She's far too busy wooing Seattle and San Francisco.

"This is an amazing demonstration of how ready people are for change. People are really stepping up and showing that President Bush and Reichert's friends in Washington, DC cannot buy this seat."

What wasn't quoted was what passes for thought ricocheting inside her empty head:

"Well show them that this seat will be bought with money from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Hollywood...or is that Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga?"

To ask the question is to answer it.

You can be sure that even loud-mouth, loose cannons like Goldstein would be in the air and sking how high? when Kos or the DCCC sends down marching orders for Nutroots activism.

All politics is local. Burner is just frttering Democrat money away on a losing campaign. I can't believe they could not at least pick a candidate that had some basic experience and a little deeper resume. I think they've put Progressivism ahead of any real strategy for winning. Americans in all but the very bluest inner city strongholds don't elect Marxists.

This story is just another worn out tactic by the liberal loony party to convince the public things are better than they are. However, since people now can access information through other channels, this approach has lost its usefulness.

I would also point out that Burner had a three to one advantage in unitemized (small) donations.

Why hasn't either of Seattle's "newspapers" done any honest reporting on this loon?

But I thought the CA 51st was going to be the "bellwether".

No one can put out hot air like that bunch!

Ben Dimaond: "What does the % of money raised from PACS look like if you take the whole election cycle into account?"

Those are good questions, though they're irrelevant to the statement at hand - that the media is trying to promote Darcy Burner when they should be objective about the story.

A question for wayne and Ben Diamond - if you guys can ask these questions, yet it doesn't occur to the Seattle Times to ask these questions - how does that make the Times look? When a few commentors on a blog ask deeper questions than Seattle Times reporters - why would we believe ANYTHING they print??

Note to Jeff B: Burner may have a "pretty face" by Seattle standards, but the photo accompanying the Times article makes her look like a grinning garden gnome.

Nothing would surprise me from Darcy Burner.

Oh wait. Maybe not. Hm. Guess you'll have to try something else. Who knows, if you keep making random stuff up, perhaps someday someone will believe you...

As for the non-itemized contributions, remember most of her netroots related contributions are going to be from small donors, which explains the comparative spike.

I laughed right out loud with that gem! Too funny.

...perhaps to be included as the next entry on her wildly 'diverse' resume...

Watch out for the increase in smoke and mirrors from the Burner campaign, as they are beginning to realized that they are really behind.

I'm sure the Times did ask these questions, and concluded it was a total nonstory. Check out opensecrets, and it's apparent that overall, Reichert has gotten $729,146 of PAC money, while Burner has received $202,775.

So even though Burner raised more PAC cash this quarter, it is dwarfed by the amount Reichert has taken in, and the Bush fundraiser was expected to rake in tons of individual contributions that would be difficult for Burner to overcome.

The big story was that Burner was surprisingly able to top Reichert's fundraising for the quarter, plain and simple. Further analysis only reveals that Burner has almost eclipsed Reichert's individual fundraising total as well (he leads $973,287 to $867,364 now, since Reichert has raked in so much more PAC money.

$590K > $569K

True or false?

Secondly, you cannot simply dismiss $133K of unitemized small contributions.

Richard Pope - submit a formal accusation of a reporting violation regarding your claim that the $133K is hiding donations larger than $200, or shut the f*ck up! The fact of the matter is the campaign clearly substantially more small donations, from more people, than Reichert's campaign.

Thirdly, you cannot claim that Bill and Melinda Gates standing for a photo op with Bush at 10K a head is not the equivalent of Republican Party money. Reports from that time were that 40 people paid $10K for the right to have their photo taken with Bush. If you slice it at the same proportion that the rest of Reichert's share was at, that's over $130K from "photo op with Bush" money alone.

Now I'd give Reichert credit if these people were paying $10K to have their photo taken with Reichert - but they weren't.

Your comment "The fact of the matter is the campaign clearly substantially more small donations, from more people, than Reichert's campaign" is just opinion at this point because you don't provide any other information as to how you happen to know for a fact that is where all of this money came from.

As for making the deduction that $133K in small donations equates to a larger number of actual donors, I'm basing it on the fact that no donation could be larger than $200. Reichert's unitemized amount of $45K is only a third the amount. While it is theoretically possible Reichert had 4500 donations of $10 each, and Burner had only 668 donations of $199 each, I think it is reasonable to assume that isn't likely, and instead it is more likely that the per donations numbers are relatively comparable.

On the itemized front the numbers are closer.

At the end of the day, the fact is the Burner campaign is pulling as much money (actually $87K more) this year as Reichert, and it appears she is getting it from more donors.

Republicans have been struggling in fundraising nationwide, this only illustrates the problem. Normally Republicans are far far ahead of Democratas.

Congress is near an all time low in approval 26% and Bush 36%. These numbers mean a shift of aroun 30-40 seats in favor of the Democrats and Reichert will lose his seat.

Next time you R's are in power, try to actual be conservatives. If wanted liberals we would have voted for them. The only thing you have going for is the extreme leftwing of the D party. Hillary got it right today when she to told them to stop inflaming the rightwing. If Hillary and the other D's could get the leftwing of their party to be quiet, then the R's would be slaughter in November as the fear of the berkinstock clad commies is the R's only hope.

That's sloppy reporting and by FAR the worst quality of disclosure of all the candidates for all the congressional races, House or Senate. Here's the complete list as reported at OpenSecrets.org:

%Full Disclosure/Race/Candidate

100% Sen Aaron L. Dixon (G)
100% 08 Darcy Burner (D)
100% 05 Cathy McMorris (R) *
100% 04 Richard Wright (D)
100% 04 Claude Lloyd Oliver (R)
100% 03 Brian Baird (D) *
  99% 08 Randolph Ian Gordon (D)
  99% 04 Doc Hastings (R) *
  99% 02 Douglas Robert Roulstone (R)
  97% 07 Jim McDermott (D) *
  97% 06 Norm Dicks (D) *
  97% 02 Rick Larsen (D) *
  96% 01 Jay Inslee (D) *
  95% Sen Maria Cantwell (D) *
  95% 09 Steven Charles Cofchin (R)
  95% 09 Adam Smith (D) *
  94% Sen Michael McGavick (R)
  82% 08 Dave Reichert (R) *

I did check out the full disclosure information site and you forgot to add a few disclaimers. The law requires that a cadidate make a "best effort" to gather the information, so if someone remains vague and refuses to list his employer's name, that is not grounds for expensive legal action. One could also make the case here for cherrypicking the data. If you look at coded (industry/interest group is known) vs uncoded(contributions cannot be categorized), Darcy has received more "mystery" contributions than Reichart. It should be noted that Reichart's coded vs uncoded is close to his disclosed/undisclosed percentages. However, you will see a very different picture if you check out Maria Cantwell's coded/uncoded compared to her disclosed/undisclosed. Yet another example of how to have fun with statistics.

Of course we all know that campaign contributions have been creatively categorized for years and I am sure we will see new variations the next time Congress attempts campaign finance reform.

Please feel free to post your facts. That's what a political website is for. A blog and the comment section if for people to comment - at least last time I checked. Liberals are normally the people who are trying to shutdown debate.

As far as raising money, I've raised a fair amount, probably more than most on this board for both Republican candidates in WA and the WA Republican party, I've been a PCO, got signatures for Tim Eyman, and actively campaigned for dual pro-life initiatives years ago, held caucuses. And I'm not happy about D. Reichert, and Bush. However, I will say that Bush seems to have finally gotten the message about 5-6 weeks ago. After a few lame attempts to get the conservatives back like the gay marriage and flag burning fiascos - he has attempted some positive things.

For example, if America isn't going to go after Hezbollah at least Bush is letting Isreal do it. But even this was handled sloppy with Rice say one thing and then having to reverse herself to follow new message from the White House. These guys just are not competent, even when doing the right thing.

Remember our own POWs in Pendleton.