I think people will be excited about it soon, Eli.

I hope that people are excited about it soon. Can anyone say "last chance"?

Is there anything we can do in eastern washington?

It's because the Dems are incredibly out of touch. The party system is a joke. Hopefully Pelz can do something to help the silly Dem party members get a clue. I'll spend my time helping organizations like Music For America who have about 2,000 young progressive members in Washington State but are unknown to most Dems and Dem candidates. As long as Dems are putting forward candidates like the Do-Nothing McDermott, the wanna-be Guilliani Sidran, and Cantwell who one day is awesome but the next day lets us all down by siding with Republicans on major votes (Alito, Iraq, the Patriot Act, and CAFTA) can they really expect progressives to care and get behind them?

Everyone wants to talk about a Dem Revolution like the Repubs had in '94. But remember that the R's did it by playing to their 'extreme' base and getting them excited, the Dems are trying to do it by appealing to the moderates.

I've offered to put on fund raising concerts for Dems in places like Spokane and have had no response. So good luck. I'll go support true progressive organizations while the Dems go after 'moderates' and corporate money. Thank god that locally we have progressives like Licata, Conlin, Steibnrueck and Constantine. I just wish they would run for higer offices.

Please be careful if you go. The "volunteers" who went to places like Iowa and Ohio cost Kerry those very winnable states with their efforts. Imagine what your reaction would be to some Bushie from Oklahoma knocking on your door. A lot of Iowan swing voters were really turned off by the arrogant, disorganized, and stupid out-of-state know-it-alls who came from liberal states to "help them understand". The folks in Duvall aren't likely to be any more thrilled to see a bunch of Seattle lefties or "typical Stranger readers" coming down the road. People in the suburbs and exurbs HATE Seattle. Remember that.

Is the Stranger donating ads?

A good form of support - or give someone a leave and keep them on salary and send them there to be a grunt in the office.

Nice article - too personal - her lack of political experience of any sort is a negative. There are mega bucks on the Eastside that will flow to Reichert. Old and new money galore. And not liberal.

Phone banks need not be at the campaign hq.

We all choose where we live, and many ruralite / suburanite folks love where they live.

I grew up on ten acres on the far Eastside - a perfect childhood by all standards. Folks there don't really hate Seattle, they don't give a shit about Seattle. Very self contained in this era. Theye don't - " come downtown" - except for specific reasons - music, chic dining, parades, Pike Market, etc.

Part of it is timing. Both major political parties tend to not go gonzo on field efforts until the early summer (though I'm trying to do my small part to cange that), and local fundraising in earnest (as opposed to "prove it to the national folks that you can raise money" fundraising, which is different and probably already in progress) usually starts happening in April.

And as long as folks are polite when they doorbell, I really don't think most of us Eastsiders will freak out over Seattlites in our neighborhoods. In fact, we'll be glad to put them to work.

It's not "eastsiders" I'm worried about. It's them rural folks out in the sticks, Enumclaw, Buckley.

But you're right about timing. I read articles about Iowans where people were saying things like "I wasn't sure which way to vote, but after the twenty-fifth hippie in an orange shirt from California rang my damn doorbell, I decided to go for the other guy".

Actually, you usually get awfully polite folks, regardless of your political affiliation, when you doorbell politely. It's easy to badmouth someone when they aren't in front of you - not so much when they are.

And, truth is that we have a good guess of most of who sits where on what issues, what candidates, and both sides tend to avoid their opposing supporters.

That said, I've never had issues in Enumclaw (haven't walked Buckley), but there have been the occasional noisemakers in Sammammish.

Dan and Eli, so you spent a lot of ink on a pretty vapid puff piece on Burner with, I assume, the intetion of getting people to support her. But guess what, most progressives aren't Democrats. We don't vote for someone just because they are a Dem. Know what someone got for Christmas or how much money they have raised is not the stuff of political inspiration. I support and vote for people because of the stands they take on issues I care about. And unless I missed something, you didn't write one thing about what Burner stood for. I typically love The Stranger's political coverage, but this article sounded like it should be in Seattle Woman, not the Stranger. Where's the hard hitting analysis of why Reichart is so bad and why Burner is so awesome that the people outside her district should raise money for her? I really felt like I wasted 5 minutes of my life reading your feature on Burner. Nice to know she's from Alaska and he brother is a beer distributor. Wow. Neat. I am so inspired.

Nice site