Washington's eighth district vote counting is even slower than usual. Right now, Burner is up by 50.39% to Reichert's 49.61%, a very slender 46,068 to 45,347 lead. This one's too close to call, and won't be resolved until Friday at the earliest.
Dino Rossi just came on TV, losing 51-49, and talked about how his campaign will go on throughout the week. Only, King County, Gregoire's base county, hasn't really come in yet. That means that Rossi has a few days of vote counting before he concedes. The trends were good in that race and these results bear that out.
In Washington's eighth, Darcy Burner is ahead by 5100 votes, but the count has not moved for hours and the counting machines are really slow and three hours behind. The trend at the end was against Darcy Burner in this one, and my guess is she'll wind up behind by the end of the night as the more Republican poll voters are counted. Still, with these initial results she's definitely in a good position to take the seat.
... Pierce absentees are coming in, and Darcy lost 1000 votes. That's a really good result.
Reichert just switched up his ad traffic, substituting this ad for his earlier Harvard Hoax ads. His Harvard Hoax ads were a clear attack on Burner's trustworthiness as a candidate, but this ad, titled 'Denise', is entirely different. It's a female union leader named Denise Spencer saying that she's scared of Darcy Burner and only slightly alluding to the Harvard hoax line of criticism. It is, in short, a change of message three days before the election and after a good number of ballots have come in.
I spent the evening doing some phone-banking. Reichert sends his best.
Musgrove in Mississippi looks out of reach, but Martin in Georgia is still within the margin of error. Like Sirota, I'm in a writing malaise. I have nothing to say. It's about a week until the world changes.
Blair Butterworth, a longtime Democratic consultant in the Northwest, explains the situation. Essentially, Media Plus is a Republican establishment media buying firm (with a lot of corporate business) and is extending credit to the Reichert campaign. David Goldstein has more. There are various rumors about how this will work. The Seattle Times was the only paper to even report on the story.
KOMO-TV sold Reichert's ad buyer, Media Plus+, the most recent TV slots on credit - a practice that is relatively uncommon for political advertising. KIRO-TV also extended credit for Reichert ads that are running this week, said Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik.
Most political campaigns pay for their ads upfront, but KOMO vice president and general manager Jim Clayton said the station sometimes bills buyers it has a good relationship with. He said KOMO regularly works with Media Plus+ and that the agency would be on the hook for the ad buy if the Reichert campaign doesn't pay."
So I'm looking at some data provided by Seattle political media buyers, and there's an extremely odd phenomenon going on with Dave Reichert's fundraising and spending. As of October 1, Reichert had around $1.2 million of cash on hand, and he's reportedly raised about $10k in 48 hour statements. Reichert's TV buy until October 20 is around $675k, leaving him with a little over a half a million dollars left. Oddly, he's reserved $725k just for October 20-26 (the largest TV buy ever in this district), and $375K for October 27 - November 4. That's $1.1 million of broadcast time bought, $600K more than he has.
How is this possible? There are no records showing he's self-funding, and he doesn't really have enough assets to do that anyway (if he lost, he'd basically be broke). What seems to be happening is that the four television stations - King TV, Kiro TV, Komo TV, and Q13 Fox - seem to be extending credit to Reichert. That is unheard of. Unlike commercial clients with good credit, political campaigns pay upfront because they are not reliable institutions. As a matter of common sense, TV stations (or any business) don't offer credit to a campaign that may not exist in three weeks.
The rationale two of the stations are offering is that Reichert's media buyer, Media Plus, is getting credit from these TV stations, not Reichert's campaign. And Media Plus has an extensive relationship with local TV stations, as is evident in their corporate website where they openly brag about influencing news content with advertising dollars:
This is genuinely unbelievable. What Reichert is doing is getting a loan from TV stations via his media buyer, and he'll pay it back with corporate PAC money should he win. It is a temporary corporate transfer of $500k into a Republican campaign done with the complicity of local television stations, stations owned by national chains and carrying content from NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox.
If you loan money to a candidate or political committee, you have made a contribution, even if you charge interest on the loan. The outstanding amount of the loan counts against the contribution limits. Loan repayments, therefore, decrease the amount of your contribution.
Nevertheless, if your loan exceeds the limits, it is an illegal contribution, even if it is later repaid in full. Endorsements and guarantees of bank loans are also considered contributions. Endorsers and guarantors are liable for equal portions of a loan unless the agreement states otherwise. You alone, therefore, may not endorse a $10,000 loan to a candidate committee. There must be four other individual endorsers so that each one is liable only for $2,300, the per election limit.
After seeing how the Philadelphia Inquirer treated Joshua Zeitz, I'm getting a little obsessed with local newspapers. They have a LOT of power over local officials, and they use it to promote specific policies. For instance, the Tacoma News-Tribune, the Seattle Times, and the Seattle PI all endorsed Dave Reichert over Darcy Burner, and two of the three papers mention her opposition to corporate trade agreements as reasons to vote for her opponent, a line echoed by the Oregonian in its endorsement of Republican Gordon Smith.
One of the most predictably irritating parts of the last week was hearing that environmental groups - including the Sierra Club - were lobbying for the bailout bill because it had tax credits for solar and wind power. Of course, as Greenpeace notes, the bill also contained "subsidies for oil shale, liquid coal, and unproven schemes to store carbon dioxide from coal and oil." The push for renewal energy tax credits is laudable, but the tradeoffs - increased liquid coal and a $700 billion bailout - are incredibly high. Penny-wise, pound-foolish, seems to be the motto of the Sierra Club.
I'll be heading out to the Seattle area in a week to blog more of Darcy's campaign, and one of the themes I'm going to be exploring is the collapse of Washington Mutual and its effect on the region. Somehow I don't think I'm going to have to look very far to find anger.
This Seattle Times article by Emily Heffter highlights best practices by a political journalist this cycle. It is analysis of an ad the US Chamber of Commerce is running against Darcy Burner claiming she will raise taxes, and the article is titled 'Radio ad distorts Darcy Burner's position'.
Rather than shying away from her job of sifting through evidence, Heffter does analysis of the claims in the ad.
I'm supposed to be finishing another story tonight, but I've just come from Darcy Burner's primary night party...and I have in front of me the results of the important races tonight in Washington's newfangled "top two" primary.
It is unfair to extrapolate the results of elections in the "People's Republic of Washington" directly onto a national map, but as I look as these results it seems fair to say that if any Republican strategists aren't sweating bullets this morning it's because they'll be hustling for votes in towns like Maggie Valley, North Carolina (don't forget to stop by Saratoga's for the Wednesday night jazz...)...or, perhaps, Bessemer Bend, Wyoming.
For the rest of the Republican community, tonight's events are not good news.
We have a fair amount to cover, so let's get to it.
The Washington Secretary of State results thread is here. The King Country results web page is here, and Pierce County is here.
UPDATE ONE King County results of early absentees are seeing Reichert way under 50.
Boleslaw (John) Orlinski 1.05%
Richard Todd 1.44%
James E. Vaughn 3.71%
Dave Reichert 46.37%
Keith Arnold 1.49%
Darcy Burner 45.88%
Write-in 0.05%
UPDATE TWO: Republican Dino Rossi took a narrow lead over Christine Gregoire, but King County hasn't come in yet for the gubernatorial race so she should be find. The Washington Secretary of State site still hasn't updated for WA-08.
UPDATE THREE: Pierce County is in. Reichert is below 50 in his base county.
Boleslaw (John) Orlinski 161 1.18%
Richard Todd 294 2.15%
James E. Vaughn 769 5.62%
Dave Reichert 6,830 49.88%
Keith Arnold 261 1.91%
Darcy Burner 5,320 38.85%
Write-In 57 0.42%
UPDATE FOUR: I'm at the watch party. We're going to hear a bit more in a half hour or so, but somewhere around half of the ballots are gradually going to trickle in over the next ten days. Darcy should gain a few points. This is an excellent result.
Boleslaw (John) Orlinski
(States No Party Preference)
622 1.08 %
Richard Todd
(States No Party Preference)
928 1.61 %
James E. Vaughn
(Prefers Democratic Party)
2,398 4.17 %
Dave Reichert
(Prefers Republican Party)
27,186 47.27 % Keith Arnold
(Prefers Democratic Party)
916 1.59 %
Darcy Burner
(Prefers Democratic Party)
25,460 44.27 %
This primary was intended to sort out the top two people on the ballot, so now voters will choose either Reichert or Burner in November. In 2006, there was a third party candidate who drew a small but significant amount and left Reichert below 50%. Now these third parties are going to be knocked out for the general, so the anti-incumbent sentiment should consolidate around Burner.
If you add the Democrats together in this primary, you get around 50% of the vote. And if you take all the anti-incumbent sentiment, it adds up to roughly 53% of the primary universe. In November, we'll see a wave of new Obama voters, and they should put Darcy over the top.
I'll update over the next few days as ballots trickle in. It's not as clear cut as I'd like, but this is a win so far.
The short answer is we don't know what's going to happen tonight. Washington state is a vote by mail state, so returns will be counted over the next week or so (though we should mostly know by today or tomorrow), and there is already some data on which ballots have come in. At the same time, the state doesn't ID voters by party, so there isn't that much good data on who is turning out until the counting starts tonight. King County, which is more favorable to Darcy, will have a higher number of poll voters, whereas Pierce County, a more rural and exurban area (Reichert's base), will have more vote by mail voters. Because of scale Pierce will count their ballots earlier, so Darcy will probably be at her lowest point early in the evening and gradually improve from there.
There's a certain smell of a primary day office, with volunteers constantly shuttling in and out to pick up clipboards and walk packets. It looks like the efforts here are having a real impact, slightly bumping up turnout during a lovely Bellevue August. Progressives are getting revved up.
David Goldstein at Horse's Ass blogs about the local scene.
Left in Alabama discusses Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus and his donations to Republican Dave Reicert over a corrupted Boeing deal. It's nice to have a 50 state progressive movement.
David Neiwert at Firedoglake blogs about the region, his old stomping grounds, and GOTV in the suburbs.
McJoan at Dailykos talks about the weirdness of this primary system, with lots of interesting debates in the comments.
So on Saturday at the King County Republican party picnic, I had the pleasure of talking to Dave Reichert and some members of his staff. I actually really liked Mike Shields, his chief of staff, and Shields told me that Reichert isn't focused on this primary at all, which coincides with messaging he's putting out in the press.
"You know, I have a name ID that's almost 100 percent," he said. "So I don't have to spend money to raise my name ID; I just need money to get my message out."
That may be true, but the other reason he's not spending money is because he doesn't have very much of it, with Burner sitting on a half a million dollar cash lead. For other races, this primary matters. There are a lot of yard signs out because of the primary, most notably around the Washington state gubernatorial races, but also for judgeships and state legislative offices. The Republicans feel like Christine Gregoire stole the election in 2004, and are energized around that race. Rossi's been hitting Gregoire aggressively and viciously on taxes, and Gregoire has been returning fire, all in preparation for tomorrow's primary. In other words, it matters, at least to those at the top of the ticket in the state.
Interestingly, today I saw a giant Reichert sign on the corner of a busy intersection, the kind that professional campaign staff put up. So clearly Reichert is trying to compete to raise his name ID a little bit, but he just can't afford to engage like Darcy has. Darcy's put up a TV ad buy to introduce herself to voters, which will be useful regardless of the primary since ballots are distributed in less than six weeks. She also has a great mail piece, a magazine called 'Darcy' modeled after Oprah with articles and tips.
Here's Darcy Burner at a fundraiser on Saturday called 'Dancing with Darcy'. Instead of a normal fundraiser with drinks you actually get a swing dance lesson with the candidate. Fun times.
This was the King County Republican picnic. I met Reichert, his chief of staff, and some of his campaign people.
Both candidates on the ballot tomorrow in their first head to head contest since 2006, so make sure to vote if you're in the district.
I went canvassing for most of the morning out here in Bellevue on Mercer Island, a wealthy portion of this very tech-heavy district (which also has chunks of blue collar rural precincts that comprise the Republican base). August in the northwest is usually the best time of year, sunny and bright but fairly cool. There's something of a heat wave, which means it's in the 80s and humid, and this is an extremely outdoorsy suburban culture. The picture above was from a garden of one of the huge houses near the lake, where they even put their growing pears in bags so animals wouldn't eat them.
Every day in Augustin in Seattle, this is what it looks like. And there are berries everywhere.
It's kind of heaven here, actually.
Andrew Garber of the Seattle Times has a good run down on the primary on Tuesday. Essentially, it's a test for Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert, but turnout will be low, with few independents showing up. I expect Reichert to narrowly win, because Republican partisans are angry about Dino Rossi and are energized to vote.
