Search Results for: Dave Reichert

A couple weeks after announcing his run for the 8th Congressional District Democratic nomination, State Sen. Rodney Tom finally has his campaign website up online, touting his “experience” and “knowledge of the issues,” and of course, slamming the Republican incumbent, Rep. Dave Reichert:

The current congressman has repeatedly failed us, most importantly by stubbornly sticking with President Bush in support of the war in Iraq, not asking the tough questions prior to the invasion, and not holding this President accountable as this conflict has evolved.

Um… nobody likes to stick it to Reichert more than me, but to be fair to the congressman, it’s hard to blame him for “not asking the tough questions prior to” the March 2003 invasion, when he wasn’t even elected to Congress until 2004. (Considering Tom’s “knowledge of the issues,” you’d think he would’ve known that.) Come to think of it, Reichert wasn’t even a declared Republican at the time, having recently won a second full term to the nonpartisan office of Sheriff. As for Tom, I’m guessing he didn’t have much time to ask those tough questions during the build up to war, as he was too busy campaigning for the state House… as a Republican.

I’m just sayin’….

Whoops. Rodney Tom supporters were likely buoyed by the list of endorsements his campaign emailed out last week when he announced his candidacy for Dave Reichert’s congressional seat in WA-08, but that list seems to be shrinking day by day. First King County Democratic Chair Susan Sheary denied she had endorsed Tom, and now 48th LD Chair Doug Hightower tells me he too should not have been included on the list.

I talked to Hightower today to get his take on the primary race between Tom and Darcy Burner, and he told me that he was “neutral,” and didn’t know how his name got on the endorsement list. Hightower insisted it was “too early” for party officials like him to take sides.

Consultant John Wyble graciously offered to “take the fall” for the erroneous email announcing Tom’s “run for Congresss [sic],” and I suppose it is only a minor embarrassment for both Tom and his campaign. Still, a candidate running mostly on the strength of his five years of experience in the state legislature should probably have enough campaign experience to know that it’s not such a good idea to claim endorsements until, um, you know… you actually have them.

King County Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Sheary attended his campaign-kickoff announcement, and Tom — erroneously — claimed her endorsement, too.

He said later that support for him is obvious “when you’ve got the King County Democratic chair behind you,” and added, “She is fully behind me.”

Not so, Sheary said: “I have not endorsed anyone and will not. I was there only as a party leader because he had invited me. But I will stay neutral in the (primary) race.”

By the way, I’ve been talking to political insiders, pundits, wags and other members of the courtier class, trying to get a gauge on the conventional wisdom surrounding the Burner/Tom primary, and Hightower’s take was pretty much in line with the consensus: it’s good for the Democrats and a bad, bad sign for Reichert. Two term incumbents are usually unbeatable, yet Democrats are champing at the bit to take him on — compare that to Jennifer Dunn, who basically ran unopposed for much of her career.

And while Burner may not have wanted a primary opponent, almost everybody I’ve spoken with believes the challenge will be good for her… you know, with the possible exception of those few deluded folks who actually think Burner might lose.

I had the chance to hear Rodney Tom speak before the 48th District Democrats last week, and while he touched on education and the Iraq war, he led off his nascent stump speech by arguing that the primary race was mostly about beating Dave Reichert. One of his main critiques of Darcy Burner’s 2006 campaign was her relatively poor showing in Pierce County, where she garnered only 42.6 percent of the vote. Tom argues that he is a better fit to this more conservative, blue collar part of the 8th Congressional District. (Apparently because these voters strongly identify with wealthy, Lexus-driving, Medina realtors, I guess.)

The Tacoma News Tribune picked up on this theme yesterday with an article titled “Pierce vote important to Reichert challengers.”

Last year, as she prepared to challenge Republican Dave Reichert for the U.S. House, Darcy Burner said it would take significant Pierce County support for her to win.

She was right. Burner received only 304 fewer votes than Reichert out of over 200,000 cast in King County. But the Pierce County part of the congressional district remained loyal to the Republican, giving Reichert some 7,000 more votes than his Democratic challenger.

Hmm. I know this may sound counterintuitive, but the fact is, Burner lost the race in King County, not Pierce, where despite losing by more than 7,000 votes, she came pretty damn close to meeting or beating expectations. It was the King County results that proved disappointing, and a look back at previous elections explains why.

In 2006 Burner captured 42.6 percent of the vote in Pierce County, more than any other 8th CD Democrat since 1990. In 2004 by comparison, Dave Ross received only 39.1 of the Pierce vote, less than a half-percent better than the best effort by the much maligned Heidi Behrens-Benedict. Burner knew that to beat Reichert she had to do substantially better than previous Democrats in Pierce County. And she did.

In fact according to campaign insiders, Burner’s 3.5 point improvement over Ross (and nearly 7 point improvement over the ten-year average,) was right on target. All it would have taken to win the race was a very attainable 51.8 percent of the vote in the more Democratic King County portion of the district. But it didn’t happen. Late absentees broke decidedly towards Reichert, and Burner ended up losing King County by a few hundred votes out of over 200,000 cast.

Clearly, Tom is more conservative than Darcy, but then so was Ross, and to argue that this somehow makes Tom more electable simply isn’t supported by the facts. Burner did relatively well in Pierce County, a Republican stronghold, and with high name ID, increased turnout and presidential coattails, she’ll likely do even better. Unless, of course, I’m totally underestimating Pierce County’s Lexus-driving Medina realtor vote.

And one more balloon to burst before I go:

Tom supporters note the anti-Republican wave that swept the nation last year and say Burner had her chance to ride it to victory.

What a load of crap. Republicans held 232 House seats going into the 2006 election, and only 22 incumbents lost. Only 22. The GOP poured everything it had into defending Reichert; Karl Rove made WA-08 his number one target. And yet a total unknown with no prior campaign experience came within a silver hair of defeating “the Sheriff.”

Underestimate Burner at your own risk.

I think you know how this works by now, so let’s get to it starting nationally:

* The bullshit artists sure like to make up things about presidential candidates and potential presidential candidates. Speaking of make up, the fact that Mitt Romney spent almost $700 on one makeup session proves that John Edwards’ haircut is horrible. Hillary Clinton wore clothing appropriate for DC in the summer, so clearly that’s bad. Obama supports teaching children age appropriate sex ed, the horror. And Al Gore’s daughter’s husband’s family had a food that has been available at Whole Foods since 1999, and was, you know, “from one of the world’s few well-managed, sustainable populations of toothfish, and caught and documented in compliance with Marine Stewardship Council regulations” so clearly he’s the devil.

* Hew Hughitt thinks that trying to end the war will hurt Democrats, you know, because he cares about helping us out politically. But maybe the horrible war is, you know, just branded wrong.

* And of course the democrats constantly need to have a Sister Souljah moment. No matter how wingnutty the rightwing base is, no matter how in lock step the top tier is on the most compellingly shitty foreign policy decision in this country in decades and possibly ever, only Democrats ever seem to need to distance themselves from their base. You know, anti-war folks who were either right all along, or who have since come to the right side long ago on again, the most important thing on the election by miles.

Locally,

* Dave Reichert still doesn’t have a record of bi-partisanship or independence. As if there was ever any doubt.

* Darryl and The Olympian are calling bullshit on one of Dino Rossi’s main campaign totally not a campaign themes.

* Will has already mentioned Gary Randall, but tee hee hee.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

7PM: Is nothing sacred?
Politics is a dirty business, but are there any areas of a candidate’s life that is absolutely off limits? Writing on Slog, Josh Feit frets that it is “tacky to report on a politician’s religion,” before proceeding to report on Rep. Dave Reichert’s active membership in the ultra-fundamentalist Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. If Reichert’s religion is off limits, why not John Edwards’ haircut or Bill Clinton’s sex life… or the fact that Laura Bush killed her boyfriend?

8PM: But what about the pie crust?
King County bans Crisco! Oh no! Erika Nuerenberg, Senior Advisor to King County Council member Julia Patterson, and Trent House, Dir. Government Affairs for the Washington Restaurant Association, will join me for the hour talk about the county’s ban on trans-fat, and new nutritional labeling requirements for chain restaurants.

9PM: Prison overcrowding: supply or demand?
We’re running out of space in our region’s local jails. Is it time to start building more prisons, or maybe start treating drug addiction as a public health problem rather than a criminal one?

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

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman is investigating whether or not the travel done by the Drug Czar in 2006 was politically motivated. Throughout 2006, Drug Czar John Walters’ travel schedule was a roster of the some of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress.

In an email passing along thanks from Karl Rove for these visits, the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) White House liaison Douglas Simon wrote:

Folks,

I just wanted to give you all a summary of a post November 7th update I received the other night. Presidential personnel pulled together a meeting of all of the Administration’s White House Liaison’s and the WH Political Affairs office. Karl Rove opened the meeting with a thank you for all of the work that went into the surrogate appearances by Cabinet members and for the 72 Hour deployment. He specifically thanked, for going above and beyond the call of duty, the Dept. of Commerce, Transportation, Agriculture, AND the WH Drug Policy Office.

This recognition is not something we hear everyday and we should feel confident that our hard work is noticed. All of this is due to our efforts preparing the Director and the Deputies for their trips and events. Director Walters and the Deputies covered thousands of miles to attend numerous official events all across the country. The Director and the Deputies deserve the most recognition because they actually had to give up time with their families for the god awful places we sent them. I attached the flnal list of all of the official events that the Director and Deputies attended.

One of those “god awful places” they sent Drug Czar Walters to was Kent, where he met with Dave Reichert in March of 2006. Granted, they talked about meth, which is certainly a valid concern to people in “god awful places” like Kent. But I’d imagine there’s more of a concern that their federal tax dollars were being spent on the Drug Czar being a Republican campaign prop for all of 2006 as well.

[emphasis mine in the email]

What the Seattle Times said:

Legislation that passed the House last week would begin redeploying troops within 120 days and complete transition to a limited military presence by April 1.

Republican Congressman Dave Reichert of Washington voted with the president, and missed a big opportunity to distinguish himself. This is the direction our country has to take.

[…] There is no good time to get out of Iraq, but once we know we must leave, there is no excuse to put off the decision. Delay is also a decision, the wrong one with enormous costs in human life.

From now until November 2008, Darcy Burner will be relentlessly attacked as lacking the experience necessary to serve this region in Congress, but there should be little doubt how Burner would have voted on the House redeployment bill. She would have exercised the judgment to vote against the president, and with the values of her district. She would have displayed the leadership necessary to start bringing our troops home now, not months from now, and only when political expediency makes it absolutely necessary.

I hope the Times’ editors remember this before they sit down to write their next Reichert endorsement.

UPDATE:
Postman interviews Reichert on Iraq:

Reichert still firmly supports President Bush. The congressman is a former sheriff. When he talks about the war he frequently relates it to police work. And in this case he sees parallels between the criticism aimed at Bush and his most famous case, the hunt for the Green River Killer.

“During Green River we were just hammered on by the press and the community and I got hammered by people and criticized and I just feel some of the same pressures are being applied to the president.”

It should be noted that it took 18 years to catch the Green River Killer, even though they had enough evidence to make Gary Ridgeway a prime suspect early on.

That Reichert references his law enforcement career in response to every question is pathetic. That once again people are dying while he hamfistedly continues his investigation is a tragedy. Why do voters constantly reward such mediocrity?

Naturally I was really busy on Thursday, on a news day replete with interesting Republican accomplishments. Here’s a recap….

First there was Bush’s report to Congress (and the nation) on “progress” in Iraq since the Surge™ began. Check out Fred Kaplin’s Slate piece on the “accomplishments” titled “You Call That Progress? The outrageous White House report on Iraq.” I sense skepticism.

President George W. Bush achieved something of his own “benchmark” when he tied Richard Nixon’s low mark in a recent Harris poll of presidential approval.

Florida Rep. Bob Allen (R-Men’s Room) shows that even Republicans can try earning $20 the good ol’ fashion way.

President George W. Bush creates more scandal by trying to fire someone.

Now 3600+ U.S. soldiers have given their life for Saddam’s WMD Saddam’s role in 9-11-2001 stopping the Iraqi humanitarian crisis ousting Saddam training…er…fighting them over there oil somethin’ or the other that is really, really worthwhile.

Daniel at On the Road to 2008 noticed that Rep. Dave Reichert’s web site has carefully documented Reichert’s “record of independence and bi-partisan leadership.” Mmmmmm….impressive!

Republicans show their fund raising prowess by finishing somewhere in the top five.

Wingnut Pundit Jack Burkman demonstrates his commitment to small businesses.

President George W. Bush finally takes credit for his administration’s accomplishments in the Valerie Wilson covert dissemination case.

You gotta give them wingnuts credit…they’re always accomplishing stuff….

Local Republicans are once again dismissing Darcy Burner, but they do so at their own peril.

As a no-name newcomer with zero electoral experience, Burner came within a shiny white hair of defeating name-brand incumbent Dave Reichert. Ask any experienced politico worth their salt (of either party,) and they’ll tell you the race could have broken either way in the final weeks of the 2006 campaign. It broke towards Reichert. And there are lessons to be learned from that.

Burner is nothing if not smart, and you can be damn well sure that she’s learned those lessons. And as her 2Q fundraising numbers prove, she’s also a damn hard worker.

Over at u(SP), Eric Earling says that’s it’s too early for me to be crowing about Burner’s record fundraising, but let’s put those numbers into perspective. Burner didn’t start raising money until March, giving Reichert a four-month head start (coming out of the campaign with a six-figure debt, Reichert never stopped raising money)… and yet she still beats Reichert $185K to $160K in cash-on-hand, the all important figure by which DC insiders judge the health of campaigns.

Last year the Reichert campaign never pre-released its quarterly numbers, even while Burner was making headlines for her surprising totals, but this time around the other guys blinked, rushing to match Burner’s announcement of a $200K quarter (yes, a WA state record for a challenger) with a $244K quarter of its own. But the cash-on-hand disadvantage is such an embarrassment that one Democratic politico laughed that “the idiot” who made the decision to release it won’t be with the campaign much longer. (I hear John McCain has some job openings.)

What do strong Republican fundraising numbers really look like? IL-10, in the suburbs just north of Chicago, is a competitive district somewhat comparable to WA-08, in which 3-term incumbent Rep. Mark Kirk got quite a scare from netroots challenger Dan Seals. After slipping by with only 53-percent of the vote, Kirk has transformed himself into a fundraising machine, chalking up $617K in 2Q for a comfy $1.1 million total cash-on-hand. Those are the type of fundraising numbers one might expect from Reichert, given his 51.5 to 48.5 percent squeaker. And you wonder why I’m crowing?

Earling knowingly points to a quote from the Seattle P-I, in which “other Democrats” criticize Burner for failing to defeat Reichert in a Blue Tide year, and for repeating the same campaign themes as 2006, but those “other Democrats” are those backing undeclared Republican Democratic challenger Rodney Tom. That’s okay. They’re entitled to their rhetoric. But they’re wrong.

Burner, like the other second-tier Democratic challengers, was a sacrificial lamb in a grand strategy in which all of the first-tier and most of the third-tier Democrats won. She played an instrumental role in the Democrats taking control of Congress, drawing heavy Republican fire in a district the R’s hadn’t planned on seriously defending. And yet she came within a few thousand votes, and a couple tactical decisions, of winning. Had she responded to Reichert’s derisively sexist “job interview” ad in kind — had she nailed Reichert on his fundamentalist opposition to reproductive rights (both abortion and some forms of birth control) — it would be Burner who was posting Kirk-like numbers in defense of her incumbency.

As for Tom, the presumed “Democratic” challenger, he’s in for a shock. In 2006 my fellow bloggers and I took great joy in launching withering attacks on Tom’s opponent, the much-hated state Sen. Luke Esser. Tom didn’t ask for our support back then, and he shouldn’t this time around either, because he ain’t gonna get squat. No doubt, he’s a nice enough guy, and a helluva lot better than Esser, but he has a voting record as a Republican legislator that’s not going to endear himself to many 8th CD Democratic primary voters. Talk about great blog fodder.

And for all Tom’s misreading of the 8th District (you know, that the best way for the Dems to defeat the Republican Reichert is with another Republican,) general election strategies don’t mean a damn if you can’t find a path to the general election. Burner is gonna kick Tom’s ass. That’s a fact. She’s smarter, she’s harder working, and with likes of Dan Kully and Sandeep Kaushik on board, she’s assembling a killer team with a killer instinct.

That said, run Rodney, run! It’s good for Burner. Keeps her looking over her shoulder. And it helps build cred to crush a state senator early in the campaign. All I ask is that you bow out gracefully next April when you’re trailing by 20 points in the polls, and $700K in the bank.

Netroots favorite Darcy Burner may yet face a challenger for the Democratic nomination in Washington’s 8th Congressional District, but she’s already reinforced her standing as the primary front runner, hiring Dan Kully of Laguens, Hamburger, Kully, Klose to produce TV and radio spots for her 2008 campaign.

And man does he work fast.

Widely acclaimed for his work on U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s high profile win in Montana — including the memorable hair cut ad — Kully has become one of the hottest properties in the business. And, after an impressive, come-from-nowhere 2006 campaign that brought her within a couple points of the Republican incumbent, Burner found herself aggressively courted by some of the nation’s top media firms.

That Burner and Kully chose each other, says a lot about the kind of campaign we can expect to see in 2008. From this blogger’s perspective, it’s a “you got peanut butter in my chocolate” kinda fit.

Burner is likable, funny, quirky and damn smart — qualities that never fully came across in her well-produced but run-of-the-mill TV spots. Sure she’s young, and a bit of a geek, but those should be pluses in a district that’s home to Microsoft and many of our nation’s high tech leaders.

Kully’s genius is at communicating a candidate’s strengths, even if they’re not quite the strengths the inside the Beltway crowd typically focuses on. He’s creative, aggressive, incisive and not afraid to flout convention. And as a huge bonus, he’s local, heading up LHKK’s Seattle office. Not only does Kully know the region and the state — he did the highly effective media for the No campaigns that helped defeat I-912 (gas tax repeal) and I-933 (takings) — he’s geographically situated to give Burner the attention she needs as the campaign unfolds.

The spot above, the first fruit of the Burner/Kully collaboration, is a good indicator of where this campaign intends to go… and where it should have gone in the final months of the 2006 season. It is a parody of Dave Reichert’s derisively sexist “job interview” ad, and hits back hard at the congressman’s own poor performance in office. If Burner’s biggest perceived weakness is lack of experience in public office, it is also one of her greatest assets, especially with Reichert continuing to carry water for an unpopular President on many of our nation’s most pressing issues. Burner is put forth as an agent of change, a role for which political outsiders are particularly well suited.

The spot also displays a willingness to be as creative as the candidate, and that’s a welcome change from the focus-grouped messaging of the 2006 campaign, and the paint-by-numbers look-and-feel of its media.

Burner is in the process of putting together a team that should strike fear into the heart of Reichert’s handlers, and reason into the minds of potential Democratic challengers. Burner is also on track to come out of the quarter as one of the top candidates nationwide, but she’s still about $20,000 shy of her target. So if you want Burner to be the candidate in 2008, send a message now by sending her some money.

It’s gonna be a helluva a campaign.

Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA5) likes to pitch herself as a family values candidate. In fact, she values her family so much that she’s paid her brother and father almost $60,000 out of campaign funds over the past two elections. Sweet.

That’s according to a new report, “A Family Affair“, issued by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which found that 41 Democratic and 55 Republican representatives have put family members on their campaign payroll over the past three election cycles.

Although it is illegal for members of Congress to hire family members on their official staff, nothing stops them from paying them from campaign funds. So I guess it’s okay because, like, everybody’s doing it, right? Just take a look at the Washington state delegation, where Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Sheriff) paid his nephew Todd $4,281 out of campaign funds, and… um… well… that’s it, apparently. Just McMorris and Reichert.

Yeah, so when I ask for contributions to help pay for the enormous amount of time I put into this blog, I’m a deadbeat. But when McMorris’s father gets paid to work on his own daughter’s campaign, well, I guess he’s just being entrepreneurial.

I suppose that’s the difference between being a Democrat and a Republican.

This morning I thought I might write about the oil stain on my garage floor. Or, perhaps, the blue fuzzy lint I cleaned out of my navel this morning. But I was just a little too lazy to write on a topic of such irrelevance.

Besides, Alicia Mundy beat me to it this morning. In her Letter from Washington column in the Seattle Times, Alicia writes about Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-8)…and his utter irrelevance:

The annual power rankings from Congress.org have dropped Reichert, now a sophomore Republican, from 168th among 439 members to 419th. That puts him lower than emissaries from the District of Columbia (100), Guam (177) and Puerto Rico (377), none of whom represent a state or have actual voting rights in the House.

Reichert ranks lower than most Republicans, and every Democrat except Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA-2), who has been marginalized ever since the FBI filmed him taking bribes.

In short, Reichert has no recent accomplishments (well…he did successfully pretend to get a school bus driver fired). Furthermore he has shown no capacity to adapt—to find some kind of functional niche—in a House controlled by Democrats.

“But…but…but, what do you expect, Reichert is only a sophomore!” Sophomore, indeed…but, Reichert ranks 38th out of the 41 Representatives in his class of 2004.

So I guess Ms. Mundy was having one of those “I think I’ll write about something completely irrelevant” days, and she reported irrelevant old news about Washington’s 8th Congressional District’s irrelevant Representative.

If Ms. Mundy had been in the mood for a little more relevancy, she might have written about, say, sophomore Rep. McMorris Rogers (R-WA-5), with a ranking of 231 of 439, or 12th of 41 in the class of 2004 (and she spent the session pregnant until giving birth last month and missed much of May as a consequence).

Ms. Mundy could have done that…but, then again, McMorris Rogers doesn’t have that head of rich, silvery hair, bulging biceps, and those washboard abs….

See, this is why I’m really, really rooting for Rudy Giuliani to win the GOP nomination. In the words of Rev. James Dobson:

Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision. If given a Hobson’s – Dobson’s? – choice between him and Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran – or if worse comes to worst – not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life. My conscience and my moral convictions will allow me to do nothing else.

Abortion, domestic partnerships, philandering, multiple marriages, dressing in drag… these are all reasons Dobson cites in asserting Giuliani is not “presidential timber.” And if Christian conservatives like Dobson can’t bring themselves to vote for the GOP nominee, many will stay home from the polls altogether, disadvantaging Republican candidates up and down the ticket. Democratic voters already tend to turn out in relatively greater numbers during presidential elections — imagine a close race in a rematch between Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert, in which the right-wing Republican base is turned off by a Giuliani candidacy.

I sure as hell am.

Could the Seattle Times editorial board be any more dense or dishonest? Well yeah, of course they could. But that sloppy, wet kiss they planted today on Rep. Dave Reichert’s manly punim is one humdinger of a premeditated prevarication.

The Times celebrates Reichert’s “independence” and congratulates him for speaking out in defense of ousted U.S. Attorney John McKay:

Reichert picked a good cause and a good time to push back on a White House that clearly blew it by firing McKay.

No doubt it’s a good cause and a shrewd (if obvious) piece of political maneuvering. But a “good time”…? Um… wouldn’t a better time to have displayed his “conscience-driven independence” have been way back in December… when McKay was fired?

Let’s look at the time line here. We heard nothing but crickets chirping from Reichert when news of McKay’s ouster broke back in December, and when Reichert was asked to submit candidates for the office, McKay’s name was noticeably absent from the list. Wouldn’t that have been the “occasion where sticking his neck out really counts”…?

It is not until months later, with the scandal threatening to take down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and drag our nation into a constitutional crisis, that Reichert finally sticks up for McKay. And even then, he didn’t actually submit McKay’s name for consideration, or formally request he be reinstated. No, he just made a statement to a reporter.

Not exactly a profile in courage.

The only thing accurate about the Times editorial is the headline: “Reichert reacts.” A real leader — a real independent — would have been proactive in defense of John McKay and our justice system, instead of sticking his finger in the political winds and spitting out a sound bite after the fact.

As a junior member of the minority party, and the 419th most powerful congressman in the U.S. House, Rep. Dave Reichert has a lot more opportunity these days to exercise his mighty biceps than he does his puny political influence. So on those few occasions when he is given the chance to play a role in current events, it is instructive to see what he does with it.

With the U.S. attorneys scandal metastasizing around him, the task of recommending John McKay’s replacement fell squarely on Reichert’s broad shoulders, and he responded with the kind of bold competence we’ve come to expect from the brawny “Sheriff” who had Gary Ridgeway firmly in his grasp, but on a hunch, let him continue murdering women for another 18 years. I’ve already remarked on the candidate at the top of the list, former congressman Rick White, a lapsed bankruptcy attorney with little courtroom and zero prosecutorial experience. Sure, he isn’t even eligible to practice law in Washington state (or, um, anywhere,) but he’s a loyal Republican, and that’s really all that counts, huh?

Now attention is turning to another of Reichert’s nominees, acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan, McKay’s number two, and the former longtime Yakima County Prosecutor. Scuttlebutt is that Sullivan would be the safe choice — an experienced prosecutor, (again) a loyal, machine Republican… and a man who once referred to undocumented immigrants back in Yakima as “wetbacks.”

Hmm. I wonder how that racial slur goes over with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales?

By all accounts, Sullivan has his supporters in WA’s legal community, but he has his detractors as well. He is widely disliked in the Yakima Nation for aggressively fighting their efforts to battle alcoholism by taxing or banning alcohol on their reservation. And victim-advocacy groups still cringe at a policy he started in 1979, that required rape victims to take lie-detector tests.

And while he can boast three decades of prosecutorial experience, Sullivan’s very last case as Yakima County Prosecutor didn’t go so well:

In a blistering decision, a Yakima County Superior Court judge has accused the county prosecutor’s office of misconduct and dismissed a murder-conspiracy case it was hoping to try a second time.

[…] “The state’s misconduct prejudiced the defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel,” Judge Susan Hahn wrote in her ruling.

But then, a prosecutor admonished from the bench for withholding evidence from the defense might be exactly the kind of “team player” the White House is looking for.

And then there’s Reichert’s third nominee, Mike Vaska. An experienced litigator and prosecutor widely respected on both sides of the aisle, Vasca ruffled party feathers by challenging the annointed Rob McKenna in the 2004 GOP Attorney General primary. He doesn’t stand a chance.

It wouldn’t surprise me if none of Reichert’s three candidates gets the job. Nice work Dave.