Reichert voted FOR the hates crimes bill revision, the Matthew Shepard Bill, the just passed out of the House.

Maybe he is a better political animal than Dems. want to admit, and, that is the first problem.

Voters knew him as King County Sheriff and voted for him in that game BEFORE congress. Most of the Dem candidates have NO political experience. NONE. Duh....

Bruner lacked any spark, the Gregoire campaign style, just a bit younger. And she did fib/lie. Mistake.

There is no Dem that can beat Reichert - so - they should let it sit and focus on the possible, not the mirage they have created about the Eastside. Of course, liberal consultants, pollsters and misc others make tons of money ... so it is a stimulus project of sorts ...

Eli asks himself: "How many times can I write the same fucking story about the Democrats' flailing efforts to win an Eastside congressional seat that they should own by now but have never, ever won?"

Answer: as any times as you want. Because, repeat after me, IT'S A REPUBLICAN DISTRICT. It nearly always has been, and probably will be for a long, long time. Medina, Beaux Arts, Clyde Hill, Old Bellevue... these are the blue-blood republican bastions of yore. Add the nouveau riche enclaves of Sammamish and Snoqualmie and the cultural conservative areas of Maple Valley, Enumclaw, Auburn, Black Diamond, etc, and you have a working Republican majority.

The district has gone for democratic presidents, senators, and governors because the better educated republicans are frequent ticket-splitters. They'll cross over & join the 40% of dems to vote for a Kerry or a Murray or a Locke because they are pro-choice. Or pro-environment. Or understand that invading a middle eastern country for no good reason is basically a lousy idea. But they are never, ever, EVER going to give up their bird-in-the-hand republican congressman.

Your constant carping on Suzanne is only going to reinforce her brand as a moderate and not beholden to extreme liberal groups. Whether fair or not, that image of the blogosphere warrior probably cost Darcy votes among the many moderate d's in the eastside burbs as well as the southern part of the district. That is just one big difference between her and Darcy. Also, Suzanne was a vp at microsoft. Before the econ dustup, there was the executive dust-up re Darcy's role at msft. If anything, Suzanne's big contribution is one way to say; I made it in the corporate world and know a few things about building and running a company.

by the way - Old Silver Dog Dave is considered moderate in his district - another Dem. problem.

His votes on the environment have bee far awy from the crap Rs in other places, ie. wilderness bills, etc.

I hear his appeal to women voters is good, hence, no play there for the lady candidates the Dems have shoved on the stage.

Face it, he has a clamp on the district.

Anyone suprised by Eastsiders voting in Obama. By a wide margin and also sending Reichert back to Congress to vote against Obama's programs, just doesn't understand Eastsiders. These are the people who have zoned and finally, after twenty years of "after you Alphonse" developer aversion to their pedestrian corridor, have finally built a downtown that turns it' back on it. That hardly seems odd though when you consider the lunacy of building a downtown with roughly one half of the street right of way needed to handle the traffic required to support the density they've planned. Eastsiders want to get on board popular trends, but they suffer permanent denial when it comes to doing things like paying for it, or condemning right of way for streets. It was cool to be for Obama. That gets a yes vote. Reichert will prevent them from paying for anything. That gets a yes vote. And that is the politics of the Eastside in a nutshell.

Ergo - sorry - bad candidates can't get out of a paper bag - money was NOT the problem for Bruner.

You have elevated real political strategies and common sense, on the ground good sense to, to some WSU term paper. Sorry, Dems have gotten beat because of shitty candidates and shitty campaigns.

Need to own it, and whinging about money is not the first step.

This new Fake Cutout from Microsoft does NOT support Gay Marriage, and can't send her back to Iowa 'cause she would be too conservative ...

And, as a fag, why should I send her a dime? Reichert is very matter of fact, and, I suspect he might come around before her on the issue.

Dud Lady. Eli, you and the pump machine need to ignore her. Spare yourself and your readers.

Thanks PC ... I don't think there is any anger, just sober political savy.

You have by virture of selective memory forgotten just how much the net people and prints like the Stranger hyped Bruner.

What I and many others feel is manipulated by the set up - we want a better candidate. And the resons why seems long.

Then dump off the hype, do good campaign work, go on the street and message well and win. I
And if no win, the legacy of good progressive message, and building forward.

So, we shall see. By the way - personal story time means some background in politics, community organizing and great civic record with a small c - voting in elections.

Patty Murray in her tennis shoes, could have beat him. Darcy with all her smug Microsoft/netroots/Harvard/my house burned stuff - did not.

Next, and it needs to be a very good looking younger alpha male. Or older male/female who can spend him into oblivion. Real wealth, not Micro bucks which are so common over there.

Why, of all the people to take the ARDUOUS and SOUL-CRUSHING trip east to see us hellish, damnably stupid Bellevuites (more specifically, Enataians and Beaux Arts residents, of which I am one of the knuckle-dragging plebian rednecks), would the heroic Eli Sanders, carrier of a glorious first grader's idea of politics, be picked? Why not someone more deserving of such a damnable quest from which they may not return with their precious Seattle integrity? Poor Eli had to sit his ass down in the same exact hellhole that happens to be probably the coolest greasy spoon in King County period. The poor man had to put up with people over thirty-five (gross!), waitresses who didn't masturbate to democratic candidates (obscene!), and worst of all, the Bellevue crowd (hellish!). Truly he should be commended.

Boo fucking hoo, you don't like that people don't vote the exact same way? Oh, isn't that a shame, it "doesn't make sense" to you that one portion of a county has more complicated political wishes than just your clear-cut Black And White Dems-And-'Pubs way of voting? Sorry the Eastside is so far beneath you, Eli. You're a royal ass, you know that?

"And believe me, I've tried to make sense of it. I've tried to take you seriously. Because you're serious suburban and rural people, right? You're not the senile Mercer Island blue hairs and shallow Bellevue richie-riches and horse-fucking Enumclaw hicksters that some snotty-ass urbanites think you are, right? Except that any serious reading of your collective voting record shows you to be, well, either senile or shallow or too busy with your horses to think much about what your votes really mean. You're all over the place. Which, I know, is typical of "swing districts." But still. Get it together. Grow up. As a district, you're almost 30 years old now. Your messy, swinging ways were a lot cuter when you were younger. Now you're just trying everyone's patience. Anyway, I'm over it—and you should be too."

Yeah, fuck you too. Oh, right, I apologize, Seattle is so much better than the Eastside when it comes to, what was it? Right, just about everything. Because there aren't any horse-fuckers or Bill Gateses or old people in Seattle, right? Wrong, dipshit. Obviously you have no idea what "real suburb people" are anyways (not that there is such a thing, any more than there's a "real urban person." What the fuck do you even mean? That's like saying "Seattle is a genuine place"), and just because the county votes for various leaders:
1. Doesn't mean the Eastside should be burned down
2. Doesn't mean you can be a dick to everyone on the Eastside for no good reason
3. Doesn't mean you as an obviously non-complicated, tried-and-true Seattleite democrat are automatically a fucking political genius. What's that? You're not just a super-hippie who gets spoon-fed his ideas without thinking about them? Doesn't that make this entire article, oh, what's the term? Right, hypocritical bullshit.

But why am I wasting time on you? I could be sitting around being an indecisive, semi-retarded caveman who poops in the ballot box, like the true Bellevue man I am.

Eli Sanders, rot in hell.