Search Results for: Reichert

We had so much fun (and perhaps, beer) at Drinking Liberally Tuesday night, that I haven’t gotten around to posting the podcast until Thursday.

Joining me (Goldy) in our typically insightful and inciteful evening of drunken discourse were Chris, Carl, Lynn and Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly. Topics of discussion include Barack Obama’s possibly historic speech on race, Hillary Clinton’s gender problem, Darcy Burner’s "Responsible Plan" to end the war in Iraq, Rep. Dave Reichert’s ridiculous flip-flop on earmarks, and the teetering state of the national toilet economy.

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_march_18_2008.mp3]

The show is 53:21, and can be downloaded here as a 48.8 MB MP3.

[Podcasting Liberally is recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Darryl for producing the show, and Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

It hasn’t been 24 hours since Darcy Burner and nine other Democratic challengers introduced their Responsible Plan for ending the war in Iraq, and we’re already seeing a surge of new challengers signing on. Blue Jersey reports both Dennis Shulman (NJ-05) and Tom Wyka (NJ-11) have endorsed the plan, while Darius Shahinfar (NY-21) announced his support in a post to The Albany Project. Closer to home, Larry Grant (ID-01) marks the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion by signing on to the plan, while Left in the West reports that Lt. Col. Jim Hunt (MT-At Large) is on board too.

Meanwhile, down in Washington’s Mexico, where Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick are in a battle for the Democratic nomination to face off against Republican incumbent Gordon Smith in Oregon’s US Senate race, the two candidates issued dueling endorsements just minutes apart.

Novick lauds the Responsible Plan and its creators:

“I am proud to throw my support behind this new effort to build a progressive consensus on ending the war in Iraq in a way that will help that nation rebuild, while reversing the damage the war has done here at home,” said Novick. “Many of the ideas contained in the plan are not new and, indeed, I and others have been advocating for them over the past months. But with this clear set of objectives, I believe that Darcy Burner, Major General Eaton and others are laying the foundation for a coalition that I believe can bring our troops home with honor.”

Meanwhile, Merkley stresses a point that holds as true in WA-08 and other districts as it does in the Oregon Senate race:

“I opposed this war publicly from the very beginning. It’s now long past time to bring our sons and daughters home, repay the debt we owe our veterans, and restore America’s standing in the world,” said House Speaker Jeff Merkley said. “Gordon Smith and the Bush Administration led us into this war and have never offered a plan to get us out. Smith has manipulated and confused the media and the public and done nothing to bring an end to this war.”

That’s a theme that Burner could easily push in her district where Dave Reichert talks about wanting to get out of Iraq, while voting 100% with President Bush on the war. In response to the Plan, Reichert aide Mike Shield even told the Seattle P-I, “I think both sides would agree we have the same plan: We want our troops home as soon as possible.” The difference is, Burner is actually doing something about it, her efforts made even all the more impressive by the fact that she’s not the one in Congress. And in talking to the Seattle Times, Shields sticks his foot yet further in the congressman’s mouth…

A spokesman for Reichert said the congressman believes military leaders on the ground — not candidates for political office — should make decisions about when and how to end the war.

Huh. Last time I checked, civilian control of the military was a cornerstone of our democracy, and a sacred principle that has guided our officer corps for better than two centuries. But, you know, if an independent military works so well in Pakistan, I suppose it would work here too.

So far, Republican efforts to refute or dismiss the plan have been rather feeble, but I sure hope they keep trying, for as long as Republicans keep championing the status quo, the more voters will start looking elsewhere for leadership. The GOP has long attempted to brand itself as strong on defense, but as Julie points out over on Red State Rebels, voters have already started to redefine the notion of national security: “It’s the Iraq recession economy, stupid.”

That in the end is one of the Responsible Plan’s greatest strengths. It does look to the generals on the ground to determine the logistics of the pull-out, but it doesn’t get bogged down in the logistics itself; the generals will receive instructions to initiate a withdrawal, and as they have done throughout our nation’s history, the generals will follow their orders to the best of their ability. Meanwhile, the Plan broadens the conversation to include the political, diplomatic and economic efforts absolutely necessary to achieve stability in the region, to repair the economic, political and constitutional damage done at home, and to prevent a policy fiasco like this from happening again in the future.

If Reichert and his fellow Republicans have better ideas on how to give the American people what they clearly want, I suggest they come up with their own plan, rather than dismissing this one out of hand. In the meanwhile, Democratic challengers, recognizing an opportunity to change the conversation on national security from the current narrow (and pointless) debate over the outcome of “the surge,” will continue to sign on to the Plan in droves.

UPDATE:
The Oregonian reports on the Merkley and Novick campaigns squabbling over who was first to sign on to the Responsible Plan, but the real money quote comes from the Smith campaign:

And as for the incumbent, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.? “I went to the executive summary and thought Gordon Smith wrote it,” said the senator’s campaign spokesman, R.C. Hammond.

If the immediate goal of the Plan is to change the conversation on national security, then they hit a home run in Oregon. Meanwhile, Merkley elaborates on his endorsement over on Huffington Post.

Apparently, earmarks weren’t much of a problem before the Democrats took over Congress, but now things have gotten so out of control that Rep. Dave Reichert has been forced to take the most dire and resolute action the U.S. Constitution affords a duly elected member of the House of Representives: he’s issued a video news release. That’s the sort of bold move we expect from the 419th most powerful man in the House, just weeks after being denied a lucrative seat on the appropriations committee (you know… the seat he needed “now“), and days after his district lost the biggest contract in Air Force history.

Shorter Reichert: I was in favor of earmarks before I was against them, but “I want to be clear… I am in favor of earmarks.”

BONUS: Guess how long it takes for Dave to remind us he was the sheriff?

When I snarkily commented a while back that while the rest of the presidential field was flying around on chartered Boeing 737s, only Sen. John McCain was campaigning from a French built Airbus A320, I had no idea that McCain’s choice in aircraft was anything more than symbolic. But in the wake of the controversial Air Force refueling contract, we’re learning that McCain’s connections to both Airbus and the tanker contract are closer than anybody imagined.

It was McCain who authored an amendment undermining “buy American” rules that formerly required military equipment to be manufactured in the United States, and McCain who “prides himself in the role he played blocking an earlier version of the tanker deal that gave the contract to Boeing.” And now we learn that three of McCain’s current top aides have been lobbying the Air Force — and presumably McCain — on behalf of Airbus.

Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years.

Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain’s campaign. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain’s national finance chairman.

[…] McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, has been a key figure in the Pentagon’s yearslong attempt to complete a deal on the tanker. McCain helped block an earlier tanker contract with Boeing and prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to develop bidding procedures that did not exclude Airbus.

McCain’s campaign claims that “they never lobbied him related to the issues,” so I guess those two letters McCain wrote the Defense Department were purely coincidental.

In December 2006, just weeks before the Air Force was set to release its formal request for proposals, McCain wrote a letter to the incoming defense secretary, Robert Gates, warning that he was “troubled” by the Air Force’s draft request for bids.

The United States had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization alleging that Airbus unfairly benefits from European subsidies. Airbus in turn argued that Boeing also receives government support, mostly as tax breaks.

Under the Air Force proposal, bidders would have been required to explain how financial penalties or other sanctions stemming from the subsidy dispute might affect their ability to execute the contract. The request was widely viewed as hurting the EADS-Northrop Grumman bid.

The proposed bid request “may risk eliminating competition before bids are submitted,” McCain wrote in a Dec. 1, 2006, letter to Gates. The Air Force changed the criteria four days later.

Rep. Norm Dicks called the removal of the subsidy language a “game changer” that “tilted to Airbus.”

“The only reason that they could even bid a low price is because they received a subsidy,” Dicks said last week. “And Senator McCain jumped into this and said that (the Air Force) could not look at the subsidy issue — which I think is a big mistake, especially when the U.S. trade representative is bringing a case in the (World Trade Organization) on this very issue.”

And it’s not just partisan bloggers like me who are questioning the intersection between McCain’s interference in the tanker contract and his close ties to Airbus lobbyists.

“The aesthetics are not good, especially since he is an advocate of reform and transparency,” said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the aerospace consulting firm Teal Group. “Boeing advocates are going to use this as ammunition.”

Damn right they are. (And if any Boeing advocates want to forward me some ammunition, I promise strict confidentiality.)

Meanwhile, as WA’s Democratic congressional delegation has been noisily defending Boeing and cheering on their decision to officially protest the contract, our region’s lone Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert, has been awfully damn quiet about the loss of 9,000 local jobs and the role of the man he’s endorsed for president. But then, what do you expect from the 419th most powerful man in Congress… a man who lost his bid for a coveted Appropriations Committee seat to an Alabama congressman who had just days before publicly endorsed Airbus over Boeing?

Geez… the only thing more damaging for Reichert than campaigning with President Bush might be campaigning with presidential wannabe and French aerospace enthusiast John McCain.

Yeah, Sen. Barack Obama won the Wyoming Democratic caucus yesterday by a twenty-plus point margin, but his bigger victory came in Illinois, where he won a proxy war with Sen. John McCain in the special election to replace former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Obama cut an ad on behalf of Democrat Bill Foster while McCain personally campaigned with Republican Jim Oberweis. Foster won by a comfortable 53% to 47% margin in a traditionally Republican district in which President Bush garnered 55% of the vote in 2004, and that hadn’t elected a Democrat since the 1970’s. Those who have argued Obama would have long coattails in November are surely cheered by the results.

But yesterday’s special election has deeper implications that have Republicans worried nationwide, possibly presaging a second Big Blue Wave that could potentially reshape congressional politics for a decade or more:

The defeat — whether or not there are national implications — is a major setback for the NRCC and House Republicans. The NRCC spent nearly $1.3 million defending the seat, a significant percentage of the $6.4 million the committee showed on hand at the end of January. That is a major investment of limited resources — only to come up empty.

House Republicans, already dispirited by the loss of their majority in the 2006 election and more than two dozen retirements within their ranks since then, will likely take this defeat hard. Watch to see whether a rash of retirements breaks out over the coming weeks as vulnerable members take the Illinois special election as a sign of things to come in the fall.

Party identity sticks hard, but we may be in the midst of the type of large scale partisan realignment we haven’t seen since the Democrats lost the South in the 1960’s. In 2006 Northeastern Republicans were virtually eradicated from the congressional map, and 2008 is shaping up to do the same in the Midwest. What this means for Washington’s most vulnerable Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert, remains unclear, but… well… it can’t look good from his perspective. Twice now Reichert has been bailed out by multi-million dollar NRCC expenditures in a district that used to pump money into the party under Rep. Jennifer Dunn instead of sucking money out; with an unprecedented number of open seats to defend and a staggering cash disadvantage, the NRCC is going to have to make some tough choices about where they invest their resources.

With so many other fires to fight this cycle, does it make sense for the party to continue to prop up a perpetually needy Reichert? Or, would they be better off protecting stronger incumbents elsewhere, and then coming back with an energetic Reagan Dunn against a freshman Rep. Darcy Burner in 2010, a cycle in which Democrats are due an electoral backlash? I know conventional wisdom dictates that a party’s first priority is to defend the seats they hold, but if Burner is as much of a lightweight as Republicans claim they believe her to be, a 2010 strategy could prove politically savvy. And besides, desperate times call for desperate measures, and the NRCC simply may not have the option of continuing to throw good money after bad.

Regardless of the nominee at the top of the ticket Democrats are poised to make substantial gains in both houses of Congress. How big and lasting those gains are remains to be seen, but either way, shifting demographics and party alignment don’t bode well for the GOP in WA-08.

We’ll never know exactly how much money Dave Reichert raised from First Lady Laura Bush’s $500 per plate Medina fundraiser — because quite frankly, Reichert and his accountants don’t want us to know — but the Darcy Burner campaign is quite a bit more transparent. We set out to generate a modest 250 new donations in response to this second Bush funder, and proceeded to blow past our target: 432 donations for a total of $21,879, over just three days. Once again, amazing.

Republicans have typically outspent Democrats for years, because they simply have more rich people on their side, and have long been the party that ideologically favored the wealthy. But the growing strength of the netroots is beginning to even the playing field, leveraging the resources of the many to balance the money of the few. The First Lady may have raised more money for Reichert on Wednesday than we did for Burner, but we generated more than three times their turnout, proving once again that there are more of us than there are of them.

Meanwhile, over on the right wing blogs, they generally don’t even bother trying to raise money for their candidates. I’m guessing, it’s because they can’t.

So thank you all for your generous support. And if you didn’t contribute this time around, well, it’s never too late:

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

Some links to share…

Thanks to the extraordinary success of the drug war, for the first time in this nation’s history, more than 1% of Americans are in prison. Dominic Holden and Eli Sanders add their thoughts.

Washblog has some thoughtful posts on the same topic, including the frustration from the state’s black community over House Bill 2712 and the real effect of shipping prisoners out of state.

Dan Kirkdorffer posts about Dave Reichert and the environment.

Earlier this week, I responded to a column in a Virginia newspaper that attacked those who are demanding answers about the botched drug raid that left Chesapeake, VA Detective Jarrod Shivers dead. The man who shot him, Ryan Frederick, was incorrectly targeted by the police based upon faulty info from an informant, but Frederick may still face capital murder charges, even though most of his neighbors believe him when he says he thought he was in danger for his life. His supporters held a rally at the jail last weekend.

Finally, this week’s Birds Eye View Contest is up.

I’m filling in for Dave Ross this morning (and through March 6) on News/Talk 710-KIRO. Here’s the show as it’s shaping up so far:

9AM: Are our elected officials hanging on too long?
In this morning’s Seattle Times, editorial columnist Joni Balter complains about the “stacked up” skies and crowded runways of our local political landscape, where our elected officials keep running for reelection, leaving little opportunity for younger leaders to move on up. We’ll debate the pros and cons of seniority and experience versus new blood, after a brief political roundup.

10AM: Are you predictably irrational?
Why do we splurge on a fancy restaurant yet cut coupons for a can of soup? Why do we go back for seconds (or thirds) at an all-you-can-eat buffet, even though we’re uncomfortably full? And why on earth do folks pay $4.15 for a cup of coffee when a few years ago they used to pay about a buck? (I don’t lump myself into that category.) Author Dan Ariely joins us for the hour to talk about his book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.

11AM: How do you motivate kids to do well in school?
All the money in the world and all the latest education reforms won’t amount to hill of beans toward educating our kids, if our kids simply aren’t motivated to learn. In Brooklyn, 2,500 middle school students are receiving free cell phones with 130 free minutes, and additional minutes awarded based on good behavior, homework, test scores and grades… this in a district that bans cell phones in school. Are free minutes or monetary rewards the key to inspiring students these days… or is good old fashioned fear of a crappy job and a crappier life more than enough motivation. I’ll be asking you how you motivate your kids to succeed to school, but first we’ll take a brief look at the so-called “Colbert Bounce.”

Tune in this morning (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

SHAMELESS ASK:
The national blogs are still kicking our ass. We need 20 more local donors to hold up our end of the bargain in support of our candidate, Darcy Burner. Just $5 or $10 is enough to send the message that Dave Reichert won’t be rewarded for his loyalty to the Bush administration, so if you haven’t already given, please give today.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed to Darcy Burner during this current fund drive. Yesterday we set out to respond to First Lady Laura Bush’s $500 per person fundraiser for Dave Reichert by matching the White House donor for donor. We started with a target of 250 donors, and in less than 48 hours have smashed through that to a current tally of 320 donors and over $15,000. By comparison, a birdie tells me that about 125 cars were parked at the event in Medina today, mostly with single occupants. (Of course.) So once again we have proven that there are more of us than there are of them.

Great job, but then, as Joan wrote over on Daily Kos:

Of course, if you wanted to make it an even 500 donations….

I like the way Joan thinks. Let’s extend this another day and go for 500 donations nationwide. And more importantly, don’t let those bastards at Daily Kos and Open Left do it all on their own. They’ve generated considerably more contributions than HA has thus far, and while sure, they’re a helluva lot bigger than we are, damn it, Darcy is our candidate.

I’m not asking for much, just $5 or $10, whatever you can afford. It’s a matter of pride. So please give today.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

I’m filling in for Dave Ross this morning (and through March 6) on News/Talk 710-KIRO. Here’s the show as it’s shaping up so far:

9AM: Q&A with Gov. Christine Gregoire
Gov. Christine Gregoire was in the other Washington this week, and she joins us by phone for the first half hour. Topics of discussion will include the imminent announcement of the Air Force’s new refueling tanker contract, and how to respond if it doesn’t go to Boeing, her threat to sue the federal government over Hanford cleanup, the state of negotiations over federal funding for the State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and the state budget battle in the context of reduced revenue forecasts. Later, KIRO’s business correspondent Jason Brooks will give us an update on the tanker contract and Microsoft’s record $1.3 billion EU fine.

10AM: The race for the White House… is the campaign about to turn dirty?
With one week left to go before the Ohio and Texas primaries possibly settle the Democratic nomination, strategist, pundit and blogger James Boyce joins us again for a recap of last night’s debate, and an analysis of the current state of the campaign.

11AM: Is “No Child Left Behind” making our kids stupid?
Our national obsession with standardized tests as the key to education reform may have spurred marginal improvements in reading and math (or maybe not) but a new survey suggests it has done so at the expense of literature and history. Fewer than half of teens knew when the Civil War was fought, and only a quarter correctly identified Adolf Hitler. And on literature, teens fared even worse. Is our emphasis on the WASL and other standardized tests impoverishing the educations of already impoverished students, or is a liberal arts education an unaffordable luxury in a taxpayer-funded public school?

Tune in this morning (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

SHAMELESS ASK:
Just a reminder, First Lady Laura Bush is in Medina today to raise money for Rep. Dave Reichert, her first fundraiser for a House incumbent this election cycle. As Darcy Burner repeatedly points out, “there are more of us than there are of them”, so let’s prove. We’re in the middle of an netroots fundraiser seeking to match the First Lady donor for donor, and we’re only about a third of the way to our 250 donor target. So if you haven’t given already, please give today, and send the message to Reichert that he won’t be rewarded for his loyalty to the Bush administration.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

Really. I’m finally doing the yard work I’ve been putting off for over a year, and I need to borrow a chainsaw. So if you’ll be at Drinking Liberally tonight, and you have a chainsaw you’re willing to lend me, please bring it with you. I promise not to mass murder anybody. (But if I do, don’t worry, Dave Reichert will catch me 18 or so years from now.)

Other than that, consider this an open thread.

Last summer George W. Bush came to Bellevue WA to raise money for his friend and ally, Rep. Dave Reichert (WA-08), and to thank him for his unwavering support of the president’s policy in Iraq. In response, local and national bloggers joined together to raise an unprecedented $124,000 for challenger Darcy Burner, from over 3,200 netroots contributors… over a weekend in August. Amazing. President Bush has yet to make another foray into a district sporting a netroots challenger.

But this Wednesday, First Lady Laura Bush will be in Medina WA, headlining an exclusive, $500 per person fundraiser in an effort to jumpstart Reichert’s flailing campaign, and… well… we just can’t let this happen unanswered. That’s why we’re joining together again in an effort to raise 250 additional contributions over the next few days.

As Darcy says, there are more of us than there are of them. Help us prove it, and send the message that Republican congressional candidates can’t profit by toeing the Bush line. Every little bit counts, so please give today.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

With President Bush’s job approval ratings consistently hovering around 30-percent, the standard Republican retort is that the ratings of the Democratic controlled Congress are even lower. Of course, there are two parties in Congress, and so it begs the question whether voters are a bit more discerning in attributing responsibility for their profound sense of disappointment…

According to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Feb. 8-10, 2008, only 41% of adults likely to vote this November say they would support the Republican candidate running in their congressional district. Fifty-five percent say they would vote for the Democratic candidate.

The current 14-point margin in favor of the Democrats among likely voters is one of the highest Gallup has seen in recent years, along with two others late in the 2006 campaign.

Of course the election is still a long way off, and that margin could fluctuate wildly between now and November, but a similar result during the final days of the campaign would almost surely predict significant Democratic pickups in the House. And with Democrats holding substantial advantages in both voter enthusiasm and party identification (the Republicans lowest score in 20 years,) a second wave election remains a definite possibility.

One of the knocks against Darcy Burner we’ve frequently heard from concern trolls and self-soothing Reichertphiles is that if she couldn’t ride the big blue wave to victory in 2006, she doesn’t stand a chance against the two-term incumbent in 2008, an analysis that purposefully ignores a host of factors working in her favor the second time around. Near parity in name ID, a widening fundraising advantage, shifting suburban demographics, presidential year turnout and potentially long coattails emanating from the top of the ticket all lead me to believe that with or without a wave, Burner will be in a significantly stronger position in November than she was during her 2006 nail biter. And now it seems likely that she’ll have a second chance to ride that wave.

So how much weight does Rep. Dave Reichert carry with his Republican colleagues? Well, you know Rep. Jo Bonner… the guy they gave that coveted Appropriations seat to…?

On Feb. 11, Bonner publicly endorsed Airbus over Boeing for the contract to replace the Air Force’s aging fleet of air refueling tankers.

So not only doesn’t Reichert get the pork seat he needs “now”, they give it to someone who just 3 days before publicly endorsed sucking pork out of Reichert’s district. Um… what was that the Seattle Times wrote in endorsing Reichert in 2006?

His goal should be to expand his influence and be a stronger voice for change.

Hey Frank… how’s that working out for you?

Whenever we post anything on the race between Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert for WA’s 8th CD, my comment thread fills up, almost without exception, with nasty trolls belittling Burner and her chances this November. But yesterday’s posts were different. Only one comment out of 50 was even remotely trollish, and even at that expressed an uncharacteristic air of resignation…

So I’m going to have to endure at least 2 years of Dumbass Darcy. Yuck.

Now perhaps our trolls are just hopeless romantics, and as such were too busy serenading their sweethearts on Valentines Day to spew their usual bile into the threads. Nah… that can’t be it. No, I’m guessing that despite their rabid readership of this blog they claim to hate, and their obvious dislike of all things both Darcy and Democratic, that air of resignation is real — for even the whackiest of wingnuts can occasionally sense reality creeping up on them, and man, reality doesn’t look too good for the folks on the other side right now.

The typical defense of Reichert has always been an attack on Burner, but the trolls seem to be losing the heart even for that… and why shouldn’t they, as Reichert’s vulnerabilities as a candidate continue to be exposed outside the careful coddling of a Republican majority? But even more discouraging to local R’s must be the dawning realization that Burner isn’t a one hit wonder, and that her 2008 campaign is gonna be at least as competitive as her come from nowhere challenge in 2006.

Reichert’s fundraising numbers suck; he’s lazy and arrogant and unaccustomed to putting the kind of work into campaigning expected in swing districts, even of incumbents. We all know that. But Burner continues to impress, establishing herself as one of only a handful of Democratic challengers to achieve superstar status amongst both netroots activists like me, and the DC establishment.

“Dumbass Darcy”…? Not so much. Indeed according to Congressional Quarterly, Burner has made the list of Top Ten challengers from either party in both total receipts ($874,000 for 7th place) and cash on hand ($607,000 for 5th place.) And she’s one of only four Democrats to make it onto both lists. And, she’s done all that while garnering over 88% of her money from individual contributors (compared to only 59% for Reichert.)

It’s gonna be a tough reelection for Reichert… and even the trolls are starting to admit it.