Local Glenn Beck ripoff Ken Schram insults breast-feeding mother.
In most of the country, the wave is breaking hard against Republicans, but in Seattle, the local media, which I'm more and more convinced is and has always been nothing more than a conservative interest group (as Upton Sinclair wrote as far back as 1919), is trying its best keep Republican Dave Reichert in Congress. The Seattle PI, the 'liberal' newspaper in town, came out with its puff piece about Reichert, Reichert seasoned by 4 years in office. Obviously, the Seattle Times used its position to issue a partisan attack on Burner by exploiting a bureaucratic oddity of Harvard. Both papers are collapsing in readership and local political reporting has been decimated by a wave of buyouts and layoffs, but they are still quite powerful.
Reichert is all over TV calling Burner a liar and a fraud using the money from his illegal loan from Media Plus, and local TV personality Ken Schram, a shock jock style reactionary who reminds me of a less intelligent blue state Glen Beck (Schram's compared breast-feeding in public to public urination and embarrassed women who breast feed, leading to a breast feeding rally), spent a few minutes on local TV awarding Darcy a 'Schrammie' for lying about her degree on KOMO. KOMO is one of the stations happily extending credit to Reichert's media buyer. Schram's segment is here, and boy is it ugly. He followed up with a radio show where he bullied and condescended to Darcy. As a quick example, on the show, Schram often snidely said 'Darcy, Darcy, Darcy,', and then wondered why she didn't get a replacement degree after her house burned down. She points out she is running for Congress, replacing everything she owns, Harvard is a huge bureaucracy, and she got the ex-Dean of Harvard to validate her on video, and Schram just continues to call her evasive.
The local Republican press is just jumping all over it. Here's the Bellevue Reporter:
Democrat Darcy Burner is campaigning like she's running against George W. Bush. But she isn't. Congressman Dave Reichert is an independent-minded moderate with strong environmental credentials. That is why both the Seattle Times and the PI, neither of which likes Bush, have endorsed Reichert.
Another reason to support Reichert is that it's not clear who Burner really intends to represent. Reichert believes he's there to support the people back home, not parties and interest groups. But Burner's major constituency seems to be the national network of "netroots" activists who are both liberal and archly partisan. That might fly in Seattle. It shouldn't fly here.
Then there's the issue of character. Reichert has a reputation for being honest and up-front. But twice now, Burner has been caught inflating her job credentials. Two years ago, her campaign misrepresented her status at Microsoft, where she was just a middle manager. And this year she told several audiences that she had an Economics degree from Harvard. No she doesn't, and when the Seattle Times caught her, Burner's instinctive reaction was to attack Republicans for playing "stupid semantic games." That tone - strident, aggressive, diversionary - is classic Darcy Burner. The numbers in this race are close, but they shouldn't be. Dave Reichert by a mile.
This whole attack by the local media and Republican establishment is so egregious that it's comforting to watch the NRCC's latest criticism, a release of this video in which Darcy calls John McCain a 'warmonger'.
Oh, and Reichert is getting obvious illegal donations at this point, a $4000 donation which busts the $2300 cap. No worries, though, he's a Republican and that's fine.
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