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Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com

Haugen faces new battle for her seat

By Jerry Cornfield, Herald Columnist

You don't need ESP to deduce Mary Margaret Haugen is the Democrat that Republicans most hope to unseat from the state Senate this fall.

There's been nothing incognito about the intentions of the Grand Old Party, some of whose members began savaging Haugen in letters to the editor months before they had a candidate.

Now, with Oak Harbor's Linda Haddon seated comfortably in the Republican candidacy, the chariot race is very much on.

This will be a fiercely fought contest as Haugen seeks a fifth term in the 10th Legislative District, a collage of land encompassing all of Island County and scratches of Snohomish and Skagit counties.

Haugen faces a battle every time because in this district the Republican brand still carries political clout. In 2004, Dino Rossi garnered 54 percent of the vote and President Bush -- while losing soundly statewide -- gathered in 51.5 percent.

That year Haugen won re-election with 50.3 percent -- her lowest percentage in four Senate races -- defeating Republican April Axthelm of Mount Vernon by less than 2,000 votes.

Axthelm campaigned fearlessly but without benefit of a siren issue to help her overcome the better-known and better- financed Haugen.

In that sense, Haddon is already better off.

There is a matter generating intense interest in which the incumbent is deeply rooted. It's transportation, and, more specifically the troubled ferry system.

Few state lawmakers are more closely associated with those two subjects than Haugen and none is more proud of accomplishments in each than she.

The Camano Island legislator heads up the Senate Transportation Committee, giving her a commanding position in deciding which roads get widened, which bridges get fixed and which ferries get built.

She pushed the gas tax hikes in 2003 and 2005, drawing up the list of projects to be funded -- and having a say in which ones would be left out.

Haddon's best hope of divorcing Haugen from power is to wed her with visions of gridlock in the minds of voters. She needs them to believe that when it comes to dealing with how people get around in the state the buck and the blame stops with Haugen.

If she can successfully sync Haugen with voters' frustration with the handling of the ferry system on which many lives in the district depend, then Haddon just might pull off an upset.

Haddon will call it a record of failed leadership.

"People have to understand a lot of responsibility lies at her feet," Haddon said this week.

Haugen will counter punch, charting for voters her leading role in getting ferries built, Highway 532 widened and the Transportation Department reformed.

She'll call it a resume of responsible representation.

"It's their rhetoric versus my actions," Haugen said.



Political reporter Jerry Cornfield's blog, The Petri Dish, is at www.heraldnet.com. He can be heard at 8 a.m. Mondays on "The Morning Show" on KSER (90.7 FM). Contact him at 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.