Politics Flood the Zone. A Theory on Why Burner Lost.
posted by on November 16 at 9:33 AM
Of course, the big post-mortem election question everyone’s asking is: Why didn’t Darcy Burner ride the Blue Wave? Not only did Democratic candidates score big all over the country in contested suburban turf that mirrors Washington’s 8th District (where Burner tried to unseat incumbent GOP Rep. Dave Reichert), but even in the 8th itself, the Democratic candidates running for the state legislature cleaned up. They stole 5 seats from the Republicans to take 11 out 15 eastside seats in Olympia.
There are 5 eastside King County state legislative district’s (LDs) within Washington’s 8th U.S. Congressional district. They are: The 45th, the 47th, the 48th, the 41st, and the 5th. There’s also a bit of Pierce County in the 8th and south KC LDs, but the eastside is key.
(If you want my opinion Burner didn’t win because she wasn’t such a good candidate. Shhhhhhh, don’t tell my boss. There was a lot of truth to the Republican rap that her experience didn’t match Dave Reichert’s. But I digress.)
Eric Oemig, one of the five eastside Democrats who stole a seat from the GOP last week (he won the race for the 45th LD senate seat), has a more interesting and instructive theory than my dismissive interpretation.
He says the fact that the state Democratic party didn’t field a single candidate in east central King County’s 5th LD (again, one of the five eastside KC state LDs within the 8th U.S. Congressional district), undercut Burner’s ability to get out the Democratic message to a constituency that was ready to flee the GOP. The state party, he says, should have reinforced Burner’s effort by tactically fielding state house candidates in the 5th LD.
Oemig points out that there were 3 Democratic candidates doorbelling in his District, and so, disenchanted Rs were repeatedly hearing an attractive Democratic message. This combined effort, Oemig says, enabled all 3 Democratic state legislature candidates to win in the 45th and take the suburbs—which many had considered GOP turf. Oemig posits that—if Democratic candidates at the state house level had been campaigning alongside Burner in the 5th—the tight race in King County could have swung her way. Again, the Dems didn’t field a single candidate in the 5th LD.
Oemig hit me with his theory earlier this week when I interviewed him for a story I intended to write about the Democrats’ state house successes on the eastside. However, after talking to him, I filed this story criticizing the Democrats for blowing it in 2006.
You're right, Josh, and Oemig is grasping at straws. That lack of a candidate in the 5th is a triviality at best in the context of the 8th District race.
Burner aimed too high, and she was fortunate the Dem machine and the supposed Blue Wave got her as many votes as it did. A stronger, more credible candidate probably defeats Reichert handily.
This is Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy on the micro level. If Democrats don't define themselves, the Republicans will do it for them!
also it was a race between a douche and a turd sandwich.
I have almost no interest in whether she won or not. It was simply a great pleasure to see the many photos of Burner over the past month. Indeed, she is HOT! :)
Well, Josh, I happen to know for a fact that the Democratic Party Legislative District organization in the 5th LD has been very active, and somewhat successful, at all levels of government.
I also know for a fact that for ONE SOLID YEAR, the Democrats in the 5th LD scoured their District for candidates to run against Anderson and Rodne. They came up empty. But it wasn't for lack of trying.
Now just what is the "state party," which really in this case means the House Democratic Campaign Committee, to do in such a case? Build a candidate, like Frankenstein's monster, in some basement somewhere?
No. They punt, as they have done in other such Districts. You can't always create something out of nothing.
I know this because I talk to Democrats from the 5th LD on a regular basis. You, on the other hand, base a cockamamie theory on a single-source interview with someone not even from the 5th District.
No disrespect to Eric Oemig, who I know, and who I supported with my hard-earned cash, but in this cycle there was just nothing there, for whatever reason, for the Dems in the 5th.
It takes a lot of courage to put such ignorance and such lazy journalism on public display. I admire you for your courage.
I went canvassing for the Burner campaign in the 5th District and most of the people I talked to (all of whom were friendly enough) seemed to have no clue that there was a congressional race going on. I don't think these people had any idea that there was an incumbent running for reelection, that he was a Republican, or even what the Republicans stood for. Would a local legislative race have engaged them more? I kind of doubt it.
It's easy to see how the Republicans (until last week) have been able to win elections by appealing to single 'wedge' issue voters -- everyone else seems asleep.
she lost because she needed to say something beyond "Reichert is Bush's rubber stamp" over and over and over again.
@ 7
agreed.
What ever happened to Alex Alben? He seemed to have a Burner type background, had serious money and endorsements from the Washington congressional delegation before Dave Ross jumped in the front of the line.
Josh, I think you're right. Burner was just not a very good candidate in comparison with Reichert. Her thin resume is a big part of that. I also think she came across as too shrill and partisan to have truly broad appeal. She did very well with the liberal base, and while she picked up a number of independent and even some Republican votes, I think those were mainly from folks who would have voted for any Democrat this year. I don't think she picked up a lot of swing voters on her own merits.
On the other hand, while a lot of The Stranger's readers and writers might not dig Reichert all that much, he is known and trusted by his constituents as a decent public servant. His detractors will dispute his claim of independence from the GOP leadership, but he successfully portrayed himself as independent.
The lack of legislative candidates in the 5th doesn't sound like a convincing explanation. Cantwell was at the top of the ticket there after all.
Reichert's lead in the vote count has continued to widen since Burner's concession. It looks like he was picking up momentum in the late-cast mail ballots. His final margin of victory probably won't be much less than it was in 2004.
Josh, in contrast to most of the other commenters here, I believe Oemig's conjecture may play at least some role in Darcy's defeat. Before reading your post, I'd been asking myself how I might study the data we'll eventually be able to download from King County to investigate her race.
As you point out, throughout a large part of the 8th (the 41st, 45th, 47th, and 48th), Democratic state legislature candidates consistently drew 52-60% of the vote. Even in the 31st, the two Roach opponents got about 47% while Chris Hurst grabbed 53%. I'll be really interested in teasing out the Burner/Reichert vote by LD, to see whether Darcy underperformed the state candidates.
Side note to my pal Ivan -- I don't think Oemig is blaming or complaining about the absence of legislative candidates in the 5th ... it's more like he's observing it and speculating on its effect on the WA-08 race. Whether the speculation is demonstrably right or wrong, we'll have learned something about the race that we didn't previously know.
I've heard Darcy speak several times and spoken to her in person. I would not classify her as "shrill". And of course she's partisan. Just like Reichert is.
Anyway, I'm really impressed that Burner, who really did come out of nowhere, was able to amass that much attention, funds, goodwill...she may not have been the best candidate (which we can say about any candidate that loses), but she mobilized so many people, raised a ton of cash, and while she didn't win, she was a smart, well-spoken, credible candidate. I would support her next time around.
Josh,
Please get all of your facts straight. The 8th LD also consists of a very Blue piece of the 11th LD. Great Fact checking buddy!
R. Jackson,
You're right about that. For purposes of the analysis I was focusing on KC's LD "Eastside" districts. But yes indeed a little bit of the 11th (S. and W. Seattle/Int'l District, Burien, Renton, SeaTac, and Tukwila) & actually more so—a bit of the 31st, the 33rd are also in KC portion of the 8th.
I'll amend my post to make it clearer that I meant Eastide districts.
Thanks again.
It's telling that the best thing the Right can say about Reichert is that he's a "decent public servant". I could say the same about my mailman.
Hahaha, NO.
If you look at the 2004 results, the year when the 5th ran a FULL SLATE of DEMS in THREE leg races, you will see Reichert did almost exactly the same in KC percentage-wise. This makes it look like the difference was the libertarian candidate, which doesn't fit with a Dem voice stronger then as now.
No, the real problem is most voters are perfectly fine with Reichert, they think of him as the Sheriff, not as an R, let alone a BUSH R. Having been in Congress such a short time, it was too hard to pin Reichert with that label, when everything he has locally in the minds of MOST VOTERS is just fine, despite what is sometimes in the paper. Remember it is what the voters think that counts, not what Darcy says or what we activists know to be otherwise. Voters will only believe so much from strangers.
Ben in Redmond,
Different climate in 2004. The difference in 2006 is that GOP voters were more willing to be swayed. So really, your stats on 2004 aren't too helpful.
Burner lost because she came out with no message. She was a middle of the road lightweight candidate who the Stranger and PI glommed onto with puff-pieces and activist 'journalism'. Many people said this when the Stranger came out of the box with a multi-page piece on Burner that defined her as a lightweight with no point of view. That didn't help her. And in the last week when Reichart went out with ads attacking Burner's experience she failed to hit back hard with charges of his incompetence as Sheriff, how out of touch he was with swing voters on issues like choice, the environment and the war, etc, etc. Burner needed to hit back hard but she threw softballs and Reichart's people hit them out of the park. I'm glad The Stranger supports Dems, but sometimes the Dems need to be taken to task for running weak candidates, and this time is such a case. Go get 'em Josh. Eli, take notes.
I think there's a couple of factors at work here that tipped the balance in the incumbent's favor. The first, and most important, is that nothing seems to matter as much in politics to the average voter as name recognition. Incumbents always have a huge advantage there, unless the challenger is someone who's done something to make an impression on Joe and Jane Averagevoter.
The factors that made the difference are 1) Darcy's lack of experience in elective office; I think even one term on a city council or in the state House would have made all the difference in the world. 2) is to my mind the more important of the two, however: I think a whole hell of a lot of Washington state voters like to think of themselves as independent, and HATE HATE HATE voting a straight party-line ticket. And, judging from the overall results in the LDs which are part of the 8th CD, I'd say a lot of them decided to vote for at least one Republican, and Reichert seemed the least repulsive of the lot.
Talk to people who don't follow politics. A lot of the ones I've talked to in the last week have basically admitted that they were queasy about voting a straight Dem ticket, because they do not consider themselves Democrats. And Reichert's desperate attempts to portray himself as independent of the Republican House machine worked with some of those folks.
Also, I think Darcy's campaign simply mentioned Reichert altogether too much. I've always been taught that you don't want to even MENTION your opponent's name if you can possibly help it, until the last couple of weeks. When you're running against an incumbent, the last thing you want to do is remind people of his name.
On the whole, though, I think Darcy made a whole hell of a lot of people sit up and take notice. The last thing I'd call her is either shrill or unprepared for office; she certainly did a far more impressive job of learning what a Congressperson would need to deal with and formulating positions than most of our other inexperienced Congresspeople (Reichert, Rick White, and others with zero prior legislative experience come to mind) ever seemed to do. (Shrill, to my mind, is simply a way to trivialize a female candidate; it's dismissive and juvenile.) I'm very much looking forward to supporting Darcy in another campaign, perhaps for County Council, or for Congress in 2008.
I think its funny how republicans call the lack of public office experience a plus in their own and they take anyone from a middle management corporate background no-mater how dead end their career is (see bush jr) and Say "they will run government like a business". Burner on the other hand was a real achiever, both academically and in business. So was Cantwell. We don't need to talk about Patty Murray though.
I'm surprised at how many progressive people bought the inexperienced = unqualified crap. We are the smart ones we should know better.
Reichart should thank the green river killer for making his career.
Sadly, I have to disagree with Ivan, and agree that not fielding good candidates in the 5th LD probably did it, based on the actual vote results by precinct.
Darn. Think I'll go run for KCDCC.
oh, and I DO think Darcy was a good candidate, nonetheless.
I think the given theory is just too macro in its analysis, and that the voting mindset in the 8th is far simpler than that. Most voters don't carry that broad a mindset when voting. You and your friends who are better informed may vote with such a big picture in mind, but the common individual does not.
Geni's theory in #19 is more down to Earth and on target, methinks.
Emmett @9:
I know Alben's campaign manager from the '04 run. I'll ask him why Alben didn't run this time around, but I would surmise there is bad blood from when the state Dem chair endorsed Dave Ross and pushed him into the forefront. The Alben campaign had spent a long time establishing themselves in the 8th and that all fell to the wayside when Dave "Short Man Syndrome" Ross stepped in.
The lack of a Dem candidate in the 5th LD might have had a very small impact on the race, but I doubt a significant one. Sheriff Dave won because he has good hair, and broad name recognition as The Man Who Caught the Green River Killer. That's it. I mean, come on, how could you not vote for The Man Who Caught the Green River Killer? In order for the Dems to unseat Sheriff Dave, they are either going to have to debunk the widely held myth that he single handily captured the Green River Killer, or run a really strong candidate with equally wide name recognition and a superstar resume. Or Reichert is going to have to get caught giving blowjobs to congressional pages.
Until then, all this navel gazing is for not.
Oh, and Ivan, I'm having a hard time buying the line that the Dems tried desperately for a year and couldn't find one single solitary soul to run for the 5th LD. No one? Not a single person willing to run? At all? Sure, they may not have had a particularly good chance, and they may not have been able to raise a ton of money. But if a drunken fratboy (Hugh Foskett, R) can run against Jamie Pedersen in the bluest of blue districts (43rd) as a joke, and still manage to get 13% of the vote without campaigning at all, then surely the Dems could have found somebody, anybody, to run in the 5th LD if they really wanted to.
Alben moved to Seattle and is getting divorced.
The Eastside is getting bluer every year, and while this seemed like a perfect election for the 8th CD to finally go our way, it may just have been to much to ask to capture all those legislative districts AND the Congressional seat. Suburban voters like to feel independent and splitting their vote to prove it, like Geni says.
The 5th LD fielded a great slate of candidates in 2004 and got nothing for it, which made it much harder to recruit for 2006. But even nominal candidates for the House would have reinforced their efforts both to win at that level and get more energy for Darcy. This worked in the 47th -- we had two party files in 1998 who did surprisingly well; in 2000 we won one House seat; in 2004 we won the second; and this year we took the Senate.
I also have to mention that Darcy's field efforts left many of us in South King County scratching our heads. She skipped every major community parade and had no yard signs until late on. You never know what will make the difference, but when a candidate skips the traditional means of establishing name familarity, it has to cost her. People just didn't get to know her.
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