BELLEVUE — For U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, Democratic challenger Darcy Burner is too inexperienced and left-leaning. For Burner, Reichert is ineffective and has sided with President Bush too often in his years in Congress.
If that argument sounds familiar, it should.
Reichert and Burner are in a rematch for the 8th Congressional District seat — the state’s only competitive race for Congress in this election — after a heated and close fight two years ago.
The financial markets crisis threatening to cripple the nation’s economy has become central to the campaign.
At the candidates’ first debate, in Bellevue on Wednesday, Burner brought up the economy in her opening remarks.
“We got into this mess because of tremendous recklessness, and we can’t afford that anymore. We have an opportunity to change and we must change,” she said. “What we need right now is a bailout for Main Street, not Wall Street.”
Later on, Reichert said that to maintain the state’s economy, it is important to keep trade up for the state by supporting trade agreements between the United States and other nations. On the current financial crisis in the U.S., the Republican incumbent said he voted against the bailout bill to protect taxpayer’s interests.
“We have not been doing a good job holding people accountable,” Reichert said. “We need to investigate what caused this to get us here in the first place.”
But most of the jabs coming out of both camps during this campaign look like the punches thrown two years ago.
The 8th District, which sprawls through the suburbs and rural communities of eastern Pierce and King counties, has been historically a Republican stronghold, but it has supported Democrats for president in recent elections.
In 2006, Burner — a former Microsoft Corp. manager and a political neophyte — nearly defeated Reichert, the well-known former King County sheriff, losing by just 3 percentage points.
Recent polling shows Reichert with a more comfortable lead this time, but Burner’s camp is counting on support from a wave of voters coming out for Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrat’s presidential candidate. Campaign spokesman Sandeep Kaushik said they expect at least 85,000 more voters than in 2006, most of them inclined to lean Democrat.
In both campaigns, Burner has linked Reichert to Bush as often as possible. Reichert has played up Burner’s inexperience.
The race is attracting less national attention this year, dropping from 19th to 29th in rankings by the National Journal Group in a list of hot races around the country.
The stakes, though, remain high.
If Burner wins, Democrats could control all the congressional districts west of the Cascade mountains and add to her party’s majority in Congress.
If Reichert wins, he would defend a seat that has never been held by a Democrat and keep the GOP from bleeding more seats in the House of Representatives.
That’s enough incentive to bring in big names to the area — House Minority Leader John Boehner visited Reichert and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Burner this past year.
Money has poured in as well. Combined, they have raised more than $3.5 million, although Burner has raised more money than Reichert by nearly $500,000, according to filings made by the campaigns to the Federal Election Commission in July.
Burner argues that she is the face of a changing district, a representative of the high-tech crowd that has settled in the district in the past decade.
“I have the background in technology that allows me to really understand the economic engines of this district,” Burner said.
In the weeks after the August primary, where she trailed Reichert by 4 percentage points, Burner sharpened her attack on Reichert’s effectiveness, citing Congress.org’s ranking of 401st out of 435 voting members of Congress.
The campaign also drilled Reichert for not passing much legislation in four years.
But as Burner released her ad, a Reichert bill passed, securing money for an existing law enforcement program in the region. In 2006, one of his bills was absorbed into a bigger Homeland Security bill.
Reichert’s camp has been painting Burner as too far left and out-of-touch with the district. They say too much of her money comes from donations ignited by liberal bloggers nationwide — not constituents in the district.
Burner’s out-of-state money from individual donors giving more than $200 represents about 12 percent of her total, compared with 9 percent for Reichert, according to the nonpartisan campaign finance Web site Opensecrets.org,
However, the same data show that more than $146,000 of Burner’s campaign money comes from donors in liberal-leaning Seattle — outside the district. Donations from San Francisco exceeded $35,000.
Reichert pulled in $46,000 from Seattle and about $26,000 from the Washington, D.C., area.
Reichert calls himself a moderate candidate for a moderate district.
“I’m proud of the fact that I am independent, an independent thinker,” Reichert said. “I am a person who is able to work with members of both parties and constituents in my district … I’ve been more successful legislatively in the minority that I was in the majority.”
Reichert has won the endorsements of law enforcement organizations and the Washington Education Association and the National Education Association, teacher unions that most commonly endorse Democrats.
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