National Republicans recently shifted more money into Washington’s 8th Congressional District, trying to give a boost to Republican Congressman Dave Reichert, who’s now running neck-and-neck with Democrat Darcy Burner.

Will Democrats respond by upping their investment in the 8th District as well? It’s unclear, primarily because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) isn’t commenting on its strategy. But yesterday the DCCC did release this new attack ad, which is based on a TVW video that was called to my attention (and then posted on the Slog) way back in June.

Notice that this Democratic commerical, like others, gives ample screen time to that video of Bush’s visit to Washington State in June. If Reichert loses, the shot of him descending from Airforce One with Bush will be a big part of the reason—if not the reason.

And in further campaign commercial news, there’s now a kerfuffle over whether the DCCC had the right to use a TVW clip in this commercial in the first place. I’ll let the legal types debate fair use principles.

But I think it’s funny that TVW is even contesting this. Postman says he’s never heard of a TVW clip appearing in a campaign commercial before, and I’ll bet one never has. (Hell, most people have never even heard of TVW.) So why is the low-budget public affairs station looking a gift horse in the mouth? This video, shot in May in a bland conference room at the Doubletree Hotel in SeaTac, is about to become the most-seen TVW broadcast of all time!