Two must read posts out recently for folks closely following the race between Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert for WA-08, that certainly should inform coverage in our local media. (I’m not saying they will inform coverage, just that they should.)
The first comes from James at Swing State Project, who analyzes the “cash-on-hand competitiveness” of challengers in the top 75 non-open House races, and finds that Burner ranks fourth, with a 132% rating. Burner’s cash-on-hand lead has been somewhat reported in the local press, but they haven’t let on how extraordinary her advantage really is. Incumbents rarely trail challengers, and almost never by such a wide margin. Yet another reason why WA-08 is widely considered a toss-up in 2008.
Our local press should also carefully study the latest post over at On the Road to 2008, where Daniel does a typically thorough job of fisking the oft repeated “Reichert is a moderate” myth:
As I’ve mentioned numerous times before, there is a pattern to Reichert’s voting record that is not being reported where he opposes legislation from being considered or coming to a vote, seeks to amend and change it, tries to table or kill it, before flipping his vote and voting for it on final passage.
In the 110th Congress alone he has done this 25 times, 17 times casting a final passage vote that seemingly “broke” from party ranks.
It is hard to ignore the facts as Daniel presents them—arranged and cited in a nice neat table—but so far, that is exactly what our local media has done. Reichert may not be the most conservative member of Congress, but he’s no “conscience driven independent,” his much touted splits with his party almost always coming after the battle is lost, and even then only just for show.
But don’t take my word for it, read the whole thing and analyze the data for yourself.
Unfortunately you are probably correct that this should be covered but will not be by our lazy MSM.
On another note, the curiously absent Piper reappears this morning in an agonizingly long fart over at Crosscut on the King county republican convention at which they failed to retain a quorum and conduct business.
Requiring all of those procedural votes — on whether to have a vote on the bill’s rule, on the rule itself, on whether to have amendments, on the amendments themselves, on tabling, on recommital, on quorums, and on and on and on — is a major part of the House GOP strategy of gumming up the works. Slow things to a crawl through endless (losing) procedural votes, then complain that nothing gets done.
Sheriff Hairspray is content to participate in all of that malarkey, knowing full well how each of those votes will come out (and always voting on the GOP side), then may “support” the eventual final bill, knowing full well how that vote will come out. It’s so damn cynical, and so damn beyond the attention span of the traditional media.
Hey Goldy,
You should get a couple of carpools together and caravan down to Burner’s shindig in Puyallup tomorrow.
Piper is just as annoying on Cross-Cut as he was over here, but the the Charles Royer article is really good.
http://www.crosscut.com/politi.....+any+more/
I agree that Burner’s success in getting campaign contributions has been impressive. It’s pretty rare for a challenger to have such a big advantage in total amount recieved, number of contributors, and cash on hand at this stage of the race.
It could be that my previous speculation may be correct: The national GOP is “writing off” the Congressional races, leaving each candidate to sink or swim on their own, and holding back on their money to try to win the Presidential contest. If they can win the Presidency they can continue to obstruct investigaton of GOP activities, fail to enforce Democratic legislation, pardon GOP insiders making them “conviction-proof”, and otherwise continue the Bush II legacy.
If at the same time the GOP can absorb additional losses in the House and Senate, but still maintain at least 40 seats in the Senate (which allows them to filibuster Democratic bills), and a sufficient minority in the House to prevent a veto override, then they could pretty much ignore the Democratic majority in Congress completely, all while complaining that the Democrats were a “do-nothing Congress”.
That’s why it is so important for the Democrats to get bigger majorities in Congress, especially in the Senate, and to take back the Presidency for the American people.
But remember that today’s success doesn’t mean that Darcy has it made. There are still lots of GOP contributors from around the country who can put in lots of GOP money, maybe even in the last minute. In addition, some of Reichart’s money might be held back with some “independent” group planning to use it to air some last-minute smear ads against Burner in an attempt to “swift-boat” her. It might be helpful to watch the media buys to see if someone is reserving a lot of air time in October and early November which can’t be directly attributabel to a candidate’s ad campaign.
The national GOP might be willing to write of Reichart for now. He should have used his position as a two-term Congressman to consolidate his support, and using it to raise money and offer prestige to GOP challengers for Democratic seats. But if Reichart appears to be a whiney candidate who needs perpetual support and draws disproportionately from national resources again and again, they may be inclined to write him off. But that dynamic might change if they find that the numbers show every seat is important. If it looks like McCain has a fighting chance of winning, and they need Rechart’s seat to maintain a veto-proof minority and to vote against any impeachment resolutions, then Reichart’s neo-con loyalty might be enough to merit some serious cash infusions later in the game.
That was the Pooper? What’s with the long hair and the beard?
What a losing hippie! LMAO!!!
And what a boooooring article. Sure sucks to be you Pooper!
Pooper, here’s a fact for you:
Between his inauguration and through September 11, 2001 George W. Bush didn’t NOTHING to respond to the terrorist attack on the U.S.S. Cole. A balanced person would conclude that it was not a priority for GWB. A tax cut, walking away from the ABM treaty, hamstringing stem cell research, building a Stars Wars boondoggle and many weeks of vacation were the higher priorities.
Newt Gingrich was talking again yesterday. It seems that in his opinion, Bill Moyer “identifies with those who hate America”.
Seriously, who writes these talking points for the Republicans? Do they really believe that this “hate American” stuff means anything, outside of Fox News, Hannity, Limbaugh, and O’Reilly?
7 – rhp, sadly many, many Americans hardly ever question anything put out by those you mention.
How else can they stay on the air?
The myth really is “Reichert is a competent candiate/Congressman.”
Just a reminder: It has been some five hours since Goldy’s post. Now is the time for all loyal Republicans to come to the defense of Reichart, pointing out his accomplishments over the past two terms (well, almost two terms) in office which justify him being retained.
Five hours so far, no response. I think perhaps he has been abandoned?
Following on @9, Kirkdorffer today has a marvelous little analysis of Reichert’s voting strategy in the House (check out the table linked to the post):
http://www.kirkdorffer.com/ont.....cord.shtml
Ummm, YellowPup, did you actually look at Goldy’s post? Not only does he link to Dan’s post (twice), he also quotes exactly the same piece of what Dan wrote in that blog entry.
Duh, that will learn me for not reading the whole post. Ugh.
As president, John McCain would likely pursue policies that will make what we’ve seen from Bush look like a pale imitation of a real fire-breathin’ neocon.
McCain is the candidate of perpetual war in Iraq.
McCain is the candidate who not only ardently backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq but has spent years calling on the United States to depose every dictator in the world.
McCain is the candidate of ratcheting up action against North Korea and Iran, of new efforts to undermine the United Nations, and of new cold wars with Russia and China.
He doesn’t “hate war,” as he has recently claimed, but rather he sees war as indispensible to the greatness of our nation, and military service as a warfighter as the highest calling imaginable.
Four more wars! Four more wars!
Way to position himself in an election that is a referendum on an unpopular war. Jeez, that would be as idtioic as embracing the policies of a president whose job performance the most- disapproved-of in history….oh, yeah, McCain does that too. He’s a sure-fire winner who can’t get over 45% in national polls during the most favorable time of the campaign season.
Lahoo-zaher.
Oh, yeah, and Reichert is a loser too. Fuck.
By the way—there’s a reason why virtually all of John McCain’s assets are in his wife’s name.
Reminder: It has now been seven hours since Goldy posted this topic, and we still have yet to see any rational defense of Reichart’s congressional record by his Republican defenders.
My guess is that their campaign strategy is going to be confined to (a) name calling, and (b) trying to make Burner look like a terrorist “American-hater”.
That’s the best the Republicans can do????????
rhp6033 – I just consider that they HAVE posted everything of substance that Rubber-Stamp Reichert has done during his time in office.
Absolutely …. nothing.