That leaves only Darcy Burner running for the Democratic nomination. The statement from Burner:

Senator Tom called me this morning to let me know that he is pulling out of the 8th district congressional race and is formally and enthusiastically endorsing my candidacy. We will be working together in the future to bring real change to the district.

I wonder how much this had to do with Burner’s ability to capitalize hugely on Bush’s recent visit to Bellevue to raise money for Republican Congressman Dave Reichert. Burner used the Bush event to promote an online counterfundraiser for herself. With the help of prominent local and national liberal bloggers, she ended up raising her nearly $130,000. That may not be as much money as Reichert raised in Bellevue with Bush’s help, but it was way more than anything Rodney Tom had raised up to that point, and it showed that Burner was not only the pick of the local and national netroots, but had the tech savvy to turn their backing into a significant amount of cash.

Here’s what I wrote about all of this for last week’s Stranger:

[Burner’s] counterfundraiser also served as another body check to Burner’s opponent in the Democratic primary, state senator Rodney Tom. While Burner was raking in the online donations, at one point at a rate of $100 a minute, Tom was reduced to joining the protest outside the Bush event—nice symbolism, perhaps, but not very lucrative.

The local and national netroots want to be the kingmakers in campaigns like this. In the Burner-Tom race, it appears they probably were.

Meanwhile, here’s something I’ve been meaning to post on Slog. It’s a breakdown that shows who was king among the blog king-makers. No surprise, DailyKos was at the top of the list:

Burner’s online haul offered a telling indicator of which liberal blogs currently have the most money clout. By Goldstein’s calculations, links from the hugely popular blog DailyKos led to around $40,000 in donations to Burner—the most of any blog participating in her fundraiser. The blog Eschaton was second, delivering about $25,000. And Goldstein’s blog, HorsesAss, was fifth, bringing in about $5,000.