A couple weeks ago it appeared Darcy Burner might be cruising to victory. A number of polls showed her with a small but substantive lead amongst all voters, and a comfortable lead with those who had already cast their ballots. And then the Seattle Times decided to step in and play kingmaker.
No doubt Dave Reichert’s bullshit “Harvard Hoax” ad, propped up by hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal loans from his media buyer, is having an effect—Darcy’s campaign has received a number of calls from confused voters asking if Darcy actually graduated from Harvard, or even has a college degree at all. The Times and their collaborators on talk radio took confusion over the unusual wording of Harvard degrees—essentially a niggling complaint over a lack of specificity—and knowingly gave Reichert the ammunition to lie to voters about Darcy’s extraordinary education. And it may be working.
Essentially, if Dave Reichert wins this election, it will be a huge victory for the Seattle Times and the power of the corporate media to manipulate public opinion, and a devastating loss for those of us in the netroots who have put so much time, energy and passion into electing a qualified and competent representative in WA-08.
Please don’t let that happen.
Darcy needs our help now more than ever, and it’s time for us to leave everything on the table. The campaign is launching a new ad today, refuting Reichert’s lies, and she needs to put every cent she can behind it to set the record straight with confused voters. But unlike Reichert, Darcy has to pay as she goes, so if you haven’t already given everything you can, please go to Darcy’s website and contribute now.
And if you have more time than money, you can still contribute to Darcy’s campaign by volunteering today and tomorrow, knocking on doors, making phone calls, and helping with her Get Out The Vote efforts.
For the third election in a row, and with the tacit cooperation of the press, Dave Reichert is closing out his campaign by smearing his opponent. It is time to show that people power can trump the entrenched interests of our state’s media-political complex.
And don’t read the Seattle Times any more, in print or online.
Goldy says:
“Essentially, if Dave Reichert wins this election, it will be a huge victory for the Seattle Times and the power of the corporate media to manipulate public opinion, and a devastating loss for those of us in the netroots who have put so much time, energy and passion into electing a qualified and competent representative in WA-08.”
Ivan says:
Get your head out of your ass, Goldy. It’s not about you, or the media, or the “netroots.”
Goldy: You gotta face it. You have a lousy candidate in Burner. I am resigned to having that moron Obama as President of half of the USA (he’ll never be MY President) and you have to accept that Burner and Gregoire are going down, too.
John425 @ 3:
Our next president is going to be BLACK! How do you like that, you racist maggot?
3/4 What a great patriot we have here. Raising the cry of “My country, white or wrong!”
If Jesus ever does return, he’s going to find us a rather disappointing lot.
Ivan: Like MLK, I judge a man by his character. You’re the racist goat-fucker.
Obama’s being black-skinned doesn’t bother me. His proto-communism does.
@3
Bush was never my president either.. But I had to pay the taxes that got wasted, got the contaminated food, the low world opinion, the crumbling infrastructure, the giant budget deficit, the lax to non-existent regulation, the above the law attitude and the politicized executive branch that I expected but never wanted. I watched my country slide downhill in so many ways because of the workings of a band of criminals I never voted for… In the end, I got all the failure that others voted for and I hated every minute of it.. But it’s still my country. Whether I liked it or not, I got what I got and he ended up being the president of my country..
If Obama wins, he may not be “your” president, but he will be the president of *our* country.
@6
I can’t wait to wear my hammer and sickle t-shirt tomorrow. I wonder if any right wingers will throw things besides invectives at me…
“proto-communism” You absolutely have to be joking… Stalin would have you sent to a gulag for uttering such nonsense…
John425 @ 6:
Anything to the left of “your money or your life” is “proto-communism” to you. So bite me.
re 6: Reichert is a conservative Statist/Corporatist — and a simpleton. If he wins, what do you get out of it?
I had to laugh at Reichart’s self-indignent ads over the weekend, accusing Burner of “negative advertising”. Reminds me of the famous line in Casablanca.
But Goldy, I have to ask: what good does it do to give money to Burner today? It’s not like she’s going to be able to use my last $25 in political contributions to buy one more ad to run on TV tonight, is it?
Maybe I’ll just make one more round of my neighborhood, knocking on doors and making sure everyone has their ballot in the mail by tomorrow morning, or better yet, turned in directly at an official collection center.
You know, it just occured to me that it’s highly unlikely we will know who won the governor’s race, or the WA-08 race, until the end of the week. That’s the problem with a system which allows vote-by-mail where the ballot only needs to be postmarked by the election date. A lot of ballots aren’t even going to be received at the auditor’s office until Thursday, and we probably won’t here totals from most of them until Friday. Not to mention the large number of military voters in our state (including N. Guard and researvists) who might be voting from overseas, and we won’t see their ballots perhaps for several weeks.
Strange how liberals only complain about the media playing kingmaker when it’s not a democrat.
Say goldy, what abut the liberal media playing kingmaker with obama? Does that bother you as well?
I’m excited for Obama to win. Most of the world (population and govts.) would like to see that. I have serious questions on what his affect on the economy of the US will be.
What people like Limbaugh, Boze, Wilbur do not, and will never, understand is that “conservatives” sold out. They allowed Bush and his cohorts to destroy many of our rights and spend like crazy. They deserve to be completely and totally out of power. Now we will more than likely see the exact same thing under democrat party rule. But the pendulum is always swinging.
How do you know john is racist as opposed to not wanting to live under socialist rule?
All those blacks that didn’t like bush, were they also racist in your opinion?
Or is this the typical liberal double standard?
Off-Topic Note, of which I was reminded by the reference to the National Guard:
Some sixty-five years ago plus a week or so (October 1942), Marine Col. (later general) Chesty Puller was on Guadalcanal in charge of the defense of Edison’s Ridge. Chesty Puller’s Marines were expecting a major Japanese attack. If the Japanese broke their lines, there was little to keep them from siezing the airfield (Henderson Field).
That afternoon the first Army units arrived to re-inforce the exhausted Marines – a unit from the N. Dakota National Guard. Puller knew that the weakest point in any defensive line is the intersection between units, and he was worried about putting the untried soldiers, with different training & communication protocols, in charge of a section of the line. Instead, he went down the line, assigning an Army soldier to share a foxhole with his battle-hardened Marines. The Marines were carrying the old bolt-acton M1 Springfield rifles, little different from the 1901 Springfields carried by their fathers in WWI. The soldiers were carying the new semi-automatic M1 Garand rifles.
The Japanese attacks lasted all night long, culminating in ferocious Banzai charges. The American lines bent, but didn’t break. That morning Puller insisted that the cooks hand-deliver hot pancakes to the foxholes of the men on the ridge(“insist” is a rather mild term used for the language he employed). In front of them, the better part of a battalion of Japanese soldiers lay dead. The ridge thereafter became known as “Bloody Ridge”, and it marked the high point of the attempts by the Japanese to use infantry to win back the island.
Among those Marines and that Army National Guard unit, a bond of comradship was formed which survives even today, with reunions and ceremonies each anniversary which mark the time when Marines and National Guard soldiers shared foxholes and fought together for a common cause.
The surviving Japanese had a three-day nightmarish trek ahead of them across the island to return to the opposite coast. They called Guadalcanal “starvation island” due to the lack of food available. Before the attack, they had been furnished a rice ball, some dried seaweed, and a little bit of dried fish, and told they could eat again when they captured American supplies at Henderson field. Having failed that, there was no food to sustain them for the arduous task of returning through swamp and jungle, carrying wounded and heavy equipment on their backs. Many didn’t survive the return march, simply laying down to die and unable to rise again.
Goldy, your whining about the Seattle Times leaves out one very important fact: DARCY LIED. ON THE RECORD. No amount of parsing her college degree description will cover that up.
And never forget, “former Microsoft exeutive” Darcy exhaggerated her resume in ’06 as well. It shows a pattern most voters easily recognize and reject.
Don’t blame the Times for Darcy’s self-aggrandizement. Blame Darcy.
Isn’t is just as racist to vote FOR Obama because he’s black??
The 8th can finally rid itself of Dave Reichert, an irrelevant and uneducated representative.
re 14: Why do conservatives always present political choices as a choice between one falsehood as opposed to another?
False Comparison: “John is not a racist, he just doesn’t like socialists.” Labeling John as a racist may or may not be accurate. Exonerating him of recism by branding Obama as a socialist is just trading one form of fear-branding for another.
“If John is a racist because he doesn’t like Obama, then blacks who didn’t vote for Bush because thay didn’t like him are equally racist because Bush is white.” The candidate that they did vote for was white as well, so your ‘equivalency comparison’ does not hold water, because on the one hand you say they are racist because they don’t like Bush’s whiteness, but your reasoning exonerates them of racism because they DID vote for Kerry — who you also think is a socialist.
But, beyond dropping racism for labeling someone as a ‘socialist’ , the only utility of your socialism argument is that it labels someone as ‘the Other’, ‘That One’ — the ‘socialist’ — the bogeyman.
Your intended audience on this one is the ‘low information’ or ‘stupid’ voter: your base.
“…typical liberal double standard….” Your description of liberal double-standard always hinges on a false underlying concept of equivalency. You say a blacvk person not voting for Bush is the equivalent of not voting for Obama because he is black. That is like saying that liberals have a double standard because they do not want to severely punish jaywalkers, but they do want to severely punish Republican child molesters. Both are criminals, you argue, but the liberal has a ‘double standard’ in wanting to punish the Republican child molester more harshly.
You fail to bring any facts to a discussion.
re 16: Your reasoning is based upon false premises. You are presuming to say that the accusations of the Seattle Times and the Reichert campaign are correct, and any bitterness about them is only sour grapes.
However, the fact of the matter is that Darcy Burner was a Microsoft executive and does have a degree in economics from Harvard.
It’s not a matter of opinion. We are right and you are wrong. In addition, you know you are wrong.
You are only interested in the political utility of your lie. Your intention is not to elevate the political discourse, but to debase and distort it.
Tit for tat politics doesn’t work anymore.
It’s tit for tit now — or forget about it!
By the way, an article in Newsweek reminded me that the polls in Indiana and Kentucky close early – 6:00 p.m. EST!
I had to wonder if this is currect, since much of Kentucky is on Central time, and a poll closing at 5:00 p.m. just wouldn’t make sense.
Either way, with Virginia, Georga, Florida & New Hampshire closing at 7:00 p.m. EST, we might well know by then (4:00 p.m. PST) if it’s going to be a blowout, or a long night. Thirty minutes later (7:30 EST, or 4:30 PST), the polls will close in Ohio and North Carolina. If Obama carries Ohio by a large enough margin that the networks call it for Obama shortly after the polls close there, at that point it’s all over for McCain.
ivan said:
“John425 @ 3:
Our next president is going to be BLACK! How do you like that, you racist maggot?”
I like to refer to Obama as “The Milk Chocolate Messiah.” After all, he is half-white!
brainless lucy @ 20 &21 – Can Goldy refill your Kool-Aid glass for you?
Republicans are liars.
That is our message — and it is a message that repeated long enough and with the ever present examples thast Republicans supply us with, will resonate well with American voters over the next four years.
Reichert’s campaign makes a smear.
Republicans are liars.
Rossi smears his opponent.
Republicans are liars.
re 24: I’m strictly a ‘Flavor Aid’ drinker. Grape. Sugar and purple — mmmmmmmmnnn, good!
Oh, and by the way:
Republicans are liars.
I know Obama’s going to win.
I’m pretty sure that Darcy’s going to win.
I really don’t know if Gregoire will win.
And behind all three of those races are the fundamentals this year: it’s an awfully tough year to be an incumbent.
McCain carried Bush’s water for a long, long time. So did Reichert, despite his carefully orchestrated “environmental record.” The fact is, he’s just a slightly dim-witted, garden-variety Republican.
I voted for Obama, but couldn’t vote for Darcy Burner. Her explanation of her degree on Ken Schram’s show was all semantics to me. I get it, Harvard is different, but Ms. Burner seems to have a pattern of exaggeration. I left the box blank.
I find it amusing that John425 doesn’t like Obama because of his “proto-communism”, and Goldy doesn’t much care for Obama because he is too conservative (“corporate centrism”).
So, John425, what does that make Goldy? What’s to the left of communism?
By the way, John425, a person who graduated from Harvard Law School with honors is by definition not a “moron”, moron.
@29
I guess the only “ism” left would be satanism…. That must be it… Left of communism is satanism…. Look for it in last minute stump speeches…
How on earth did the Seattle Times force Burner to start talking about her economics credentials in the first place? Was it also the Seattle Times fault that Burner wants to model herself after the mediocre (at best) Patty Murray? If Burner’s so proud of her degree and her ’15 years of economic study’ why isn’t it mentioned here on her website?
“On Fiscal Responsibility:
America must get its fiscal house in order. As a mother and a businesswoman, I have successfully managed both my household and business finances. I know that balanced budgets are critical to financial health and we need to bring that principle back to the federal government. I am appalled that the incompetent management of President Bush and the previous Republican-led Congress have led to the largest deficits in U.S. history. This is creating an unconscionable burden for our children and grandchildren to pay back. Instead of deficits without end, I support the pay-as-you-go practices of the 1990s that gave us an unprecedented economic boom and budget surpluses.”
It seems to me that Burner was marketed as a ‘concerned anti-war Mom’, ‘Microsoft executive’, ‘policy planner with retired Generals’, and ‘Harvard trained economist’. In fact she might be all these things, but she skipped from one to the other and exaggerated enough of the specifics to give pause to those who vote based on their impressions of someone’s personality. That’s most of the electorate in our present day system.
Her performance on KOMO radio was the icing on the cake…was that controlled by the Seattle Times too? Someone on another thread said ‘two minutes could have cleared up the whole degree issue’, but Burner had 16 minutes and only muddied the waters.
lol! i love democrats. so naive and misled, like little children and the easter bunny. kind of reminds me of lemmings. Now if only i could get away with directing one off a cliff…..
re 32: Little children, bunnies, and lemmings???!!! You want to lead children off a cliff like lemmings!
You are sick!
It never ceases to amaze me that after the eight year debacle of the Bush administration (a mudslide that started under Ronald Reagan) and Republicans causing every financial panic the country has suffered over its history, and generally botching and bungling everything they touch (You all finally made the PRIVATE financial sector so broken, we could drown IT in the bathtub)you still have the blind stupidity to try to come on to us in sneering derision.
Wake up! WF Buckley’s son is voting for Obama.
@34
You nailed it. I don’t so much mind the ridiculous ideological and philosophical arguments, but the smugness, arrogance, and condescension is too much to bear.
This country is in shambles. We are on the brink of ruin. And the neocons that have set foreign & domestic policy for the past eight years can’t understand why Democrats are so blind as not to see the error of our ways!
Amazing.
Hey brainless Lucy @34 – calm down before you stroke out. Take another Kool-aid sip and relax.
kirk91 @ 31: Could not agree with you more!
I would have thought Darcy Burner would have been much smarter than to pull a verbal “red meat” gaffe as she did. Sorry, but she said she has a degree in economics, which clearly isn’t true. Yes, I know the difference and her specialization, but she should have known better and like it’s been said, she could have cleared this up quickly. She hasn’t.
So, if she ends up losing, Goldy won’t blame his candidate’s faults and/or blunders, it will Frank Blethen’s fault. Right. If Blethen had that much power, the death tax would have been erased a long time ago…
she lied
toast
her problem
and, poor old star struck Goldy, his problem to get over Darcha and invest in better material
she is weak on TV, after two campaigns something is missing – she needs to study Palin a bit for style tips – and the burning house fully insured no body hurt story is “weak”
Sorry but Darci loves to lie and doesn’t represent the District. It has nothing to do with the Seattle Times. If Farci Darci doesn’t stop running her stupid ads I will throw up.
She never has done anything in the community, hasn’t held a job in the last four years, doesn’t seem to understand that we don’t vote for people who have to lie to get elected. Wait till you are in office to do that.
I am voting Obama, Gregoire, Reichart like most of my neighbors. Over 40% of us are independents and we aren’t racists or easy to type cast but we care if people do what they say. She lied about her experience at Microsoft, flunked out of Law school. has never been to a PTA meeting, a county council meeting (other then when she was running) or even had the support of her own neighborhood..
Sarge at # 29 salutes the value of Harvard. That Burner and Obama are graduates of Harvard is proof positive of the school’s slide into mediocracy.