Brad Shannon has an article focusing on Denny Heck, the former legislator and founder of TVW. Heck is giving serious consideration to running for the seat to be vacated by Rep. Brian Baird, D- Wash. (WA-03), at the end of the term.
“I am doing a bunch to get myself ready so I can hit the ground running. Having said that, I have not pulled the trigger,’’ Heck said Wednesday. “This is a big, big, big decision and it bears serious deliberation. I’ve set a hard deadline of this weekend, and I will stick by that deadline” for deciding.
As Shannon notes, Heck has “fronted” $100,000 of his own money for a potential run.
The district certainly has the potential to be one of the top targets in the country, so large sums of money flowing into the district are a certainty. A candidate who can fund some of the expense himself is going to get attention. As to how much the race will cost, numbers like $3-$5 million per general election candidate seem likely. It’s great news for the companies that own Portland tee-vee and radio stations.
The announced big names on the Democratic side are state Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver (18th LD,) and state Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver (49th LD.) Some other folks have made a little noise, including state Sen. Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond (19th LD,) and former state Sen. Mark Doumit, a Democrat from Cathlamet who now works for the Washington Forest Protection Association. While it pains me to say it, having once lived in Longview, the latter two would face an uphill climb in the district trying to get attention in Clark County with Pridemore and Wallace both from Clark. Olympia activist Cheryl Crist, who received just shy of 13% in the 2008 top-two primary, has also declared she is in the race for 2010.
If Heck gets in, there would be at least four Democrats running, three of them with a decent chance of moving through to the general. Heck justifiably seems to have a lot of people who admire him, and has more recently spent time in the private sector. Personally I think he’d also have an uphill climb against two sitting Legislators who currently reside in Clark County, but I’m biased. (As I’ve stated from the outset, I am supporting Pridemore.) Then again, money talks, as they say.
On the Republican side, so far you have state Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-Ridgefield (18th LD,) former Bush administration official and current private sector financial adviser David Castillo of the Olympia area, Washougal city council member Jon Russell and yelling Marine guy David Hedrick. While Herrera, a former staffer for U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. (WA-05,) was parachuted in to take the 18th LD state House seat vacated after the Richard Curtis sex scandal, she’s only in her first full term and is pretty young by political standards at 31.
Castillo seems to bring a serious campaign style, and good communication skills, and I wouldn’t discount him.
Russell failed to get the endorsement of evangelical leader Joe Fuiten, who went with Castillo, even though Russell is a Faith and Freedom guy. Hedrick is, well, Hedrick.
So, at this point, if the Democratic field turns out to be:
Wallace
Pridemore
Heck
Crist
And the Republicans wind up being:
Castillo
Herrera
Russell
Hedrick
I think I would like our chances a lot.
I think that it is important to remember that the 3rd LD is politically very moderate — Lewis County and rural Clark County are serious strongholds of Right Wing Evangelical politics of the Linda Smith ilk.
Pridemore is a great candidate who has shown strong liberal credentials and leadership skills in Olympia, but his environmental history may hurt him in some of the D-leaning but still fairly conservative and natural resource-intensive counties (Cowlitz, Pacific, rural Thurston).
I don’t know what record Wallace has to run on from Olympia, as she has been a very cautious legislator. Her work with the EDC in Vancouver certainly burnishes her moderate / business credentials.
So both of the Vancouver candidates would have things to overcome in their race.
Though Heck hasn’t run for office in 21 years, he has strong business and government connections, a statewide (if wonky) media presence from his days at TVW, and a vast ability to raise money (both from himself as well as his many afore-mentioned business and government connections), as well as a personal gravitas not possessed by other candidates. Though he may hew too moderate / conservative for many, there is no denying his intellect and political credentials. Not to mention his roots in Vancouver (where he grew up and was elected to the Legislature at age 23) combined with his involvement in the insider Olympia scene, where he lives now, gives him some geographical strength others can’t match.
For my money, though Pridemore reflects my liberal values better, I think Heck has a better chance, because he better reflects the political moderatation of the district. And I’d love to see a few debates between Heck, with all his on-camera experience, and Herrera, whose doe-eyed ingenue routine gets old fast.
I think we need to encourage more (and more, and more) Republicans to get into the race. Simultaneously, the list of Democrats should be minimized.
Why? It’s simple, really — the accursed Top Two primary demands it. We need to maximize the probability that at least one of the candidates in November 2010 is a Democrat. If the Republican vote is sufficiently splintered while the Democratic votes are concentrated in a small number of candidates, maybe we could even end up with both general election candidates being Dems.
I’m sure the WSRP understands this too. They’ll do what they can to narrow their field as well. In fact, they’re usually better at such strategery than the
cat herdersWA Dems.Was it Sam Reed’s intent when crafting the abomination that is the Top Two to decrease political participation? Perhaps not, but that’s the (predictable, obvious) result of his idiotic obsession.
I heard Denny Heck speak at length at a breakfast meeting a few months ago, and I was mightily impressed with his substance, his depth of knowledge of public issues, and his communication skills.
I remember sensing at the time that he’d make an excellent candidate again, although I was thinking statewide office, not Congress.
With Reed’s new Top-Two Primary scheme, campaigns will need a lot more money.
Talking to other candidates in 2008, the first year for the Top Two, candidates in hotly contested races told me Top Two was like running two general election campaigns, back to back.
The consequence of these schemes to make elections “less partisan” (Top Two Primary, I-26 county offices non-partisan) is to make campaigns more expensive.
Clever.
It must be nice to have $100,000 you can spend on your politics hobby.
By an inverse twist of fate, for those of us who lack the means to buy public offices, politics is a serious matter.
But you already know how little we count in the grand scheme of things. Our only function in the world is to line up for shearing when the poobahs of the Political Hobby Class tell us to fork over our wool.
@1 “Lewis County and rural Clark County are serious strongholds of Right Wing Evangelical politics of the Linda Smith ilk.”
It possibly would be more accurate to say Lewis County and rural Clark County are strongholds of the rightwing “I’ll do whatever I want with my property” ilk.
@2 I really like the idea of the Top Two biting the GOP in the ass by putting two Democrats on the ballot in November. I may even make a small campaign donation to Hedrick.
TVW? Isn’t that the outfit that insists “fair use” = “no use”?
Is Hedrick An Idiot Or What?!
“By some estimates, the U.S. has … larger quantities of oil than even the Middle East.”
http://www.davidwhedrick.com/Issues-1.htm
Roger Rabbit Commentary: It’s not hard to figure out who’s gonna get the idiot vote.
With the national attention this race is sure to attract, one can only hope the national party is checking out their folks. Has Wallace (and those that have been active in her past campaigns for the state legislature) all been vetted for the type of battle that is sure to draw some major scrutiny? Face it, the only media she’s really dealt with in the past has been the Vancouver Columbian, not really the pillar of investigative journalism.