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NRCC: Reichert at-risk

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Ho hum. Another election cycle, another gaping money pit in WA-08 for the NRCC:

The National Republican Congressional Committee is launching a revamped incumbent retention program designed to help vulnerable House Republicans raise cash for their reelection campaigns — and warning members that the committee will not bail out those who are insufficiently prepared for competitive races.

The NRCC plans to unveil the first 10 incumbents who qualify for their Patriot Program at a Tuesday briefing to political action committees. … Among those on the list are Reps. Dan Lungren, Ken Calvert and Brian Bilbray of California, Judy Biggert of Illinois, Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, Thad McCotter of Michigan, Erik Paulsen of Minnesota, Leonard Lance of New Jersey, Christopher Lee of New York and Dave Reichert of Washington.

No doubt I’ve been disappointed and indeed depressed by Darcy Burner’s failure to close the deal these past two elections against the profoundly mediocre Rep. Reichert, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t make a huge contribution toward the Democrats achieving their House majority. Every dime Darcy forced the NRCC to spend propping up the financially floppy Reichert is a dime they couldn’t spend in another district. That’s how the 50 state strategy works.

In Jennifer Dunn’s hands WA-08 was a cash cow for the Republican Party, exporting dollars into competitive races nationwide, but even after three terms, the ever vulnerable Reichert is still sucking at the party teat. And while that may not sound like much of a victory, it still provides some genuine consolation for those of us who understand the bigger picture.

Reichert voted against funding roads in King and Pierce counties

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So how much of “conscience driven independent” is Rep. Dave Reichert?

“Twice, Representative Reichert could have voted to support major improvements to E Sammamish Lake Parkway, Route 162 in Orting and upgrades to the transit network in Eatonville – and put Washingtonians to work.  And twice, Reichert just said ‘no’ to what’s best for King and Pierce Counties,” said Andy Stone, Western Regional Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Fortunately, the economic stimulus bill passed without his support, so Reichert’s home district will get these federal dollars anyway.  But no thanks to him.

New radio ad targets Reichert

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The conventional wisdom in political circles is that incumbents like Dave Reichert should become more secure the longer they hold office, but it’s beginning to look like the third-term Republican is becoming even more of a DCCC target than he was the previous two elections.  Reichert already has a challenger in the form of a female, ex-Microsoft executive (and no, her name isn’t Darcy Burner), and now finds himself one of only five Republican incumbents being targeted with radio ads for his vote against President Obama’s economic recovery package.

[audio:http://aufc.3cdn.net/38715940c2c9fd0336_odm6b6426.mp3]

The ad is paid for by Americans United for Change, a labor group, and it asks whether Reichert will continue to embrace Rush Limbaugh and his partisan divisiveness, or whether he’ll work with President Obama to enact real change.  (My guess is, the majority of his constituents would prefer the latter.)

Thanks in part to the complicity and/or laziness of our local media, Reichert has done a good job in recent years portraying himself as a “moderate” (whatever that means) while continuing to vote the Republican party line whenever his vote really counts.  A relentless campaign over the next two years to educate voters about the real Reichert could pay off handsomely in 2010.

Reichert (as usual) has it both ways on stimulus package

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Not exactly a profile in courage:

US Representative David G. Reichert’s first mention that he “voted no twice on the stimulus package” earned him a standing ovation that echoed through the Elks Club auditorium. A declaration that “we should be angry” provoked screams of, “We are!”

[…] But in the short term, Reichert acknowledges that the stimulus bill will deliver tangible good news to his constituents. By April, they are to start seeing the bill’s tax cuts reflected in slightly larger paychecks. Within months, there may be job listings for construction projects, perhaps for the high-speed rail corridor – one of 10 nationwide to share in $8 billion in new funding – that runs along Reichert’s district. By the end of the year, local companies in this tech-centric area may be reaching for some of the money to improve the digital infrastructure of the healthcare industry.

“I feel a responsibility at this point to make this still work,” Reichert said.

What absolutely (and absolutely typical) shameless hypocrisy.  When the Seattle Times lauds Reichert for his “conscience-driven independence,” I guess they’re really referring to his independence from an actual conscience.

(Oh, and speaking of the Times… why the hell am I reading this article on Reichert in the Boston Globe, instead of the Times, P-I or TNT?)

Reichert Did Not Have the Money to Pay for TV Ad Blitz

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While everyone is wondering how Gov. Chris Gregoire beat Dino Rossi (I mean damn, with that powerful Seattle Times endorsement for Rossi, she sure had it tough), I’m more interested in why Darcy Burner didn’t beat incumbent Republican Rep. Dave Reichert in Washington’s 8th Congressional district.

Part of what helped Reichert fend off Burner’s challenge was the $300,000 TV ad blitz he did in the final week of the campaign, lampooning Burner for saying she had an economics degree from Harvard. In fact, she had a B.A. from Harvard with a concentration in computer science and a specialization in economics. The Seattle Times made a big deal out of the difference (they put it on the front-page), which lent legitimacy to Reichert’s mudslinging ads.

I wasn’t as exorcised about the issue as Goldy, but I must admit, saying you have an economics degree from Harvard (Harvard!) when it’s actually a minor, is hardly a front-page offense.

Nonetheless, Reichert’s ads were devastating. When I first saw them, I thought, “This campaign is over.”  Burner was beating Reichert handily in the polling heading into the final week. It looks like Reichert’s last-minute ad blitz reversed the trend. 

The real loser isn’t Burner, though. The real loser is campaign finance law. According to Reichert’s campaign finance reports, he did not have the cash on hand to pay for those ads. That means he got a loan (illegal) from either his media buyer, Media Plus, or from the TV stations. On October 31, I reported:

Totaling up his fundraising for October, Reichert had about $1.4 million to spend. However, his ad buys for the month total about $1.7 million. That puts him about $300,000 in the red, which is how much ad time he has booked during the last week of the campaign. That means his closing ad blitz isa gimme from the TV stations and Media Plus. (As I’ve reported, local TV stations have a long standing deal with Media Plus allowing the firm to secure ad time on credit.)

Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik quips, “These ads shouldn’t say, ‘This message approved by Dave Reichert.’ They should say, ‘Paid for by Media Plus.’”

I’m waiting to hear back from the Reichert campaign for their explanation of the deficit spending. 

I looked at the latest numbers available at the Federal Elections Commission to see if Reichert raised that $300,000 before November 4. If he had—setting aside the question of whether or not it’s fair that his campaign could get an advance on TV time—it would at least show that his campaign ultimately had the financial support to run the campaign it ran.

If he didn’t bring in the $300,000 before Nov. 4, it means he circumvented election law. And worse, his violation—getting an illegal loan for TV time—may have been directly responsible for handing him the election. 

According to the FEC, in the last week of the campaign, Reichert raised $132,600. That’s $167,400 shy of what he owed the TV stations.

Given that the Seattle Times’ rap on Burner was that she relied on out-of-state money (which I debunked here), it’s also worth noting that over 50 percent of Reichert’s last week total, $70,800, came from out of sate. And $45,500, or 34 percent, came from PACs. 

A few noteworthy local donors: Linda Nordstrom gave $1,000. Amazon’s PAC gave $1,000.

Kathy Neukirchen, the president of Reichert’s media buyer, Media Plus, is listed as having donated $1,000. Her donation should actually be listed as $167,400, the difference between the $300,000 ad buy and the $132,600 Reichert was able to raise in the final week of the campaign.

I have tried several times to contact Reichert’s campaign about this issue, and they have not responded.

Reichert: Deficit Spending

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When I first reported about the “GOP on Borrowed Time” controversy—the story that Rep. Dave Reichert’s media consultant, Media Plus, was securing the candidate’s TV time on credit (a potentially illegal campaign loan)—Media Plus told me the ad time didn’t constitute a loan. Media Plus president Kathy Neukirchen told me Reichert pays for the booked time on a running basis, paying for the ad placement the day after the ad runs. In essence, the explanation for the advance is: He’s good for it.

It’s not the standard way TV stations deal with campaigns because political campaigns, which survive on fundraising, aren’t the most trusty debtors. Traditionally, ad time for political campaigns must be paid for in advance.

I’ll let the FEC sort through Reichert’s deal with Media Plus— Darcy Burner’s campaign has filed a complaint about the cash advances.

But the latest campaign finance data shows Reichert is not good for it. The numbers indicate he does not have the cash to pay for the media time that Media Plus has secured for him for the final week of the campaign.

Totaling up his fundraising for October, Reichert had about $1.4 million to spend. However, his ad buys for the month total about $1.7 million. That puts him about $300,000 in the red, which is how much ad time he has booked during the last week of the campaign. That means his closing ad blitz is a gimme from the TV stations and Media Plus. (As I’ve reported, local TV stations have a long standing deal with Media Plus allowing the firm to secure ad time on credit.)

Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik quips, “These ads shouldn’t say, ‘This message approved by Dave Reichert.’ They should say, ‘Paid for by Media Plus.'”

I’m waiting to hear back from the Reichert campaign for their explanation of the deficit spending.

Bipartisanship, Dave Reichert style

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A couple days after the primary, Dave Reichert pissed off more than a few members of the press by issuing a media advisory promising a “major announcement,” only to produce delusional fringe “Democratic” challenger Jim Vaughn at the podium, offering his enthusiastic endorsement.

Well, since then, Vaughn and his bride Sally Daugherty have been regulars in the comment threads here on HA, leaving increasingly insulting and bizarre commentary, such as this doozy from earlier today:

7. Jim Vaughn spews:

Go Darcy. Go home. Go away. Better yet Go buy a smoke detector and be a responsible parent.

Jim

Classy.

Then, of course, there’s this piece of cogent analysis from a couple days ago:

Goldy your actions do not help the Democratic Party. The difference between you and pigs and hockey moms is not lip stick. Reason being you have your head so far up your ass that the only thing on your lips and coming out of your mouth is a bunch of SHIT.

Vaughn claims to be a Democrat, but what he really is, is a sore loser and an asshole, and I’m guessing, more than a touch crazy.  But since Reichert called a press conference to announce Vaughn’s endorsement, I can only assume that Vaughn speaks for the Reichert campaign.

I suppose that’s bipartisanship, Dave Reichert style.

Dave Reichert did NOT catch the Green River Killer

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[EDITOR’S NOTE:  As long as the Reichert campaign is bringing up the issue of resume padding, isn’t it time the media address the real elephant in the room… the simple fact that Reichert’s entire political career is based on the out and out lie that he caught the Green River Killer?  Of course, he didn’t, and most everybody in the media understands that, but nobody is willing to say it publicly because it was the media after all, that willfully gave life to this self-aggrandizing myth.

So in the spirit of full disclosure, I am reprinting this October 2006 special post by Michael Hood, originally titled “It’s the Green River, Stupid.”  And you can read Part II of Michael’s report over on his blog, BlatherWatch. In the meanwhile, please help Darcy refute the lies, by generously giving to her one last time. — GOLDY]

I am not afraid, I’ve had people point guns at me.
— Rep. Dave Reichert

“He desecrated the victims. The public ought to know that.” Tomas Guillen is describing Republican 8th District Congressman Dave Reichert and his manipulation of the Green River murder investigation and the arrest of Gary Ridgway to climb up into party politics.

Guillen’s no political firebrand, he’s a respected Seattle University journalism and criminal justice professor. But as a Seattle Times reporter, he covered the Green River story from its beginnings and has written two books on the subject.

His academic text, Serial Killers: Issues Explored Through the Green River Murders, and Ridgway attorney Mark Prothero’s Defending Gary, both written after Reichert’s 2004 election, tell a starkly different story than does Reichert’s ghost-written autohagiography, Chasing the Devil, My Twenty-Year Quest to Capture the Green River Killer.

Reichert’s record as sheriff was exposed in last week’s devastating reporting by the P-I’s Lewis Kamb who found plenty of former colleagues who’d reveal him to be “an ambitious self-promoter, an inexperienced manager prone to poor decisions, even a close-minded detective more obstacle than asset to a serial murder investigation.”

Reichert refused to be interviewed in person for the P-I’s piece, preferring to answer the reporter’s questions in writing. He did not return our attempts at contact.

(The written material, and people we’ve talked to use some strong adjectives to describe the former Sheriff’s professional behavior: manipulative, self-serving, amateurish, ambitious, creepy, bungling, inappropriate, opportunistic, egotistical, voyeuristic, and stubborn. These are quite different from the descriptives we’ve been hearing for years: heroic, gracious, sensitive, muscular, chivalrous, well-mannered, brave, clean and reverent. You decide).

Sheriff Reichert became the public face of the sensational arrest of the serial killer by elbowing his way in front of the cameras on November 30, 2000 when the sensational collar was announced.

Everyone knows Reichert is the guy who caught the Green River killer- Why? Because he reminds us in every introduction; every speech, interview, and on his website.

It helped get him elected in 2004 in his race against KIRO radio host, Dave Ross; and he still flogs it every time he opens his mouth in his race against Darcy Burner.

Recently, on KUOW’s Weekday with Steve Scher, (in a rare appearance in a venue where he might be seriously questioned) he referenced serial killers no fewer than three times in one hour on the local NPR talk show despite being asked no questions on the subject by Scher, who’s unused to politicians who drop blood instead of names.

Here’s an example: Why is Reichert against abortion? He told a interviewer recently, “I have a great respect for life. I’ve seen a lot of death in my career, worked Green River, seen lots of dead bodies.”

Back in Washington, the Honorable Mr. Reichert is known as the Man from Green River- his longest speech on the House floor during his lackluster first term was about “capturing” Gary Ridgway.

The release of Chasing the Devil, in late July, 2004 was exquisitely synched-up with his primary campaign which was a difficult one with a crowded Republican field anxious to replace the retiring Jennifer Dunn.

Bolstered by both his publisher’s marketing and his own political campaign, it was a perfect PR storm. Reichert’s face was thrust onto the front pages of local papers. He was interviewed on CNN and Court TV in full dress uniform (and every hair present and accounted for) talking about “capturing” the killer.

“Reichert used the serial murder case to move forward,” Guillen told BlatherWatch. “It was a travesty.” Photos released when Ridgway was arrested show Reichert in a suit posing in the bottom of a ravine near the Des Moines Highway.

“He used the grave site of a murder victim for personal ambition,” he says.

Meanwhile, his opponents, Bellevue Councilman Conrad Lee, State Sen. Luke Esser and (now GOP State Chairman) Diane Tebelius were lucky if they made page B-1 with their little coffee klatches, blah-blah press releases, and cheesy meet & greets.

(Chasing the Devil was neither a literary nor a popular success. P-I books critic, John Marshall wrote that Reichert painted himself as “muscular, charismatic, devoutly Christian, a dogged mix of Dudley Do-Right and the Lone Ranger.” Not exactly a bestseller: you can now buy a like new copy on Amazon for $1.74.)

Although otherwise a failure, his book as a political instrument was inspired. Media was flooded with pictures of the sheriff in a hunky muscle shirt sifting for bones at a body dump site, or in full Sheriffian regalia sternly leaning into and staring down the cowering serial killer from across a table. Reichert won the primary easily and got a tremendous knee-up in the November election.

(There’s his hair. It’s magnificent. Dave Ross told us: “He’s got great hair, he’s acknowledged he’s got great hair.” He’s known in legal circles as “Sheriff Hairspray.” [Reichert’s hair]… is always ready for the next photo opportunity,” says Prothero).

“My standing orders were that we were going to campaign on issues,” says Dave Ross. “Rumors I got about Dave or the Green River killer or the release of the book- we weren’t going to touch them.”

But there’s more than a little resume inflation going on in Chasing the Devil. There’s some obfuscatin’. Reichert had been “lead detective” in 1982 as the first bodies surfaced in and around the Green River. His book, however, would let you believe he held the title until 1990, never mentioning that several other detectives led in later murders.

The book is more than three quarters done before he makes passing reference to the fact that the task force had commanders over the “lead detectives.” Former Detective Bob Keppel told the P-I, Reichert was “one detective among many,” and never led discussions about the direction of the task force as a true leader would have.

Actually, he had little to do with the investigation having left the task force in 1990 to climb the bureaucratic ladder in the Sheriff’s Department. What’s more, these new accounts show how Reichert’s tremendous ego was responsible for early police blunders that stalled the investigation and let Gary Ridgway continue killing for decades.

But great hair or not, “He got elected based on Green River, when in fact, he didn’t solve it and he didn’t win against Gary Ridgway,” says Guillen.”

The fact is: technology caught the killer, not Detective Reichert’s dogged shoe-leather sleuthing as his press so dramatically implies. Even then, on Sheriff Reichert’s watch, the saliva sample that could have busted Ridgway as early as 1996 when the DNA technology became available, was not tested until 2001.

Women died in that interim.


[Click through to read It’s the Green River, Stupid: Part 2, including the really creepy parts.  And please don’t forget to give to Darcy.  Thanks.]

Reichert lies about college degree in official Congressional bio

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Let’s see if this, Rep. Dave Reichert’s official Congressional biography, makes the front page of the Seattle Times:

REICHERT, David G., .a Representative from Washington; born in Detroit Lakes, Becker County, Minn., August 29, 1950; graduated, Kent Meridian High School, Renton, Wash., 1968; B.A., Concordia Lutheran College, Portland, Oreg., 1970; U.S. Air Force Reserve, 1971-1976; U.S. Air Force, 1976; police officer, King County, Wash., 1972-1977; sheriff, King County, Wash., 1997- 2004; elected as a Republican to the One Hundred Ninth Congress and to the succeeding Congress (January 3, 2005-present).

Problem is, Reichert never earned a B.A. from Concordia in 1970, because they didn’t even grant their first bachelors degree until 1980.  In fact, the year Reichert started was Concordia’s first year as a Junior College; before then, it was merely a Lutheran high school.

What Reichert has is a two-year Associates degree from a small, Christian, Junior College.  (And possibly, not even that; has Heffter bothered to ask Concordia’s registrar for Reichert’s records?)  Thus Reichert’s official bio, which he has allowed to go uncorrected for four years, and which has been picked up by numerous news organizations and other web sites, is an undisputed lie.  Gonna print that on your front page Mr. Blethen?  I didn’t think so.

But more important than the parsing of the word “and” in Darcy Burner’s degree, or the substitution of the letter “B” for “A” in Reichert’s, should be their actual education, and how well that prepares the two candidates to deal with our nation’s unprecedented economic crisis.  Reichert has a two-year degree from a small, ultra-conservative Christian school.  (And by “ultra-conservative” I mean Missouri Synod Lutheran, whose positions on reproductive rights and the societal role of women leaves them far to the right of most fundamentalist Evangelicals.)  Meanwhile, Darcy earned a B.A. in computer science and economics, in the process completing five courses in economics plus two related math courses at Harvard, one of the most prestigious and rigorous universities in the world.

Isn’t that what should really be important to voters instead of these stupid gotchas?

UPDATE:
Looks like somebody is covering their tracks.  After four years of allowing an erroneous biographical entry on congress.gov tout a four-year B.A. degree when he only earned a two-year A.A., Reichert’s entry is miraculously updated, but only after being publicly scolded for his resume padding.  Of course, the lie still lives on in the Google cache.

Reichert: On Borrowed Time Pt. 3 (Size Matters)

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UPDATE: Burner’s campaign has filed a complaint with the FEC (you can download it here), arguing that Rep. Dave Reichert does not have enough cash on hand to cover all the TV time he’s booked. The Burner campaign says the ad buy puts Reichert about $580,000 in the red and that his media buyer, Media Plus—by securing the time for him—is making an illegal campaign contribution. The Reichert campaign does not return my calls (and can you blame them, Goldy’s such a potty mouth), but Reichert spokeswoman Amanda Halligan did talk to the Seattle Times. The Seattle Times reports: 

Reichert campaign spokeswoman Amanda Halligan said Media Plus+ pays for the ads and then sends the campaign a bill. They pay it, she said, “like any other business.” 

“There’s no loan associated with it,” she said.  

ORIGINAL POST:

Yesterday’s post on Media Plus’ $530,000 loan to the Rep. Reichert’s campagin for Reichert’s ad blitz on KIRO, KOMO, and KING (the number is actually $777,000 when you add in KING, which I didn’t have at the time), included an interview with the FEC that laid out a possible loophole for Reichert. Otherwise, the loan/contribution would be in violation of election law.  

The loophole is this: Even though corporations can’t directly loan money to candidates, Media Plus’ arrangement with Reichert—getting his ad time on credit—is part of Media Plus’ established practice with stations and clients. So, when Reichert ends the quarter all paid up, the FEC may  simply see the whole arrangement as a “service” provided by Media Plus, not a contribution.

That raises a question, though: Is it Media Plus’ established practice to advance credit at such a high risk?

Darcy Burner’s lawyer, Perkins Coie attorney Ryan McBrayer, puts it this way: 

“Media Plus probably doesn’t extend credit to any of their clients in an amount greater than the amount the client earned all of the previous quarter.” 

That’s a good point. Reichert raised $524,000 in the last quarter. He’s already on the hook for nearly $800,000 in TV time for this quarter?

McBrayer adds: 

Media Plus looks to have bought airtime for the Reichert campaign that is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the Reichert campaign raised all of last quarter. If so, Media Plus is really making an illegal corporate contribution because the Federal Election Campaign Act bans the extension of credit in such disproportionate and unreasonable amounts.

Reichert: On Borrowed Time Pt. 2

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Yesterday, I reported that KOMO had given $180,000 worth in TV ad time to Rep. Dave Reichert on credit, an oddity in political advertising.

This morning, Kathy Neukirchen, head of Meida Plus, Rep. Reichert’s media buyer, confirmed for me that KOMO had given Reichert the time on credit, explaining the arrangement to me like this: Her firm gets its TV time for all its clients, political and commercial, on credit. Media Plus is a big local buyer and has an established relationship with the stations. She pays for the time at the end of the month (the practice is called “Net 30”). Her political clients are treated no differently, she says, than her commercial clients.

Neukirchen says Reichert pays her back daily as the ads run, and that Reichert has already paid her for yesterday’s ads and will pay her today for that portion of the rest of the week’s buy. 

Burner’s camp says they’ve confirmed that KIRO has  also agreed to run Reichert’s ads on credit. The total loaned time between KOMO and KIRO would amount to about $530,000. 

KING reportedly turned down Media Plus’s “Net 30” request for the Reichert ad buys. Neukirchen would only say she doesn’t know what the stations have said, but all her contracts are done on credit. [UPDATE: I just talked to Jim Rose, Director of Sales & Marketing at KING, and he says, in fact, KING is extending credit to Neukirchen for the Reichert buys.]

The Burner campaign tells me their lawyers are “exploring legal options” on the matter.  Neukirchen’s daily payback arrangement with Reichert, they say, amounts to a loan, and FEC rules do not allow corporations to loan money to candidates. (Nor are they allowed to donate unless it’s through a Political Action Committee. Corporate PAC limits are $10,000 per election cycle.) 

FEC spokesman Bob Biersack would not offer any judgement on this particular case, telling me only that the Burner camp was free to file a complaint with the FEC. He did tell me that firms can “loan” money (and he put it in quotes) to campaigns if it’s “part of the general course of business.”

He explained: “If a company is providing services to a campaign and in the normal course it incurs charges and then gets paid in its established billing cycle, that’s the general course of business.” 

Neukirchen’s political clients are lucky to benefit from her good standing with local TV. Political campaigns are not typically extended credit: It can create the appearance of favoritism from the media, and more practically speaking (from the stations’ point of view), fast-moving campaigns, which rely on donations, aren’t particularly stable debtors. (Also, given that not every campaign has access to high-end media firms like Media Plus, it’s not fair allow some campaigns to get ads on credit while others don’t have that opportunity.)

When I wrote a similar article during the 2006 election cycle on Mike McGavick’s special credit arrangement with KOMO (which led to a violation at the FEC because McGavick failed to report an in-kind contribution of $120,000 for loaned TV time), longtime GOP media buyer Brad Mott with Ad Ventures, told me, “Almost all political advertising is done on a ‘pay-seven-days-in-advance’ rule. Credit is a problem because if the bill doesn’t get paid, at what point does it become an illegal corporate contribution?”

Reichert’s quickie-loan arrangement with Neukirchen isn’t likely to be captured by FEC reporting. According Biersack at the FEC, any ad time that Reichert arranged after October 15 won’t be reported until 30 days after the election. At that point, according to Neukirchen’s arrangement, Reichert will have paid his obligations. Or at least, the public, which relies on FEC campaign reports to know how campaigns pay their bills, will have to trust that he eventually paid his obligation.

I am waiting to hear back from the Reichert campaign. 

If they don’t speak up, I’ll guess we’ll just have to rely on Goldy’s take on the whole thing.

Dave Reichert: On Borrowed Time

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Is Rep. Dave Reichert’s campaign taking a play out of Mike McGavick’s sneaky campaign playbook?

In the 2006 election, I reported that GOP Senate candidate Mike McGavick broke FEC rules by getting an in-kind contribution from KIRO TV without reporting it on his campaign finance filings. The station had lent him TV ad time.

Reported on his FEC filings or not, the move was also seen as unorthodox in its own right. TV stations don’t typically lend ad time to political candidates. It looks like favoritism from the supposedly unbiased media and really, campaign’s aren’t the most reliable debtors. 

It appears as if GOP Congressional candidate, U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, is making the same questionable move this year. He’s not necessarily breaking FEC rules—his most recent financial reports don’t have to cover this week’s ad blitz—but he does appear to have taken the rare move of borrowing TV time. 

KOMO’s ad books show that Reichert has gotten $180,000 worth in extended credit for ad time from KOMO for this week. 

More traditionally, Reichert has already paid up-front for about $450,000 in ad time at KING and Q-13 for this week. 

Reichert’s last FEC report thru September 30, showed he had $1.1 million cash on hand. 

I will post a more in-depth report on this tomorrow.

Burner Outpaces Reichert on Local Donations

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US Rep. Dave Reichert’s spin on Democratic challenger Darcy Burner is that her campaign fund is bolstered by out-of-staters—those carpetbagging netroots folks. 

And the Seattle Times ran with that angle earlier this month:

The outpouring reveals an aspect of Burner’s rematch against U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert that is under the radar for many 8th Congressional District voters: While her campaign talks up her blue-collar roots and family life, online activists from all over the country see her as one of their own.

Her immense popularity among the netroots — an informal, progressive group of bloggers — has boosted her campaign and helped her raise more than $2.3 million, topping Reichert, the Republican incumbent.

But Burner’s critics, including the Reichert campaign, are using those ties against her. They argue that she can’t represent the interests of the 8th District when some of her biggest supporters are liberal bloggers who never have set foot in Seattle’s eastern suburbs.

“Darcy Burner is pretty open about the fact that she wants to go to Congress to represent the netroots,” said Reichert’s campaign manager, Mike Shields. “That is her constituency, and that is who she’s raised money from, and so that’s who she’ll do the bidding of.” 

The Seattle Times‘ sensationalized spin about carpetbagging left out some important context that shows Burner isn’t a puppet of funders from out of state. If you compare Burner’s and Reichert’s donations, you see that Burner has more in-district donors and more in-state donors than Reichert. 

According to analysis of Federal Elections Commission records of individual donors at $200 or above (the level at which biographical info is available) done by Dan Kirkdorffer, a Burner supporter from the 8th District, Burner has 581 in-district donors compared to Reichert’s 446 in-district donors. Burner has 1,311 in-state donors compared to Reichert’s 922 in-state donors.

Burner’s dollar totals from in the district and in the state are also higher than Reichert’s: $685,000 to $635,000 in-district and $1.3 million to $1.1 million in-state, respectively.  

Reichert’s rejoinder could be that a higher percentage of his donations come from in the state and in the district. And that’s true. But Burner has more local donors total, which is a far more significant statistic when making claims about hometown support. For example, she has 42 percent more in-state donors, and 30 percent more in-district donors, than Reichert.

According to Act Blue, the netroots fundraising site, Burner has raised $544,837 from their online donors.  She’s raised about $3.1 million overall, which means netroots donors account for only 16 percent of her money. 

Certainly, Burner has a large number of Act Blue donors, over 15,000 according to Act Blue. Some of these donors are captured in the analysis of FEC reports—others are not because many Act Blue donors fall below the $200 level. While those donors would certainly bump up the number of Burner’s out-of-state contributors, they’d also bump up her in-state donor tally, increasing her lead over Reichert on that score.  

Another important part of the fundraising story to consider is donations from PACs. Those donations are not figured into the in-state vs. out-of-state equation. 

PACs, political committees that represent corporations and unions, made up 31 percent of Rep. Reichert’s total campaign fund according to the latest online data at the FEC (which doesn’t yet include the most recent fundraising reports.) PAC giving makes up only 13 percent of Burner’s haul.

PAC donations can certainly come from local interests, like Boeing ($10,000 to Reichert) and Microsoft ($3000 to Reichert), but here’s the FEC list of Reichert’s PAC donations. With everything from General Electric to Goldman Sachs to Lockheed Martin to Pfizer Inc., it is hardly dominated by local interests.  

I have a call into Reichert’s campaign to ask them to address their claim that Burner’s financial support—which is deeper at that local level than Reichert’s—isn’t local enough.  

Meanwhile, here is what Mike Shields, Reichert’s campaign manager, said on October 3, in the comments thread on the popular local conservative politics blog, Sound Politics: 

There is a bigger issue at stake in this election that local SP readers should consider if they are not yet engaged in this race: if burner wins, she will prove that even a candidate with no experience, no real connection to her community, who is to the left of the local voters, can raise enough money from national activists that they can elect someone in YOUR local district. This will embolden them to futher this model nationally. Those activists may not have succeeded in winning any policy debates, but if they start overpowering local voters with money they can begin installing members who think like them who WILL win their policy debates for them. This is the movement they are openly trying to create and they will absolutely be emoldened if burner wins. She may not seem like she is conecting here, but she’s a national netroots celebrity. You can help stop them and disprove the paradigm by helping us at reichert’s campaign:www.davereichertforcongress.com.

Note: The possibility exists that this comment wasn’t actually left by the same Mike Shields who’s running Reichert’s campaign, but if that’s true, Shields has had nearly two weeks to correct the record.

Here is Kirkdorffer’s analysis. (These numbers include local Bush fundraisers for Reichert, which may artificially inflate Reichert’s local donor numbers. Also, Burner’s number of “In-District Maxed Out” Donors, 54, should be in bold, not Reichert’s lower number of 49.) :

 

New poll: Burner 49, Reichert 44

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The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released new polls in several districts this morning, including WA-08, where their survey of 400 voters shows Darcy Burner leading Dave Reichert by a 49% to 44% margin.

“Darcy Burner’s campaign for change is resonating with families who have had enough of Congressman Dave Reichert’s support for George Bush’s failed economic policies,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Yoni Cohen. “Reichert was a good sheriff but is ineffective in Congress, rubber stamping Bush’s war in Iraq and Bush’s effort to privatize Social Security and risk seniors’ retirement benefits in the stock market. Burner is running to change Washington and provide tax relief to Washington State’s middle class families.”

Well, I don’t know how good a sheriff Reichert really was (he did not, as legend tells it, catch the Green River Killer), but he certainly has been an ineffective congressman, and his continued support for privatizing Social Security, even in the wake of the current financil crisis, should disqualify him from office on its own.  (Of course Reichert claims that he doesn’t support “privatization,” he merely supports individual accounts that can be invested in the market.  But then, perhaps he really is dumb enough to believe the party line that those two schemes aren’t essentially the same thing?)

Yes, this is a DCCC poll, and they tend to only release the good ones, but they’re not in the business of deceiving themselves, so partisans on either side should not make the mistake of dismissing it out of hand.  And while it is the first poll I’ve seen to show Darcy with an “initial head-to-head lead,” I’ve seen the internals on previous polls that showed Darcy leading after issues were pushed to respondents… something Darcy has been doing in recent weeks with her advertising.

Either way, confirmation (or not) is coming.  I know of at least two more polls currently in the field, and both Survey USA and Research 2000 should have new polls dropping within the next week and a half.  I’m crossing my fingers.

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