If you think the presidential race has begun early this time around,
try the race for Congress in the Eastside’s 8th District.
There, Darcy Burner, the Democratic darling who narrowly lost to
Republican Congressman Dave Reichert during the “blue wave” of 2006,
has been itching for a rematch. She basically took a look at her
election results last November—a loss to a well-known incumbent by just
a 3 percent margin—and kept right on running, toward 2008.
With still more than a year to go before Eastside Democrats anoint
the next Reichert challenger through their primary process, Burner is
pressing hard to again be the Democratic nominee, and she has about
$185,000 on hand to fund the second chance that she wants. That’s an
impressive amount of money, and more than Reichert himself has in his
campaign account; he reported about $160,000 on hand when the second
fundraising quarter ended last month.
Plenty of triumphal noises were coming out of the Burner camp after
those fundraising figures were released two weeks ago. (“Wow,” Burner
said in a press release. “I never expected to be ahead of Congressman
Reichert so soon.”) But first things first: Before Burner can take
another shot at Reichert, she has to prevail over her Democratic
primary challenger, state Senator Rodney Tom, who announced on July 17
that he wants to be the one to try to unseat the two-term
congressman.
“I think that I fit this district and I think I can be a tougher
opponent for Reichert,” Tom told me recently. “I’m the candidate who
can win the general election.”
Tom kicked off his campaign in Renton in an attempt to underscore
what he thinks is his greater viability in a key part of the 8th
District: the south. Running from Duvall in the north to Mt. Rainier
National Park in the south, the 8th District is a huge swath of land
that happens to be in a period of political flux, with demographic
trends making it more friendly territory for liberal candidates. But
the southern half of the 8th District (places like Covington, Maple
Valley, and Black Diamond) remains far more conservative than the
northern half, and although Burner’s 2006 “Southern Strategy” helped
her do better in the southern part of the 8th than any other Democrat
has ever done there, it wasn’t enough for a win. Tom, who served two
terms as a Republican state representative before switching parties
last year and making a successful run for the state senate, thinks his
Republican past can help him win over more conservatives in the
southern areas than Burner did.
“I was a Republican more by default,” says Tom, who grew up in a
Republican family. “I can get the Republican-by-default voter who is
disgusted with Bush on the war.”
Maybe. But before he can try, he has to get the nod from Democratic
primary voters—who are not likely to be welcoming to a candidate who
brags about his Republican past and has a considerable record of
financially supporting Republicans and voting for their issues in
Olympia.
For Democratic primary voters, Tom is going to downplay his time as
a Republican while touting a political résumé that’s longer than
Burner’s and suggesting that she’s already had her chance and failed.
It’s unclear how either of those arguments will resonate, or if they’ll
even be heard under the din of a well-funded Burner campaign. (Tom says
he’ll catch up with Burner in the money race, but that would be quite a
feat, given her huge head start.)
The Burner campaign is eager to paint her as the inevitable nominee.
Sandeep Kaushik, Burner’s spokesman, emphasizes Burner’s name
recognition and money, and won’t even say Tom’s name when he talks
about the race.
“In terms of her values and her priorities and her positions on the
issues of the day, Darcy Burner is more in line with the people of her
district,” Kaushik told me recently.
In a way, it’s appropriate that the Burner campaign is trying to
talk as if Burner’s primary opponent doesn’t really exist. The first
questions that Democrats looking at this race will ask themselves are
likely to be all about Burner, and Burner alone: Why didn’t she win
last time? What makes her think she think she can win this time? What,
exactly, has changed about her political experience since 2006, when
her relatively short résumé became a huge subject in her race against
Reichert?
Kaushik says Burner will be reintroduced to 8th District voters in
an effort to answer these questions.
“For all the success that the campaign had last time, and for all
the name recognition she has, I don’t think people really got a sense
of who Darcy Burner really is,” he says. 
