According to Roll Call, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has chosen the first batch of 22 House challengers for inclusion in their coveted Red-to-Blue program… and looky whose name is at the top of the list:
Darcy Burner (Wash. 8th)
Phyllis Busansky (Fla. 9th)
Francine Busby (Calif. 50th)
Joe Courtney (Conn. 2nd)
John Cranley (Ohio 1st)
Jill Derby (Nev. 2nd)
Tammy Duckworth (Ill. 6th)
Brad Ellsworth (Ind. 8th)
Diane Farrell (Conn. 4th)
Steve Filson (Calif. 11th)
Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y. 20th)
Tessa Hafen (Nev. 3rd)
Baron Hill (Ind. 9th)
Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio 15th)
Ron Klein (Fla. 22nd)
Ken Lucas (Ky. 4th)
Patricia Madrid (N.M. 1st)
Harry Mitchell (Ariz. 5th)
Chris Murphy (Conn. 5th)
Lois Murphy (Pa. 6th)
Heath Shuler (N.C. 11th)
Peter Welch (Vt. At-large)
Of course, Darcy Burner is at the top, because the list is in alphabetical order, but the fact that she made it at all is both an indicator of how seriously the DCCC is now taking WA-08, and a tribute to Burner’s hard work and natural talents. Burner has proven to DC insiders what she believed all along… that she’s the perfect candidate to represent her district.
This is a big deal. A few short months ago both parties were writing off this race. Now, thanks in part to the netroots-fueled fundraising surge that helped Burner blow past her first quarter targets, the Reichert campaign is running scared and the DCCC is committing significant resources into the district.
“This is an exclusive program that rewards the candidates who and campaigns that are most skilled, not only at raising money on their own, but at getting their message across to the voters they hope to represent,” [DCCC chairman Rep. Rahm] Emanuel explained in the memo.
In the 2004 cycle, two dozen Red-to-Blue candidates each took in about $250,000 in additional donations thanks to the program, but the DCCC promises that this year’s effort will be even bigger, with the program launching earlier in the cycle and many more candidates expected to participate.
The Roll Call piece goes on to specifically mention nationally hyped Red-to-Blue races like Francine Busby’s bid to replace the disgraced Duke Cunningham in CA-50 and Tammy Duckworth’s race to succeed the retiring Henry Hyde in IL-6. But as I noted the other day, the highly respected Rothenberg Political Report now ranks the Reichert-Burner race as more competitive than either of those two high profile contests.
In addition to direct financial aid and support, the Red-to-Blue candidates names will be circulated to donors across the nation. Burner will also be paired with a Democratic Member of Congress for “mentoring.”
Mentors, [Rep. Adam] Schiff stressed, are chosen carefully. They essentially enter into contractual agreements, pledging to visit their prot
Yeah Baby!
Damn she’s sexy.
Now all we have to do is get Senator Maria “Like The Blondie Song” Cantwell to turn around and get straight on the Iraq debacle and S. 333 and we got ourselves an inspiring little campaign season here.
Republican hacks will be mocked as the David Dukes and Pat Robertsons they are.
Darcy has punched Dave in his phony green bread-basket.
Reichert is circulating a letter among Congress begging Exxon to pay up on the Valdez oil spill damage award.
Darcy said that while she supports Reichert’s efforts, “I’ll be more impressed when he does something. He could introduce legislation, or push to roll back big oil companies’ billion-dollar tax breaks.”
They’ve got $400M for Lee Raymond, but they want to low-ball the $4.5 billion settlement to $25 million.
Dave’s answer? Send ’em a letter.
That’s a $4.5b billion judgement, not a settlement. Exxon has forced the victims into court to get their recompense.
Reichert is a pathetic closeted homosexual like the rest of them, the whining baby.
He had better get himself shot or something, get the hell out of this race.
He’s a classic one-termer. He has no business being a legislator.
Regardless of whether Burner wins, or the House flips, Bush is already defeated — he no longer has a Congress goose stepping to his extremist neocon agenda. Republican congressmen are already distancing themselves from Bush for their own political survival. They can read polls.
Reichert used the Green River case opportunistically to waltz into Congress. I didn’t pay much attention to him in 2004, but why did his 20 year fuck up get him elected?
He was a lead detective and often head of a task force until 1990, and he chased the wrong man for 3 years while 37 more murders were committed by Ridgeway. Dave ignored the only survivor in his obsession with Melvin Foster, a Tacoma cab driver. Foster, finally went public telling the Sheriff’s department and the task force to “lay an egg or get off the nest”.
Reichert took a lot of the credit for Gary Ridgeway’s capture, but it was the DNA evidence the task force gathered from Ridgeway in 1987 that matched up with DNA taken from the Green River victims that finally tripped Ridgeway up.
People were just so glad that they got somebody, they gave Reichert more credit than he deserved.
2, 3
The world’s richest company is a deadbeat judgment creditor. Hmmm. Sounds like a case for court-imposed sanctions.
When will the media start looking into Sheriff Davie’s trouble with women? And way to go Darcy, she’s just part of the wave of Democratic leadership taking back our government and re-instituting our American way of life.
RR @7 Hmmm… how about .5% of their earnings each day they refuse to pay? Sounds fair no?
Tell us, Left, of Sheriff Davie’s women troubles.
Remind our comrades and let us explore his shortcomings afresh.
Sure, he looks good flexing homosexually next to J.P. Patches the Clown, but Sheriff Davie has trouble with women? Whatever do you mean?
Roger @ 7
For all the blithering and whining we hear from corporate and insurance interests about “frivolous lawsuits,” have you noted how frivolous defenses to lawsuits are far more common? Exxon et al will endlessly fund patently frivolous defenses to claims just to wear down plaintiffs and get them to take dimes on the dollar. Corporate defendants would rather pay lawyers and expert witnesses than pay the meritorious claims of injured parties. I’m sure that Republicans will soon take up the issue of adequately sanctioning frivolous defenses to lawsuits, won’t they?
Leftist @ 11
I’m a little disappointed, frankly.
Don’t you know that there are good law suits and bad law suits?
See good lawsuits are the thousands of lawsuits that choke the courts from corporations suing EACH OTHER. Bad lawsuits are the lawsuits that come from PEOPLE.
See, there’s a distinction there. You act as if a plaintiff is a plaintiff is a plaintiff.
Please.
Harry @ 6
Look, it never made sense to me. Ridgway was one of the prime suspects all along and he was clearly ignored. The facts seem to be that if he had been watched more closely an unknown number of women NOT attributed to the original killings would be alive today.
There is a story there that has not been told in the wake of the capture.
dlaw@ 12
I apologize. I lapsed into hopeless liberal naivete there for a moment. I forgot that courts exist solely as a publicly-funded arena for the resolution of corporate disputes. Mere individuals should just suck it up when they have grievances; government and governmental services, after all, exist only for the elite.
Plaintiff v. Plaintiff. I just never thought much about that. Great point.
I LOOOOVE the way we’re gettin’ shit straightened around here this morning.
Can I get you guys some coffee or somethin’?
In fairness, Darcy Burner is at the top of the list because its an alphabetical list of names, and she’s a ‘B’. But its still really great!
Every little advantage helps these days.
I couldn’t agree more about the “frivolus defense” argument. That’s what makes my blood boil so much every few years when the various “reform” measures are pushed by insurance industry.
Sometimes it is explicit, but more times it is just an insistence that “the Plaintiff meet their burden of proof”. Translation: “We know we owe you the money. It’s just that we will wait until the last minute to pay you, and hope your economic circumstances become so desperate in the meantime that you eventually settle for pennies on the dollar”.
Then every once and a while they (the insurance industry, through their mis-labelled advocacy groups) will issue a press release which mis-characterizes the facts of the particular case, arguing that the Plaintiff “won a huge settlement”, and implying the poor blameless defendant will be forced into bankruptcy causing the loss of thousands of jobs as a result, and everyone will pay higher insurance premiums. Who in the hell “WINS” a settlement? A settlement is an agreement to compromise, not a football game. If the insurance company didn’t think they were legally liable, they wouldn’t have settled. And the defendant company isn’t going to pay, the insurance company is. And the facts are usually quite different from those publicized by the insurance industry, but those corrections seldom have the impact of the national exposure these stories get.
My opinion: if you are an insurer and the Plaintiff has a legitimate case, pay them early and pay them fairly. If they don’t have a case, then try it, don’t settle it and then complain about being “forced” to settle it later.
Regarding benefits of being earlier in the alphabet, here’s a link discussing increased likelihood of tenure and higher pay in certain academc fields based on last names begining earlier in the alphabet regardless of similar qualifications. Maybe it will help.
http://www.marginalrevolution......y_of_.html
Rujax @ 15
Not “plaintiff VS. plaintiff”. I wrote “a plaintiff IS A plaintiff IS A plaintiff”. Left was getting confused, thinking that all plaintiffs are equally undeserving. There are corporate plaintiffs as well. After all.
What a refreshingly informative thread without those righty morons posting their neuroses.
I gave Darcy $100 yesterday.
Anybody wanna bet me $50 that she loses?
I’d put up $5000, but I’m just a poor grad student.
But I’ll take the $50, it’ll be money in the bank.
I still can’t figure out what psychological disorder you guys have that makes you guys think you can beat Reichert with some random ex-Microsoft employee/law school dropout. Laura Ruderman? Possibly. Ross Hunter? Possibly. Darcy Burner? Not a chance in hell.