick’s total lack of traction.

Unless McGavick wants to dump his personal fortune into this race he’s going to have to rely on the national GOP to raise the kind of money he needs to stay competitive. But that money comes with a loss of local control, and his campaign’s poor showing thus far made a campaign shakeup inevitable. Apparently Goodhew and McGavick chose sooner rather than later.

McGavick, a former campaign manager himself (Slade Gorton, 1988) is now moving on to his third campaign manager in less than a year. Hmm. I guess he’s hoping third time will be the charm.

Hmm. As it turns out, both Markos and Jerome are real people. Real people with Treos attached to their thumbs, but real people nonetheless.

A packed crowd of about 200 showed up at the Labor Temple last night, and a smaller group went out for drinks afterwards. Andrew has the details.

Everything went incredibly smoothly yesterday, which I guess validates the concept of a volunteer, netroots organized book tour. Kudos to Nick for organizing last night’s event, and a big thanks to the SEIU for footing the bill. (Local 775, Local 925 and District 1199NW.

I had the privilege of hearing Markos and Jerome repeat their message to a number of different audiences and respond to a variety of questions, and I was struck by how commonsense — even obvious — some of their criticism of the Democratic Party really is. Crashing the Gate may be an intentionally provocative title, but my hope is that if party officials read the book and take the criticism constructively, that gate will swing wide open, and they will welcome the help of the netroots in revitalizing our party.

As both Jerome and Markos pointed out repeatedly, the Republicans have all these huge infrastructure advantages… and yet they just barely win. It won’t happen overnight, but if we can manage to overcome the institutional inertia and shove our party into the 21st century, we really can achieve a Democratic majority.

UPDATE:
Fixed the post to recognize all the SEIU locals who supported the event. My apologies.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos fame, and his co-author Jerome Armstrong of MyDD will be in town this week promoting their new book, “Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People Powered Politics.”

Please join me tonight in welcoming Markos and Jerome to Seattle:

Friday, April 7th, 7:00 p.m.
Seattle Labor Temple
2800 1st Ave, Hall 1
Seattle

There will be a discussion, Q&A, and book signing, open to the general public and the media. Think of it as a very special edition of Drinking Liberally… but without the drinking. (Though expect there will be some of that afterwards.)

If you can’t make it tonight, there will be to more opportunities tomorrow (Saturday, April 8th) to meet the authors:

11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Marymoor Park
6046 West Lake Sammamish Pkwy NE
Redmond

7:00 p.m.
Orca Books
509 E 4th Ave
Olympia

Again, all the events are open to the public, no reservations needed, so please come out and show your support for Markos and Jerome, and the tremendous work they are doing in building the netroots and transforming the Democratic Party.

NOTE:
I’m out playing the role of “publicity flak for a day,” so consider this one and only post an open thread. There will be media availability at all three events, so if you are a journalist looking for some one-on-one, please contact me, or just show up and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.

… Or so Carl says:

My first revelation is that McGavick seems to have made up his title. His bio page on his website says, “Prior to joining Safeco, Mike held a number of positions at Chicago-based CNA Financial Corporation starting in 1995.” Yet from my “research” I’ve discovered that there was no position called “a number of positions.” This is as disturbing as I am phony.

Second, where’s the formality? The page keeps calling him “Mike.” He’s a man who keeps kicking off his run for the Senate. You’d think Mr. McGavick would be more appropriate. But no, it’s Mike this and Mike that. He has no sense of the importance of the Senate! Did he tell his underlings at CNA financial to call him Mike when he was a “number of positions,” or is a sense of decorum something that you leave behind to the corporate world?

Finally, does he eat babies? The 8 paragraph bio he wrote didn’t mention it one way or the other. If he’d really never eaten a baby, why not mention it in the bio? Is there a history of baby eating? Does he know any baby eaters? Does he eat them raw or at least have the decency to cook the babies he eats? Are you too stupid to figure out that I haven’t answered the baby eating question, and instead just put a bunch of silly questions?

‘Nuff said.

Apparently, some of my readers would like to discuss Darcy Burner’s law school grades. Good idea:

Contract law: A-
Torts: A-
Civil Procedure: A-
Basic Legal Skills: A
Property law: A
Criminal law: A
Constitutional law: A

Hmm. We all know Darcy’s smart, but it takes a lot of hard work to get grades like that at a top law school like the UW.

Looks like the Reichert folk are starting to feel the heat from Darcy Burner, whose campaign to unseat the first term, 8th Congressional District Republican just jumped into the national spotlight with a spectacular first quarter fundraising report. Burner out-raised Reichert two-to-one during the quarter, including an impressive $90,000 in the final two days of the reporting period… and her $536,000 total is more than any Democrat has ever raised at this point in any 8th CD race. Ever.

Up until now the standard GOP response to Burner has been to merely dismiss her as a novice and a political lightweight… but no more. Local Republicans are nervous, and you can see it in the rhetorical beads of sweat dripping off the knotted brows of our good friend Stefan over at (un)Sound Politics.

Sounding like a pale imitation of, well… me… Stefan set out yesterday to strike a deadly blow against the surging Burner campaign, but the only damage he managed to inflict was to his own, already battered and bruised credibility.

Stefan makes three charges against Burner, that 1) she has inflated her resume by claiming to be a “former Microsoft executive;” 2) that she’s neither a regular voter nor involved in her community, and 3) that there are “funny inconsistensies” [sic] in her “stories” about leaving Microsoft.

Gee. Going after inflated resumes and sparse voting records. I wonder where Stefan got that idea? What… he couldn’t find any mother beating or horse associations in her background?

From the way Stefan thematically borrowed from some of my better known scoops, one might think I was as much his target as Burner. And ordinarily I’d be flattered by such mimicry… that is, if Stefan hadn’t done such a crappy job of it. I take great pride in my muckraking — in both its accuracy and its impact — and as the local blogosphere’s most effective practitioner of the art, I’ve got a bit of advice: good muckraking requires more than just a good rake, Stefan. You also need to find a little, um… you know… muck.

Indeed, Stefan’s fanciful essay was so thin on fact and so thick on conjecture, it’s really not even worth refuting. But he and I have a special sort of personal bond, and I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings by withholding my critique… so let’s take his fantasies in numerical order. Stefan writes:

Burner is inflating her resume. Burner’s campaign and supporters in the media call her a “former Microsoft executive”. This is an enormous exaggeration. She was not any kind of “executive”, a term customarily applied only to the most senior company officials…

Oh please.

Burner uses the word “executive” in the little “e” generic sense to describe her role at Microsoft to the general public. What did she do there? She managed a multimillion dollar budget. She managed managers and oversaw an entire team of employees. She worked with businesses from all over the world to help them benefit from Microsoft’s technology. So was she an “executive”…?

ex

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Oh man… there’s so much to talk about:

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos fame, and his co-author Jerome Armstrong of MyDD will be in town this week promoting their new book, “Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People Powered Politics.”

Our producers Gavin & Richard (you know, the guys with the portable recording studio) are out galavanting through Europe, so we weren’t expecting to record a podcast this week… until Bruno & the Professor gallantly rode in on their white steeds to save the day. The result is a very special edition of Podcasting Liberally, not just because it’s a bit noisier, but because I also conducted a special one-on-one interview with WA’s 8th Congressional District candidate Darcy Burner.

In today’s column, the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly writes about the reader response to his previous broad defense of Sen. Maria Cantwell. While he says the response was mixed, he excerpts quite a few vitriolic letters from the anti-Cantwell camp.

8th Congressional District candidate Darcy Burner blew past her fundraising targets with an impressive surge during the final few days of the first-quarter reporting period.

Writing in Vanity Fair, Michael Wolff describes White House press secretary Scott McClellan: