Darcy Burner has outraised incumbent Dave Reichert for a fifth quarter in a row, hauling in $585,000 over the April to June period compared to Reichert’s $347,000. Burner now has $1.25 million cash on hand compared to Reichert’s $916,000.
Huh. I wonder if Reichert’s lazy fundraising has anything to do with expectations that NRCC money will save his ass yet again? Gee, I sure hope so.
In a recent interview with the Seattle Times, Dave Reichert made a point of emphasizing his bipartisanship:
“It’s about solving problems,” he said. “This bickering back and forth is a waste of time. It’s tiresome. I just think sometimes it gets childish.”
Childish bickering, huh? Well take a look at Reichert’s approach to bipartisanship, as he describes it before a roomful of Republicans back in 2006:
“Hardest thing in the world to do to be nice to a crook, let alone someone who took your best friend’s life. But it’s my job. And in America, how hard is it for me to put my arm around a Democrat, if I can put my arm around Gary Ridgway?”
Reichert takes a touching story about a colleague and friend, tragically shot and killed in the line of duty (just get a load of those dramatic pauses)… and uses it as a setup for a punchline about Democrats. A cop killer and a serial killer, equated with Democrats. Right back at you, Dave.
But I guess that’s bipartisanship, Dave Reichert style.
Kudos to Seattle Times reporter Emily Heffter for giving a little space to the well documented thesis that Rep. Dave Reichert has been manipulating his voting record to appear more moderate than he is:
Often, he votes with Republicans on procedural motions, then switches sides and votes with Democrats in the final roll call.
For example, on an energy bill last year, Reichert voted with his fellow Republicans several times — against Democratic motions to close the bill to amendments and bring it to a vote. But in the final vote, he sided with Democrats to pass the bill.
“How can you end up on both sides of the vote?” asked Sandeep Kaushik, Burner’s spokesman.
Kaushik says Reichert in fact is trying to manipulate his image to ensure his re-election. Reichert rarely casts the deciding vote when going against his party on an important issue, Kaushik says, and he joins the Democrats when they are going to win anyway.
Sure the refutation doesn’t come until more than halfway through Heffter’s 1200 word piece, and well away from the prime front page real estate on which the article starts, but no reporter has given more thought or space to exploring beneath the surface of Reichert’s actual voting record, despite the fact that his tactics are both common and, well, obvious. How common?
Reichert wouldn’t be the first to use that strategy, said Matt Barreto, a UW political-science professor.
“It is a common thing that you see a lot that allows a politician to portray themselves a moderate,” he said.
And how obvious? Well, listen to Reichert explain his voting record before a gathering of Republicans back in 2006 (courtesy of TVW’s new player widget):
“So when the leadership comes to me and says , Dave you have to vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority, I do it.”
That’s Dave Reichert, “conscience driven independent,” in his own damn words… words backed up by Dan Kirkdorffer’s meticulous fisking of Reichert’s voting record, but words which the media have for the most part ignored when addressing the issue of Reichert’s alleged political moderation. Reichert explains “how things work” back in the other Washington, political science professors validate it and his own voting record demonstrates it. And yet our local news media, desperately longing for that mythical creature known as the modern moderate Republican, have been complicit in presenting this pro-war, pro-Bush, anti-choice congressman as somehow a perfect fit for his suburban swing district.
Darcy Burner, on the other hand, has somehow been given the label of being too progressive for her district, though on what specific issues the gatekeepers of conventional wisdom never bother to tell us. On the war? You can read her Responsible Plan on ending the war for yourself, and see if it’s out of step with the voters in WA-08. Too progressive on reproductive rights? On FISA? On the economy?
Heffter’s piece is a great first step toward setting the record straight on Reichert’s record, but we can’t rely on our local media to tell the whole story. Darcy is going to have to do that herself, and it’s going to cost a lot of money. That’s why she needs your help.
Today is the last day of the fundraising quarter, and heading into the homestretch, pundits and big donors are going to size up the competitiveness of the various races based on its outcome. So please give today and help Darcy hit her end of quarter target. That’s the only way we’re going to dispel the Reichert myth.
Washington Post political blog The Fix has bumped WA-08 up a couple notches to list it as the 17th most likely US House seat to flip parties this November:
17. Washington’s 8th (R): Every Republican strategist we talk to insists on the one hand that Rep. Dave Reichert is the only GOPer who could possibly hold this Seattle-area seat but on the other acknowledges that Reichert’s time may be up. Barack Obama at the top of the national ticket is bad news for Reichert, as the Democrats’ presidential candidate will roll up the vote in metropolitan Seattle. Darcy Burner, who took 49 percent of the vote in 2006 against Reichert, is, by all accounts, an improved candidate. The political environment is everything in this district. If Obama wins big in the 8th, he is likely to carry Burner along with him. (Previous ranking: 19)
Yeah, but then what do you expect from an amen blogger like Chris Cillizza?
SurveyUSA released the first poll of the season in the 8th CD race between Darcy Burner and Rep. Dave Reichert.
The poll surveyed 679 likely voters on June 16th and 17th, and showed Reichert leading Burner 51% to 45%.
As usual, I try to assess these poll results by a simple Monte Carlo analysis. I simulated a million fictitious elections between Burner and Reichert, using the observed percentages and the number of people polled.
Reichert won 948,339 of the elections and Burner won 48,199 times. In other words, the poll results suggest that, for an election held right now, Burner would have a 4.8% probability of winning the election and Reichert would win with a 95.2% probability.
Here is the distribution of outcomes (percentage of votes) from the million simulated elections (Reichert victories are those to the left of the red “tie” line, Burner victories are those to the right):
At risk of coming off as just another amen blogger, the poll results don’t strike me as particularly bad for Burner. Yeah…she is -6% down, but Reichert, as the incumbent, starts out with the advantage. The poll’s cross-tabs look reasonably positive for Burner. Among other things, of those who said they could change their mind, 50% were Reichert supporters and 39% were Burner supporters. Also, Reichert holds 35% of the pro-choice vote. It’s hard to imagine that the Burner campaign won’t make in-roads into that group.
This poll comes on the heels of massive mailings of campaign flyers franked informational pieces from the Reichert campaign congressional office. The Burner campaign, to my knowledge, has not made any media purchases.
Furthermore, Reichert has recently gotten a lot of well-deserved publicity for eco-friendly votes. I say “well deserved” because, clearly, Reichert’s handlers have developed a brilliant strategy that has rendered the local media stupifyingly blind to Reichert’s strategy of full participation in Republican obstructionism in Congress during procedural votes, only to switch his vote when the results are certain passage. Daniel Kirkdorffer has meticulously documented this rather cynical strategy. It is hard to say whether Reichert’s people will be able to maintain their spell over the media through November.
(Cross-posted at Hominid Views.)
Less than a week after he swore off earmarks, U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert visited the new 911 dispatch center for eastern King County, where he was publicly thanked by local officials for helping secure $1.7 million in earmarks for the center.
The Washington state Republican announced in March that he wouldn’t seek any earmarks this year, because the system was out of control and in need of serious overhaul. But he says that doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to take credit for the $27 million in earmarks he secured last year.
“You’re doggone right I was there,” said the two-term congressman, who faces what’s expected to be a tough re-election campaign. “I am not ashamed to take credit for something we worked hard on. Shoot, I’d be stupid not to.”
So let me get this right… Dave Reichert takes credit for swearing off earmarks, and securing them, at the same time… and nobody laughs in his face? No journalist asks him to explain why, if earmarks are so valuable and justifiable, he’d deny them to his district for the sake of a rhetorical gesture; or if earmarks are such a waste of taxpayer money as to warrant his pledge, why he’s not a tiny bit ashamed to take credit for them?
And Kate Riley accuses Darcy Burner of a “lack of authenticity” …? Dollars to donuts when Riley writes the second in her series of viciously dishonest Reichert endorsements, she’ll cite his bullshit earmark pledge in lauding him for his fiscal responsibility. But then, what do you expect from the amen editorialists at the Seattle Times?
As I’ve posted previously, there’s more to Dave Reichert’s abusive franking practices than simply a flagrant waste of taxpayer money, for it is not just the medium that is at question here, but the message itself.
Yesterday I contrasted two franked mail pieces, one in which Reichert promises “bold” earmark reform, and the other in which he brags about the amount of earmarked bacon he brought home to his district. You can’t get much more hypocritical than that.
Or can you?
In a widely distributed franked mail piece from 2007 headlined “Issue Alert: Medicare Cuts,” Reichert touts his opposition to “devastating cuts” in senior benefits:
In this taxpayer funded mailer, Reichert promises to “uphold my pledge to protect Medicare,” from, you know, all those social service slashing Democrats in Congress.
And what kind of pledge exactly is Reichert talking about? Well, judging from this clip from May of 2006, back when he thought he and his fellow Republicans would still control Congress in the coming session, it wasn’t much of one:
Yup, when Reichert talks about taking a “closer look at government waste,” the first place he looks is Medicare and Medicaid, because “you get the biggest bang for the buck when you cut those programs.”
Wow. That’s some pledge.
Reichert has sent out over one million pieces of franked mail since winning reelection in November, 2006—none of them fact checked by media truth squads, none of them rebutted by the opposition, and all of them paid for with taxpayer money. He uses his franking privileges to create a demonstrably false impression about his votes in Congress and his stance on the issues.
And as far as I can tell, our local editorialists and columnists just don’t seem to care.
UPDATE:
The video clip above is ©2006 by TVW. You can view full coverage of Reichert’s speech here.
UPDATE, UPDATE:
YouTube has pulled the clip at TVW’s request, so exercising my rights under the fair use exemption, I have reposted the clip using a different service.
Last week’s performance at the Washington State Republican Convention wasn’t the first time Rep. Dave Reichert laughed at the thought of Hillary Clinton plummeting to her death from an airplane; as the TNT’s Niki Sullivan reported back in March, he delivered the same “joke” before the Pierce County Republicans at their annual Lincoln Day Breakfast in Tacoma. But that wasn’t the congressman’s only questionable quip of the day:
At one point in the speech, he reminded people that Barack Obama may seem friendly and electable, but he’s a liberal, “and he will steal money out of your wallets and purses.”
The crowd was silent.
So… a famously former sheriff warns the crowd that a black man is going to steal their wallets? Yeah, I can imagine the stunned silence. (Though personally, I always cross the street whenever I see Barack Obama coming toward me on a sidewalk. You can never be too careful.)
(Sigh.) And this is best Washington’s 8th Congressional District has to offer?
UPDATE [Lee]: Matt Stoller posts about Reichert’s sexism.
In defending Dave Reichert’s abusive franking practices, the typical Republican defense is to roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and say “everybody does it.” But not everybody does, and of those who do, few abuse the privilege to the extent of Reichert. And almost nobody uses taxpayer money to lie to taxpayers the way Reichert does in his franked mail cum campaign brochures.
Take for example Reichert’s recent taxpayer-funded campaign mailer constituent communication. In this one, Reichert touts his “bold” earmark reform… which basically consists of “not seeking congressional earmarks this year.”
“It is time to change the way things are done in Congress,” Reichert spends your money telling you, which is why he supports “a moratorium on earmarks, which have led to wasteful spending of your money.”
And yet, just two years ago, Reichert dropped a big chunk of taxpayer change on a piece of franked mail with the headline “Congressman Dave Reichert: Working for You,” and featuring a map bragging about all the pork he claimed to have have brought home to his district.
So one piece of franked mail touts his opposition to wasteful earmarks, while another brags about his profligate use of the tool. That’s the kind of rank hypocrisy Reichert shouldn’t be able to get away with, unless… you know… our local media lets him.
How can Dave Reichert afford to pay for so many glossy, full-color mailings, when his campaign is struggling to raise money? Easy… he just passes the cost off to unsuspecting taxpayers:
At first glance, these fliers may look like campaign mailers. But they are produced and mailed at taxpayer expense, using a congressional privilege called “franked mail.”
Most members of Congress use such taxpayer-financed mail to let constituents know what’s happening on Capitol Hill and within their districts. Since his election to Congress in 2004, Reichert has been among the state’s biggest users of franked mail. He spent more on postage than other members of the state’s delegation in 2005 and 2006, according to federal records.
According to the Seattle Times, Reichert ranked second in the state for 2007, racking up a bill of $90,000 to Jay Inslee’s $104,000. But Reichert’s total only includes the cost of postage, whereas Inslee’s report includes the costs of printing and design. (Reichert mailed out 475,000 pieces compared to Inslee’s 171,000.) Anybody who has ever paid to print glossy, double-sided, full-color, 11×17 tri-folds knows that they don’t come cheap, so we’re looking at a total bill to taxpayers of as much as $500,000.
That’s like a half-million dollar campaign contribution from US taxpayers… and that’s just for 2007. Reichert sent out a deluge of franked mail in recent months, ahead of the May 21 cutoff, repeating a pattern of franking abuse he established back in 2006… an “aggressive Franked Mail program” even by his own admission:
Will also oversee and update electronic, internet and other communications, including an aggressive Franked Mail program.
That’s from a March 2007 job ad Reichert ran for a Press Secretary, a job description that curiously included “campaign experience” as a necessary qualification for a staff position that is expressly prohibited by law from engaging in campaign activities. Huh.
Like all Republicans, Reichert likes to fancy himself a fiscal conservative. But when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars on himself he is consistently our state’s most profligate spendthrift.
I’ve already thoroughly deconstructed Rep. Dave Reichert’s childish “joke” about Hillary Clinton falling to her death from an airplane, but I’ve got a couple more observations that I think are worth discussing, the first of which was first raised in a press release from Darcy Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik:
“When Congressman Reichert goes before non-partisan audiences he likes to bemoan the loss of civility and lack of bipartisanship in Washington, D.C. Apparently he does not really mean it, because when he gets before his fellow Republicans he takes a very different tone — this is just the latest unfortunate example of that.”
Of course Reichert’s civility campaign is total bullshit, and if editorialists and other opinion makers don’t see this, it is because they choose not to. Remember, this is the same guy who compared Democrats to the Green River Killer:
“And in America how hard is it to put my arm around a Democrat if I can put my arm around Gary Ridgeway.”
That’s civility? That’s bipartisanship? That’s conscience-driven independence?
Like Mike McGavick before him, Reichert’s emphasis on civility and bipartisanship is little more than a strategy to avoid talking about actual issues, an honest debate of which would overwhelmingly favor Burner. It is also implicitly (and hypocritically) a negative attack on his opponent, as one cannot accept Reichert’s civility meme without inferring that Burner is not sufficiently civil herself.
The other observation I’d like to make refers back to my original post, and my assertion that at least part of the humorous impact of the the “joke” comes from playing off of a popular perception of the object of ridicule as stupid:
Deserved or not, this works well with President Bush in the lead role (as it would for Dave Reichert himself), but whatever you think of Hillary Clinton, she certainly doesn’t have a reputation for being dumb, and as such, the joke comes off more mean spirited than funny. It’s just a poor vehicle for ridiculing her.
What is curious is that Reichert should apparently believe that Clinton in any way fits the stereotype on which the punchline is at least partially predicated. It is ironic that a man with a two-year degree from an obscure Christian college, and an undistinguished career in Congress, would impugn the intelligence of an accomplished woman who graduated from one of the top colleges and top law schools in the nation. But it is not without precedent.
This has always been the Reichert camp’s most consistent critique of Darcy Burner—that she is “ditzy” and a “lightweight”—a critique that comprised the main theme of what was perhaps Reichert’s most offensive (and effective) ad of the 2006 season. And as with his characterization of Clinton, it is equally ironic when applied to a woman like Burner, who graduated Harvard University with a B.A. in computer science and economics, and who went on to become a high-level manager at Microsoft. Apparently, Reichert and his most vocal supporters need little more evidence to snidely dismiss the intelligence of a woman than her gender.
I won’t hazard a guess as to how else Reichert objectifies women (though his staunch opposition to reproductive rights is highly suggestive), but clearly, when it comes to the political arena, he views them as objects of ridicule.
Because you can’t get any more conscience-driven independent than Newt Gingrich.
The Washington Post’s top political handicapper Chris Cillizza has updated his list of House seats likely to change party hands in November, and look what makes the top twenty:
19. WA-08 (GOP-held): Rep. Dave Reichert (R) is a very strong candidate but the demographics of this Seattle-area district are trending in the wrong direction for the incumbent. Democrat Darcy Burner came within 7,000 votes of beating Reichert in 2006 and is back for a rematch. Reichert could do everything right in the next five months and still lose. (Previous ranking: N/A)
Keep in mind that 13 of the races ahead of WA-08 are for open seats, and that Cillizza ranks Reichert as the second most likely Republican incumbent to lose his seat. And this analysis coming from a guy who thinks Reichert a “very strong candidate.” (Perhaps Cillizza was just referring to Reichert’s biceps?)
When the US House voted to approve the GI Bill of Rights last week, giving veterans full tuition benefits at any public school in their home state, 32 Republicans joined 224 Democrats in approving the measure… but Dave Reichert was not among them, despite having publicly boasted about supporting similar legislation.
Why did Reichert vote no? Because unlike most of the Republican agenda these past eight years, this bill actually includes provisions to pay for itself now ($52 billion over ten years) instead of shoving the costs off to future generations, levying a tax surcharge of 0.47 percent on income in excess of $1 million a year per family. When it came to asking the wealthiest one percent of Americans to help pay to give Iraq War veterans the same educational benefits given veterans of World War II, Reichert sided with the wealthiest one percent of Americans.
Let’s put this in perspective. While over half of American families save less than $600 a year from the Bush tax cuts, the wealthiest one percent have saved an average of $92,000 annually. That’s about $550,000 each since the tax cuts were enacted. The new GI Bill of Rights would add back an average of only $9,000 a year to the tax bill of these wealthiest of Americans. And that’s just an average—a household making a cushy $1.5 million a year would pay only $2,350.
In return, every veteran—the Americans who have sacrificed the most for our country—would be given the opportunity to earn a college degree and the economic benefits that come with it. And Dave Reichert voted no.
Reichert supported the bill when it included no funding mechanism, calling into question his fiscal responsibility; he rejected the bill when it taxed those who have benefited most from the Bush regime, calling into question his priorities. If this is what the Seattle Times had in mind when it lauded Reichert for his “conscience-driven independent streak,” I wonder how they define “conscience” and “independence”…?
A quick follow-up to my earlier post about the Wild Sky wilderness area, and why when it comes to environmental issues, the only thing you need be concerned with is the little “R” or “D” next to a candidate’s name.
Case in point, Rep. Dave Reichert, who managed to generate paragraphs of positive press for himself through his sponsorship of a bill to expand the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area within his home district. The Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly and I have a friendly disagreement on this subject. Joel thinks Reichert deserves credit and support for his Alpine Lakes initiative, whereas I think he’s just an insincere poseur, seeking to puff up his environmental credentials in a very green district. But all that’s really beside the point, because when it comes to environmental protection, intentions are much less important than ability.
Reichert sure talks up his environmental credentials, but since introducing his bill back on November 8, 2007, he has managed to secure exactly zero co-sponsors in the House. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. He hasn’t even persuaded a single Republican colleague to sign on, and it’s not at all clear that he’s even tried. I’d say that speaks volumes both about the seriousness of his efforts to push this bill forward, and his ability to actually do so.
Compare that to Rep. Jay Inslee’s bill to protect roadless areas of our national forests, on which he has managed to garner 149 co-sponsors, including a number of Republicans (not one of which happens to be self-proclaimed environmentalist, Dave Reichert).
Of the 33 bills Reichert has proposed since being elected to the House in 2004, the two-term congressman has managed to pass exactly none; not exactly a record of legislative accomplishment. And as for his supposedly “moderate” voting record on environmental and other issues, Daniel Kirkdorffer at On the Road to 2008 has ably chronicled Reichert’s pattern of joining Republican caucus efforts to block, castrate and scuttle legislation, only to flip his vote once the battle is lost and the local media is paying attention to final passage. (You know, except for ANWR, where Reichert very publicly opposed drilling in numerous procedural votes, and then voted for drilling when it finally mattered.)
But if our local media isn’t reading between the lines of Reichert’s voting record, corporations and special interest PACs are, with oil companies contributing $60,000 to Reichert’s coffers since 2004, and the timber industry giving almost $14,000 this cycle alone. I’m one of those who believe that political money usually follows voting records, not the other way around, but either way it tells you where oil and timber interests think Reichert stands on the environment.
I suppose the best you could say about Reichert’s impact on environmental legislation, serving within a Democratic controlled House, is that he at least appears to be harmless. But if you’re an 8th CD voter who supports a more progressive environmental agenda, you may want to consider electing a representative who is capable of making actual progress.
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