AND THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE IN WASHINGTON'S 8TH CD IS... DARCY BURNER, OF COURSE

A few weeks ago we mentioned how the opportunist who tried honing in on the tremendous success Eric Massa built up in his battle to bring progressive values to New York's Southern Tier dropped out. Massa came tantalizingly close to defeating rubber stamp Republican Randy Kuhl last year and that aroused the interest of some wealthy, establishment type Democratish person who thought it would be kewl to have the honorific "congressman" in front of his name. He soon learned that someone with a few dollars to pass around couldn't buy the grassroots activism that built the ground operation that Eric has built up in New York. He dropped out and fled with his tail between his legs.

There are a number of progressive grassroots candidates who came very close to winning in 2006 and are on the verge of success now-- but who face opportunists and anti-grassroots Establishment creeps. Angie Paccione (CO-04) has some hack from the reactionary Salazar political machine trying to steal the Democratic nomination from her. John Laesch (IL-14) has an admitted Blue Dog opposing him-- another millionaire trying to buy a seat for himself, who thinks what Illinois needs is another representative who would vote just like Denny Hastert. And Victoria Wulsin has a similar situation in OH-02.

A few minutes ago I got an e-mail from Chris Bowers of OpenLeft telling me that Republican Democrat Rodney Tom took a good look at the strength of the Darcy Burner grassroots support and dropped out. That little fundraiser we all did for Darcy last week ago... establishment candidates can't do things like that. Tom was smart to drop out before making a fool out of himself. He endorsed Darcy. We helped Darcy bring in $125,000 as a response to Bush's visit to the district. And that's all it took for Tom to realize there is something special happening in WA-08, something he hasn't been part of. He's seen it up close and let's hope he learned that becoming a Democrat means more than just changing the R to a D on your registration card. Friends in the area think he's got some potential.

And that was the easy part. Next step: bye-bye Reichert. Darcy's Blue America page is taking contributions today.