Search Results for: Dave Reichert

President Bush’s approval ratings are plummeting across the board, with the latest Newsweek poll dropping 3 points to a pathetic 33 percent. Meanwhile, the Democrat’s generic advantage in the race for control of Congress has climbed to a three-month high, with Dems now preferred on every major issue, including the war on terror. And of course the House Page scandal continues to spin out of control, with new revelations about Foley’s follies and the multi-year coverup coming out daily.

If you don’t think national events are having an impact on local races, then you’re spending too much time talking to Diane Tebelius. The last three public polls in WA’s 8th Congressional District (all conducted before the Foley scandal broke) have shown a dead heat between incumbent Republican Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner, while the Reichert campaign remains suspiciously silent about its own internal polling. In light of this and the larger political climate, the respected Cook Political Report has just upgraded the race from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up.”

Meanwhile, the WA-05 race between incumbent Republican Cathy McMorris and Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark is starting to turn some heads. On Friday the campaign released its own poll showing the race within the margin of error, while again, the McMorris campaign remained quiet about its own internal numbers. I’ve talked to a number of Democratic and Republican politicos over the past few days, and the unanimous consensus is that Goldmark is closing… and fast. The combination of a dynamic candidate, an effective advertising campaign, a solid ground game — and of course, a favorable political climate — is setting the stage for what could be one of the biggest upsets of the season.

What we’re seeing is a Republican Party in the midst of meltdown, and the impact is being felt in local districts nationwide. Yesterday, the Spokesman-Review endorsed Democrat Larry Grant in Idaho’s 1st CD, and while their stated reasons were varied, the final sentence stands out as a warning beacon of a potential political sea change:

Not only will Grant be in a good position to help Idaho if the Democrats regain the House, but he would work better with Republicans than Sali would if they don’t.

This is a rationale that will pop up in editorials nationwide. Absentee ballots start dropping a week from Tuesday, and barring some kind of October Surprise (or massive election fraud) a Democratic takeover of at least one house seems almost certain. While I don’t expect the S-R editorial board to apply the same logic to their home district, some voters will, recognizing that a populist pragmatist like Goldmark can better represent their interests in a Democratic majority than a socially conservative McMorris can in a Republican minority. We’ve reached a tipping point.

That said, Goldmark is still the underdog; he can’t win unless he can afford to get his message out… and he can’t afford to get his message out without your help. Friday I challenged my readers to take my Act Blue page past the $7,000 mark for Goldmark by the end of the weekend, and right now we’re still about $700 short. We’ve got a unique opportunity to put a Democrat in the 5th CD seat — the kind of Democrat that can hold the seat for years to come. So if you haven’t already given, please give now.

Oh man, it’s been a brutal media day for the candidates at the top of WA’s Republican ticket. But while the shiny-haired Dave Reichert is only getting his tires ass kicked in the local press (more on that later,) US Senate wannabe Mike?™ McGavick’s well-deserved beating is taking place on a national stage.

McGavick was absolutely savaged in the Washington Post this morning, subjected to the kind of blunt analysis and verbal thrashing only the deliciously acerbic Michael Kinsley can deliver:

If you knew nothing about Mike McGavick except what is in his TV commercials and on his Web site, you would conclude either that he is a moron or that he thinks you are a moron.

Hmm. I’m betting on the latter.

Kinsley deconstructs the McGavick campaign with devastating efficiency, highlighting the inane absurdities and “fog of generality” through which the candidate has chosen to present himself to voters. McGavick accuses Sen. Maria Cantwell of “following party over state interests.” To which Kinsley asks the obvious:

Why would she do that? Why would she put her party’s interests over those of her constituents? Who cares enough about either party to actually put their own political futures in peril? Answer: no one. Taken literally, the charge is absurd. But it’s not meant to be taken literally. It is just part of the miasma of themes and images that political professionals create around candidates. Cantwell is popular, partisanship is not. So blame partisanship and not Cantwell. Be for “families.” Be for “change.” Be against “Washington, D.C.” and “lobbyists.”

[…]

In a radio spot this week called “Not Paying Attention,” McGavick says, “Folks in Washington, D.C., you know they must not think we are paying attention” to “some of the things they are getting away with.” In a rare particular, he blames “automatic pay raises” for creating bad incentives for members of Congress. “We’ve got to have change,” he says, “but the only way to do that is to change who represents us.”

Maria Cantwell hit it big in the dot-com boom and is a very rich woman. She has spent tens of millions of dollars on her election and reelection campaigns. Whatever her flaws, she cannot possibly care about a pay raise. Taken literally, the notion that any national politician assumes that the voters and media and opposition party are “not paying attention” is equally ridiculous. So what is her motivation? What is McGavick’s, for that matter? (He’s rich, too, having struck gold in just a few years in the insurance business.)

Following up on McGavick’s charges, Kinsley logically asks, “Is Cantwell devoting her life to betraying the families of Washington just for the fun it?”

McGavick has no explanation, except to say that “this stuff is nuts,” that it is “partisan nonsense” and so on. But Maria Cantwell is not nuts. “Nuts” is not a plausible explanation. And without any specifics or a plausible explanation, McGavick’s complaints are exceptionally empty.

Knowing virtually nothing about McGavick, I saw one of his 30-second spots last week and took an instant, personal and possibly unfair dislike to him. And I wonder why everyone doesn’t have the same reaction to these patronizing, insulting commercials. Maybe some do — McGavick is going to lose, apparently — but more must be turned on than are turned off, because McGavick is not nuts either.

Of course we all know why McGavick hides himself behind a fog of generalities — because if he actually ran on the issues, he’d surely lose. This has never been more clear than in his recent spat with the Seattle Times’ David Postman over a months-old post about McGavick’s stance on social security privatization. McGavick didn’t dispute Postman’s reporting at the time. In fact, he even cited it from his own campaign website. Only after Democrats started citing the post did McGavick claim that Postman got it wrong.

As it turns out, Postman’s interview was somewhat prompted by a contest on Talking Points Memo seeking to get a straight answer from McGavick on whether he did or did not support phasing out Social Security and replacing it with private accounts. So it’s no surprise that TPM’s Josh Marshall chose to weigh in on the current dispute:

And now he says Cantwell has to take down her ad because it doesn’t reflect his true position. At least after changing it for the tenth time. Can anyone take this dude even remotely seriously? And how am I supposed to run Social Security contests with any sense of predictability or finality when we’ve got serial bamboozlers like Mike McGavick out there constantly changing their positions?

I need Regis here to give McGavick one of those, “Is that your final answer?” lines.

(ed.note: In private McGavick is known for supporting hardline privatization of Social Security. He just fibs about his position in public.)

Late Update: Maybe give a holler to the Postman guy at the Seattle Times and thank him for braving the hot swamps of McGavick’s bamboozlement.

Hey… thanks Dave.

And thanks Mike, for transforming a Senate race widely touted as the Republicans best shot at unseating an incumbent Democrat… into a national joke. No wonder McGavick recently traveled to a big DC fundraiser only to come back empty handed.

From Talking Points Memo:

Okay, we’ve got an answer for Rep. Dave Reichert [R] of Washington’s 8th district. He says he doesn’t want to take a stand on Hastert until after an investigation has been completed.

Pussy.

A SurveyUSA/KING-5 poll to be released later today will show incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert leading Democratic challenger Darcy Burner 50% to 48%… well within SurveyUSA’s typical margin error. This will mark the third independent poll over the past two weeks (here and here) to show the race in a statistical dead heat.

That’s amazing news for a challenger who is still under 50% in name ID, and bad news for an incumbent six weeks prior to the election. This isn’t 2004. This is an incumbent with huge name ID in a district that has never elected a Democrat, running against a virtual unknown.

Want to put Burner over the top? Then please give her money now. Your contribution could make the difference between Democratic and Republican control of the House. Really.

UPDATE:
“KING 5 Poll shows 8th district up for grabs”

Reliable sources tell me that a poll commissioned by EMILY’s List will show the race between Rep. Dave Reichert and Republican challenger Darcy Burner at 44% to 43%. They didn’t tell me who got the 44 and who got the 43, but it doesn’t really matter, as either way it’s a statistical dead heat.

The poll will be released tomorrow, and was reportedly conducted by a widely respected polling firm.

Sound unlikely? Well keep in mind that this comes on the heels of a widely pooh-poohed poll two weeks ago that showed Burner leading 49% to 46%. Assuming my sources are correct, we now have two independent polls, two weeks apart, that peg this race within the margin of error. That’s not a good place for an incumbent to be six weeks before the election.

UPDATE:
Oops. Looks like Lynn at Evergreen Politics beat me to it… and with independent confirmation straight from EMILY’s list. She says it’ll be in the P-I tomorrow morning, which means it will likely be up online within the hour.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
Got the details. Here’s the polling memo from EMILY’s List.

Hmm. According to PoliticalMoneyLine, as of the end of August, Darcy Burner had actually outraised Dave Reichert in contributions from individuals, $1,084,864 to $1,083,538. And I’m not just talking about the last three quarters… I’m talking over the entire campaign.

That means Reichert’s fundraising advantage comes almost entirely from PACs… and I just think that says something about which candidate has the most grassroots support, and who the candidates might be beholden to: business interests (Reichert) or the people (Burner).

And according to Evergreen Politics and Cool Aqua, the disparity in popular support between the two campaigns as evidenced by the willingness of ordinary people to open their checkbooks has only grown in recent weeks. FEC reports suggest that Reichert may have raised only $3000.00 from GOP evil-mastermind Karl Rove’s recent visit. While part of that poor showing may be due to reporting errata or the fact that most people attending the event had already maxed out, it’s unlikely he came close to raising the $156,000 Burner brought in during a 10-day special fundraising drive promoted to offset Rove’s presence, or even the $43,000 an email from Sen. Maria Cantwell raised in only a few hours.

It’s not that congressional campaigns are simply about the money, or that dollars raised is ever a reliable predictor of ballots cast… but the relative easy in which Burner has raised money from individuals can certainly be read as an indicator of a growing Burner surge.

UPDATE:
I just checked my ActBlue page, and Darcy Burner is sitting there at a total of $99,941.32 raised… and it’s just killing me. Somebody… quick.. make a $60.00 donation and put Darcy over the $100,000 mark.

“Burner Wins!” If Washington’s 8th Congressional District primary had the same rules as a judicial primary, that might be the headline splashed across the top of the Seattle Times and P-I this morning.

Of course the totals are extremely close, and far from complete, so when the final numbers are in Rep. Dave Reichert may turn out to have tallied more primary votes than Democratic challenger Darcy Burner, but what we’ve seen so far should have 8th CD R’s very worried. As of the last report Burner has received 19,529 primary votes compared to Reichert’s 19,133. Both candidates ran unopposed, and while primary results can be misleading, these results are a classic sign of a vulnerable incumbent.

Perhaps most encouraging (or distressing, depending on your party affiliation) is Burner’s performance in Pierce County, where Democrat Dave Ross got trounced in 2004. At the moment Reichert is only leading by a 6,699 to 6,424 margin. If Burner can keep the race close in the Southern part of the district come November, she’s virtually assured victory.

Remember, Burner went into this race with zero name recognition against one of the best known politicians in the region, and has spent very little money thus far getting her name and face in front of voters. Barring disastrous polls (and the Reichert camp’s silence on their own internal polling indicates there aren’t any) Burner can cash in her performance yesterday to assure that the DCCC follows through on the substantial financial support it has already committed.

Any way you look at it, the primary results represent a big win for Darcy Burner.

After months of silence, Rep. Dave Reichert has finally issued a statement regarding reports of mismanagement of the King County Sheriff’s department under his watch:

Reichert’s statement said some of his own efforts to improve officer supervision and oversight were stymied by a lack of support from other county officials. In particular, Reichert mentioned King County Executive Ron Sims.

“I worked as sheriff to address these issues and others but was often prohibited from doing so by successive years of $1 million to $2 million budget cuts,” Reichert said. “I repeatedly expressed to the county executive the need for an increased budget to effectively implement oversight of the behavior of the organization, to ensure policies and procedures are complied with and to create an ongoing auditing process in the Sheriff’s Office.”

What a load of crap. Reichert never had to deal with a budget cut — indeed, his budget grew faster than that of the County as a whole every single year of his tenure.

But you can’t really blame Reichert for his confusion, as he apparently never understood his own budgets in the first place. The truth is, Reichert’s budgets were a mess, repeatedly forcing him to come to the County Council and Executive with unplanned, supplemental budget requests… at a time when the county was struggling to meet revenue shortfalls without raising taxes. And apparently, not a single one of those requests were for increased supervision and oversight.

But what really irks me is the way he trods out the KCGOP’s tired old saw of blaming everything on Ron Sims… the man who appointed him to the Sheriff’s post, launching Reichert on his political career. (If you want to blame Sims for a poor decision, that one’s a doozy.) So much for loyalty.

Reichert’s unprovoked attack on Sims is a slap in the face of the undeserved comity the Executive has shown his former appointee. Ironically, the Seattle P-I had asked Sims to comment on Reichert’s tenure as Sheriff, and Sims declined. In the words of a miffed Sims staffer, the Executive explained that “he wouldn’t be able to say anything good about Reichert’s leadership of the department, and he didn’t want to lie.”

Now that Reichert has fired the opening salvo I hope that Democrats on the Council and in the Executive’s office embrace a little realpolitik. Reichert has a documented record as Sheriff, and voters deserve to know what it really is.

Here we go! Josh at Talking Points Memo finds this NRCC document showing expenditures of almost $2 million being used to fund production and placement or mailing of “issue ads.” (Of course, the term “issue ad” is a euphemism for “attack ad“).

The expenditures, being used against 20 Democratic congressional candidates, are nicely summarized by mcjoan at Daily Kos.

I’m not surprised to find that Darcy Burner is one of the 20 NRCC targets. Here is the entry for the Washington State 8th Congressional district race:

MAJORITY COMMUNICATIONS INC.
274 MARCONI BLVD.
SUITE 260
COLUMBUS, Ohio 43215

Purpose of Expenditure: Mailing Service
This Committee OPPOSES The Following Candidate: DARCY BURNER FOR CONGRESS
Office Sought: House of Representatives
State is Washington in District 08
Date Expended = 09/15/2006
Person Completing Form: CHRISTOPHER J. WARD
Date Signed = 09/15/2006
Amount Expended = $25586.91
Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $41861.91

Let’s see…we had a visit by Bush and a visit by Karl Rove to raise money for Rep. Dave Reichert, the NRCC has Darcy Burner on their top twenty hit list, and they have targeted $42,000 for the race to date. Anybody dismissing Darcy Burner’s chances in this race is simply in denial. Darcy was leading in the last public poll, but the Republican attack ads will turn that around if left unanswered.

You know where this is going…. If you haven’t yet given (or even if you have), please consider a small donation to counter the NRCC’s attack. Even $5.00 will help.

Click here to tell the NRCC to shove it!

The Seattle PI today reports that Sheriff-turned-Congressman Dave Reichert has finally broken his long silence over the problems uncovered in the King County Sheriff’s Office.

And now, as you might expect from a man of his integrity and credibility, Reichert has taken full responsibility for the failings in the Sheriff’s office under his leadership.

Just kidding! I mean you didn’t really expect that, did you? He is up for reelection, you know. No, Reichert did the right thing here…he found someone else to blame:

“Many of the issues the [Blue Ribbon investigation panel] identifies are issues that I worked to solve when I was sheriff and it is gratifying that many of their proposed solutions echo those that both I and Sheriff (Sue) Rahr have put forward,” Reichert said.

Reichert’s statement said some of his own efforts to improve officer supervision and oversight were stymied by a lack of support from other county officials. In particular, Reichert mentioned King County Executive Ron Sims.

“I worked as sheriff to address these issues and others but was often prohibited from doing so by successive years of $1 million to $2 million budget cuts,” Reichert said. “I repeatedly expressed to the county executive the need for an increased budget to effectively implement oversight of the behavior of the organization, to ensure policies and procedures are complied with and to create an ongoing auditing process in the Sheriff’s Office.”

Uh-huh…so it was Ron Sims’ fault!

Well…kind-of. You see the budget for the Sheriff’s Office increased every year from 2000 to 2004.

A spokesman for Sims said Friday that, other than a request for six more sergeants in 2001, the executive’s office could not find any requests by Reichert for the funding the statement described.

“We don’t have evidence of that,” Sims spokeswoman Carolyn Duncan said.

Duncan added that the Sheriff’s Office budget consistently has fared better than budgets of other departments over the past several years. Since 2000, the sheriff’s budget has grown by $32 million.

“The bottom line was, their budget has increased every year when other departments were taking cuts,” Duncan said.

The PI cites budget figures from 2000 to 2004 as $84.8, $95, $99, $101, and $106.7 million. In fact, in 2001 the Sheriff’s Office under-spent its budget by nearly $1.5 million.

So…it hardly seems that the underlying problems could really be about money. The series of articles published by the Seattle P-I documented problems with morale, discipline, and officer misconduct—the kinds of things that money affects only superficially in the hands of a real leader; so, maybe we can still pin this on Ron Sims….

The P-I‘s series led to the formation of the blue-ribbon panel, which issued its final report Monday. That report described multiple “longstanding” problems with officer supervision and oversight. It detailed 43 findings, six major recommendations and 36 other suggestions the panel said need to be implemented to repair a broken officer accountability system.

Though it did not single out any past administrations, the panel specifically noted among its recommendations that employee performance evaluations, which were eliminated under Reichert, should be reinstituted.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, how would eliminating employee performance evaluations cause accountability and morale problems? I mean, isn’t it simpler to just say that it was Ron Sims’ fault? After all, Reichert can show how he was instrumental in changing the culture in the Sheriff’s Office…

In his statement, Reichert also noted his administration “established the core values of the Sheriff Office, leadership, integrity, service and teamwork.”

Former County Executive Randy Revelle, who served as chairman of the blue-ribbon panel, said just having such core values isn’t enough: “It’s one thing to have them posted on a wall. But the real test is, are they guiding and influencing the character of your employees? We didn’t get the impression they were.”

But, but, but, it was Reichert who got the policy down on paper, put up the posters, and made sure everyone got the memo…see? So it must have been Ron Sims’ fault that things didn’t “take”…right?

It sounds like the only thing missing was…you know…that leadership thing.

So…um…I hope you will join Dave Reichert and me in pointing out the obvious implication: the lack of leadership in the King County Sheriff’s office was Ron Sims’ fault!

I imagine “Turd Blossom,” George Bush’s nickname for Karl Rove, refers to Rove’s ability to take a pile of shit and make something out of it. In any case, watch where you step today, because Turd Blossom is coming to town. He will be here to raise money for freshman Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington’s 8th congressional district .

Of 435 House races potentially up for grabs this November, the race between Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert has attracted an extraordinary amount of attention. Just a few months ago, Karl Rove sent George W. Bush to raise money for Reichert. The plan may have backfired a bit , as Reichert raised less money, and Burner more money, than expected.

Now, Karl Rove, himself, has taken on the task of turning Reichert’s turd of a campaign into a blossom.

By almost all measures, Reichert is in big trouble. In an ordinary year, an incumbent with widespread name recognition and a good head of hair would be pretty safe. Reichert should particularly be safe against a political newcomer. But this year isn’t an ordinary year. This year there is the smell of voter dissatisfaction in the air.

The dissatisfaction is coming from three places: (1) a general dissatisfaction with incumbents, (2) a specific backlash against Bush Republicans, and (3) from candidates with the scent of corruption and Abramoff about them. Unfortunately for Reichert, all three are at work against him: he is a Bush Republican incumbent with a little bit of the stench of corruption and Abramoff after taking money from convicted former Congressman Duke Cunningham and the newest member of the Convict’s Club, Bob Ney.

And it doesn’t help that Richert is rather inarticulate, slow off the mark, and politically naive, running against an exceptionally bright and energetic Darcy Burner.

Reichert’s tenuous position is clear from the two most recent public polls, the first showing Reichert ahead and the second showing Burner ahead. The race is now rated a toss-up by the New York Times; and both CQ Politics and the Cook Political Report have upgraded the race from Republican to a more precarious leans Republican.

The most remarkable sign of Darcy Burner’s momentum in this race is that she has out-fundraised Reichert for the last three quarters!

These things just shouldn’t happen—not in an ordinary year.

The big question now is whether the net effect of Karl Rove’s visit will be to help or hurt Reichert. It is telling that the event is a private affair for some 100 wealthy donors and was not publicly announced. The Washington State Republican’s chief political clairvoyant Chris Vance (you know, the guy who could tell us just how the election contest would turn out) sees no problems for Reichert:

“In my view, there are no pitfalls (to a Rove visit) because the voters out there who have very strong feelings about this one way or the other have already made up their minds,” said Chris Vance, a former state Republican Party chairman and now a public affairs consultant with the Gallatin Group.

“Having Karl Rove here will not change anybody’s mind. But it will raise a bunch of money,” Vance said.

The trouble with Vance’s theory is that that when Bush came to raise money for Reichert, Burner also got a big fundraising boost. Naturally, when Rove’s fundraiser became public, the Darcy Burner campaign responded with a special fundraising drive focused on the visit.

I think an even bigger problem is that this visit will highlight and solidify the relationship between Reichert and the Bush administration. Who in their right mind can now believe that a reelected Reichert would vote against the administration’s interests when both Bush and Rove personally flew in to save his bacon? If Reichert had some semblance of independence during his current term (based on a couple of non-critical and pre-authorized votes), he loses it entirely by his new obligations to Bush and Rove. Indeed, in this political climate, and this particular congressional district, Karl Rove may leave more damage than can be fixed by the money he brings in.

I mean, if you try growing flowers on a turd, the wrong environment will leave you with just a stinking pile of shit.

(Send a message that Washington State will not support candidates beholden to the failures and incompetence of the Bush administration. Give something to Darcy Burner today. Remember, the number of donors is an important measure of success, so even if you can only afford five bucks, your donation strengthens the message considerably.)

First-term Republican Rep. Dave Reichert refused to be interviewed by MSNBC.com for their piece highlighting the tight race for WA’s 8th Congressional District. But state Senator Pam Roach (R-19th Century) was not so shy in going on the record to criticize Democratic challenger Darcy Burner:

“I got her mailer, with the photo of her and her son,” said Republican Pam Roach, a 16-year veteran of the state senate and a Reichert supporter, whose legislative district overlaps part of the southern portion of the congressional district. “My reaction was: “If you’re elected, when are you going to spend time with your child?’ She has one baby; will she have two or three more?” People in the district, Roach said, demand full-time representation.

“My reaction was “why don’t you just take care of your child and grow up a bit and then think about running for office?'”

Yeah, um… because having a political career is exactly the type of maternal neglect that could lead your child to grow up to be a drug dealer or something.

The spectacle of Pam Roach offering anybody child rearing tips is ironic enough, but I wonder if Roach has offered the same sage, Victorian advice to incumbent Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris in WA’s 5th Congressional District?

After all, if Roach is implying that women of childbearing age shouldn’t server in Congress, it is the recently married, fundamentalist Christian, anti-birth-control, 35-year-old McMorris who is way more likely to be popping out babies over the next few sessions. On the other hand, demographic trends strongly suggest that the pro-choice, feminist Burner, with a single child after 13 years of marriage, is exactly the type of woman who tends to stop at one.

So I guess we should be expecting Roach to announce her endorsement of Peter Goldmark any day now, right?

Normally, I listen to the podcast before writing up these summaries, because… well… I was drinking at the time it was recorded and I want to make sure that I remember events accurately. But apparently, that’s just not the Mike?™ McGavick Way of doing things. So I’ll just write this post to the best of my recollection, and apologize in advance if I’m contradicted by the actual audio recording.

I’m pretty damn sure that joining me in an our sober discussion of the issues were Will, Mollie, Lynn, Nick, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly and TV’s Soleil Moon Frye. At least I think. Topics of discussion may have included Mike?™ McGavick’s alcohol-hazed recollection of his DUI, Mike?™ McGavick’s money-crazed connection to VECO Corp. and their Corrupt Bastards Club of Alaska legislators, Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark spreading like wildfire through WA’s 5th Congressional District, and I think — though I’m not sure, ’cause I don’t really remember anything after I strapped the headset on — I think we talked at length about how Rep. Dave Reichert’s extensive use of steroids have swollen his testicles to the size of small grapefruit. But maybe not.

The show is 51:51, and is available here as a 38.9 MB MP3. Please visit PodcastingLiberally.com for complete archives and RSS feeds.

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for producing the show.]

From an article in yesterday’s NY Times about Karl Rove’s waning influence in the Republican Party, a tidbit that hints at what we should brace for here in our Washington over the next couple months:

They have determined that control of Congress is likely to be settled in as few as six states and have decided to focus most of the party’s resources there, said Republican officials who did not want to be identified discussing internal deliberations. Those states will likely include Connecticut, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, though officials said the battle lines could shift in coming weeks.

If state Republicans seem blase about the tough races facing first term incumbent Representatives Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris, and overly confident about their traction-less Senate nominee Mike?™ McGavick, that’s because they assume the RNC’s huge cash advantage will easily overwhelm and smother the electorate’s nascent unrest and distrust. And normally, that might be true.

But even though Democrats will be heavily outspent on both House races, and possibly even the Senate, there is a point of diminishing returns beyond which a blitz of advertising just becomes so much white noise. At least 3 to 4 million dollars will be spent on behalf of 8th CD challenger Darcy Burner, more than enough to get her name and message before voters, and if Peter Goldmark can meet his million dollar fundraising target while drawing in a modest amount of independent expenditures, that could be all he needs to catch fire in the less media saturated 5th CD. And as for the enigmatic Mike?™ McGavick, no amount of money is going to win him a Senate seat unless he manages to persuade voters exactly why they need to turn Sen. Maria Cantwell out… and exactly what legislative agenda he intends to pursue in her stead.

The important thing to take away from this tidbit is that Republicans intend to focus their resources on Washington state because they know their candidates here are vulnerable… they know that both Burner and Goldmark have a good shot at winning, and the RNC intends to crush their chances under a truckload of cash.

But don’t despair, because in this year, in this political climate and with these candidates, WA Dems don’t have to outspend their opponents to win, they just have to keep it relatively close. A challengers dollar simply buys more than that of an incumbent, thus the biggest thing you can do to contribute to Democratic chances to retake the House is to help our candidates get their message out by giving as much as you can afford to Burner and Goldmark.

The Republicans are willing to invest all they can in these races. Shouldn’t you?

KING-5 TV just released the first head-to-head poll in WA’s 8th Congressional District race between Republican incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner… and I’m guessing both sides are going to claim they’re thrilled with the results.

According to the poll of 609 registered voters conducted by SurveyUSA, Reichert leads Burner 54% to 41% with only 6% undecided.

So if Reichert is leading by an apparently comfortable 13 point margin, why did one longtime Democratic politico ecstatically email me that these numbers are “freakin’ fantastic”…?

I’m guessing the biggest reason for Democrats to get excited is that Burner’s 41 percent is damn impressive considering she entered this race with zero name recognition, and has only just begun to make her first tentative forays into paid media. The poll was conducted 8/22 – 8/23, only a week after Burner made her first, small TV buy; her first direct mail piece is only just now reaching voters.

Much of Reichert’s lead can surely be attributed to a huge advantage in name ID — which must register a stratospheric ninety-something percent for the former sheriff and self-proclaimed Green River Killer catcher. It is also an advantage that is surely exaggerated by the fact that the poll did not screen for “likely voters”; this screen won’t come until after the primary.

Burner supporters can also be buoyed by the crosstabs, which show only 35% support for President Bush, significantly lower than SurveyUSA’s national average. Those who approve of President Bush’s job performance choose Reichert by an overwelming 93% to 4% margin. Those who disapprove choose Burner 66% to 27%.

The task for Burner seems clear. She needs to improve her name ID while persuading voters to identify Reichert with President Bush’s failed policies. Given the time and the resources, both can be achieved, and fortunately for Burner she has plenty of both.

Of course this is only a single poll, and not necessarily one of the most reliable. As I’ve previously pointed out, many respectable news agencies like CNN and the Associated Press won’t even report on robo-polls like SurveyUSA’s. (Let’s face it, nobody really believes that only 6 percent of voters are undecided at this point in the race. Many undecided voters simply hang up on robo-polls.) The fact is, KING-5 contracts with SurveyUSA because it’s cheap.

That said, one thing seems pretty obvious: considering the dynamics of the race and the unique political climate this year, 41 percent in August absolutely puts Burner within striking distance for November. Reichert supporters can take solace in the 13 point margin if they want, but I’m guessing their internal numbers aren’t nearly as comforting, and I guarantee the race will narrow as voters learn more about the candidates.

We’re off to the races.