Blue Dog Endorses Reichert Over Darcy Burner In Washington

Darcy and Henry

If you do a DWT topic search you'll find 22 stories with "Darcy Burner" as a label (23 if you count this one). Of course, Darcy is a solid progressive who we endorsed at Blue America (on Bastille Day, 2007). Beyond that, though Darcy shows every indication of being a steady and inspiring leaders for people-- inside and outside Congress- who cherish progressive values and ideals. I have no doubt that Darcy will make sure all the potholes in WA-08 are taken care of-- but we're so gung ho on her because we see her, like Donna Edwards, as a future leader for our country.

First, however, she has to win a seat in Congress. Considering the high calibre of the district and the low calibre of the incumbent, on paper at least, it doesn't appear to be that difficult. The suburban Seattle district went for Kerry in 2004 (51%) and has been trending blue. Only 2,700 votes kept Darcy from ousting Bush's rubber stamp incumbent, Dave Reichert, in 2006, his worst showing ever (51-49%). But the Republicans and their corporate masters are pouring money into the district to try to save Reichert's ass this November. He's taken $63,928 from Big Oil in his short time as a member of Congress and he has worked diligently for their interests-- and against the interests of the commuters in his own district, who certainly didn't benefit from the billions of dollars in tax cuts he voted for the big oil and gas companies and who certainly didn't benefit from the high gasoline price the policies Reichert rubber stamped have caused.

If you want to know why Dave Reichert voted to allow warrantless wiretaps to be used against American citizens and why he voted to give retroactive immunity to telecom executives who committed crimes, look no further than the $81,611 in donations the companies wanting the retroactive immunity "donated" to him. In fact, after just 2 terms, Big Business knew a patsy when they saw one and has been showering Reichert with legalized bribes-- $341,172 from the Real Estate Industry, which has pushed an agenda that has led to the bursting of the housing bubble, an agenda he went right along with. (Another $143,766 from the Investment Industry and $70,409 from commercial banks and you can see how Dave Reichert became complicit in the worst spate of home foreclosures since the Great Depression.)

Yesterday Reichert's campaign orchestrated a bizarre press conference, rolling out a self-professed right-wing Blue Dog, Jim Vaughn who ran against Darcy in the primary. (He managed to get 3,568 votes, against Darcy's 46,144. At the 8th district nominating convention earlier this year, he didn't receive even one vote.) Vaughn showed his Democratic Blue Dog colors yesterday by endorsing Reichert and spewing his vicious reactionary hatred at Darcy. But it was only a day before when his website was saying even worse stuff about the Republican he was endorsing!

Dave Reichert has not passed one piece of legislation. Congress.org provides the following information. Currently he is ranked 419 out of 439 congressmen, which is below representatives from Guam, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico that are non-voting members. Dave Reichert has sponsored 32 bills since Jan 4, 2005, of which 28 haven't made it out of committee and zero were successfully enacted.

Typically, new employees have a 90 day probationary period to prove themselves. Dave Reichert has had a two year probationary period. The job is not a good fit for him or for us. The Republican Party wants to keep Dave in office and not because he is a strong congressman. Dave will do whatever the party tells him to do in order to survive. We have seen that he is a yes man for George Bush. I ask you, “If Dave Reichert were in the board room with Donald Trump on the apprentice, what would Donald say?”

No doubt Vaughn and Reichert would both be voted off the island-- and hopefully that's exactly what will happen in November. In this week's primary Reichert could not get over 50%. His total was 47.93 %, very, very bad news for an incumbent. If you're thinking about investing in the political process, your dollars will go a lot further and work far more effectively if you give to Darcy's campaign than if you toss it into the hundreds of millions of dollars that make up the Obama ocean.