Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert are going to face the voters on Tuesday. Most elections happen only once, but in Washington state, elections are actully a two round affair. That's why I'm in Seattle, to cover the 'blanket primary' between Dave Reichert and Darcy Burner. Washington state has no party IDs for voters, and the primary is what's known as 'blanket', in that the top two vote-getters move forward to the general election, regardless of party. What this in effect means is that there's a test general election in August, and then a real general election in November. On August 19th, we'll in effect see massive test of which candidate has more support, similar to the Iowa Ames straw poll.
Operationally speaking, Darcy is destroying Reichert, having outraised him for six quarters in a row. For an incumbent, that is quite possibly a historical record, and Reichert is compensating by using a lot of free franked government mail. Darcy's up on the air with her first ad, and Reichert hasn't responded. He's in desperate straights because he just doesn't have the capital to respond, and the NRCC isn't bailing him out like they did in 2006.
Energy on the Republican side is incredibly low. Reichert was an early endorser of Giuliani, and Giuliani is repaying him with a low dollar fundraiser later this month. Giuliani is drawing people at $250 a pop, versus $10,000 for Bush in 2007 and $30,000 for McCain earlier this year. But it's not just the energy level among Republican activists and elites that finds itself hampering their electoral efforts, Reichert himself is just out of his element. As a response to Darcy's unbelievably innovative campaign, Reichert is releasing a series of web video ads targeted at the press. Here's how his campaign describes them.
"The Eighth District is the perfect demographic for this sort of innovative web-ad campaign," said Amanda Halligan on behalf of the Reichert campaign. "This is arguably the most wired district in the country. Voters here are connected, progressive and tech savvy - so we're leaning forward with this new technology to spread Dave's message. On the web, anytime can be primetime to reach a voter."
What's remarkable is not that Reichert is suggesting that his voters are progressive, but that he's obviously copying Darcy in a manner that perfectly illustrates his clumsiness with technology. Reichert is out of touch with the district. He's a law and order Republican, previously a sheriff, and though he's personally well-liked there's a sense of entitlement that has crept up into his persona. In 2006, he held off Darcy with an ad that portrayed her as an inexperienced and ditzy young woman reaching above her pay grade.
This year, it's going to be tough for him to reproduce that frame because such overt sexism will put him in a strategically difficult box with the swing voters in the district: women. Obama is really popular in this district, and he's created an environment in which youth and change are desirable qualities in an elected official. Darcy's also overcome the experience charge simply by running again, and her ads are targeted at women.
Reichert has been struggling to keep his head above water this year. He's no longer in the majority, which means his PAC-driven fundraising is just not that strong. He lost an intra-party contest for an appropriations seat, which was his shot to raise enough to run a strong race through pay-to-play representation. There's just not enough 'honest graft' to go around in the Republican Party, and that's hurting Reichert pretty badly because he's not a particularly bright or entrepreneurial guy. Reichert is not overtly corrupt and he is not a particularly good politician, so the current environment is bewildering. He reminds me of a lot of the Northeastern Republicans that lost in 2006 to people like John Hall and Chris Murphy, who had a strong sense that they deserved their seats and how dare anyone, especially some upstart, challenge them.
At this point, though, Reichert is just trying to stay above water. He's not only affronted by a young innovative woman embarrassing him by outperforming on every possible metric, he doesn't know what to do. His name recognition and respect in the district, and the incredibly nasty and conservative media in Seattle, are significant advantages, so it's not a walk for Darcy. But she's in a good position considering the dynamics of modern American identity politics.
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