Ridenbaugh Press

Pigs must be flying, and it must be as cool in Hades as it was yesterday in the Northwest. You got it: Your scribe has become a candidate for office.

Do not expect that anything about this site or any other Ridenbaugh Press activities will change as a consequence. (Possibly, maybe, an iota more sympathy for those who put their names on the line …) None of what follows in this post is of any broad Northwest significance; but we thought it should be noted here by way of full disclosure. (more…)

Sometimes political campaigns aren’t altogether what they’re supposedly about. Sometimes you have to makes connections and pull pieces together.

In Oregon, for example, there’s Measure 48, and then there’s a set of ads that have begun appearing on another, apparently unrelated subject. We’re betting they’re closely related.

Go back to our post yesterday on 48 - the TABOR-derived spending cap - and the quotes from its Oregon petitioner, Don McIntire. Who does he see as his opponent in the battle over the ballot issue? Not someone most Oregonians probably would cite: “the real leader of the government class in Oregon – Tim Nesbitt, recent President of the Oregon AFL-CIO. I will debate Mr. Nesbitt as many times as he would like between now and election day.”

All of that was largely in response to Governor Ted Kulongoski’s offer to debate the man most responsible for underwriting the Measure 48 campaign, New York businessman Howard Rich. Kulongoski’s move drew fresh attention to the non-indigenous nature of the initiative, that it’s a clone of brethern circulating in a bunch of states, all funded by Rich and associations he’s closely linked to.

McIntire’s comments sounded like an attempt to swing the spotlight in another direction. In Oregon, unions had been peripheral in the discussion about Measure 48 up to that point, but McIntire went well out of his way to make them central.

But in a bigger context, his comments look in no way accidental. (more…)

UPDATE: We’ll leave the post here intact, partly because the national issue is still worth noting. However, the premise - a question about whether Idaho Senator Mike Crapo is the senator who placed a secret hold on a contractor database bill - appears to have been resolved. His communications director, Susan Wheeler, just sent us this note: “Senator Crapo does not normally confirm or deny if he is the Senator who placed a hold on legislation. However, given that the Majority Leader has asked Senators to disclose such information, Senator Crapo has instructed me to let you know that he is not the Senator who placed the hold.”

Could Mike Crapo be the mystery senator? The one the whole blogosphere, left and right, has been trying to track down and wail upon if cornered?

Idahoans may want to know.

Here’s the background. Earlier this year two U.S. senators from distant poles, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn and Illinois Democrat Barack Obama, got together on a bill to bring some transparency to the federal government. It would set up an online database, accessible to and searchable by the public, of all federal contractors - who gets the money, how much and for what. It would be free to the public. A lot of people from the left and right quickly seized on the idea as a way to monitor spending and possible corruption. It got widespread support in the Senate, cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with a unanimous vote in favor, and seemed set for a favorable Senate floor vote. But then a senator placed a “secret hold” on the bill - a procedural that freezes it in place for the rest of the term, unless the senator releases the hold. No reason need be given, or was (as is usual in these cases).

Who was the senator? No one would say. So a bunch of national political blogs, some each from the left and right, began collecting, and urging their readers to collect, statements from senators either acknowleding the secret hold or flatly denying having done it.

Over the last few days, senator after senator has been crossed off the list, having issued clear denials. Washington’s Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Oregon’s Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden, were quickly eliminated. When a caller contacted Idaho’s Larry Craig, spokesman Dan Whiting’s response was, “of course not.”

But then, on the tally web page, there was this: “Sen. Crapo’s spokeswoman Susan Wheeler tell us ‘It’s not Sen. Crapo’s practice to confirm or deny any hold on any bill.’ So that’s a refusal to answer.”

Among the 100 members of the Senate, there are four others - Robert Byrd, Judd Gregg, Orrin Hatch and Ted Stevens - for whom answers have not been obtained. Mike Crapo at present is the only senator, according to the tally, who has refused to answer.

We’ll be watching.

UPDATE: Coburn has accused Stevens of being the secret-hold senator. Stevens isn’t saying.

Pobably there are a few things about the opposition on Measure 48 that its in-state petitioner and veteran initiative organizer, Don McIntire, can’t stand. In his current released on the subject, he didn’t seem happy about much. But what probably irritated most was the particular place the spotlight was pointing.

It was pointed by Governor Ted Kulongoski, whose re-elect campaign has been getting persistently savvier, and which on Tuesday made perhaps its smartest move yet. (Except that this latest bit isn’t yet posted on its website; the material here on his statements comes via Blue Oregon.) Here’s Kulongoski’s note to Howard Rich, a New York City businessman who has underwritten an estimated $1.1 million of the Measure 48 - TABOR - proposal. (And no, it isn’t a “Rainy Day Amendment,” and we will keep on noting that.)

Since you are the chief financial backer of Oregon ballot Measure 48, I invite you to Oregon to publicly debate the merits of the measure. You have already put $1.1 million dollars into this effort, so I am certain that you can afford the price of a plane ticket. …

For too long out-of-state special interests have used Oregon as a laboratory for their failed ideas. As Governor, I feel it is my obligation to stand up to the special interest groups you fund and protect the most vulnerable in our population - kids and seniors - who depend on services you are proposing to cut.

Your subordinates may try to help you avoid the publicity by offering to debate in your stead. I do not see such an arrangement as acceptable. If you are willing to pour millions into our state as a social experiment, the least you can do is come here and explain in person to Oregon voters why the face of our future is so important to you.

I welcome my Republican opponent join me in this discussion with you, but while he opposes this measure, he refuses to campaign against it. Please contact my campaign as soon as possible so that we can finalize arrangements for the forum.

Sincerely,
Governor Ted Kulongoski

Rich, of course, declined. He’s not much on public appearances or statements, just likes to drop several hundred thou or a million in a state and watch the fireworks: “I’m happy that I could help out the local group in Oregon–they’ve faced a real uphill climb against public employee unions and special interests. The fact is, though, that the local group has done all the heavy lifting, and the result of their hard work is that voters will have a say in state spending in the fall. It sounds to me like the Governor is afraid to debate local leaders like Don McIntire, or face up to the 162,000 Oregon voters who have already signed the petition.”

But as Kulongoski noted, the heavy financing of petition signature-gathering and campaigning is the reason Measure 48 is on the ballot: It wasn’t a home-grown invention. Similar ballot issues have been paid for in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Montana and elsewhere, also underwritten with Rich money. To imagine him as anything less than the prime reason it’s on the Oregon ballot is to ignore a lot of external evidence. (more…)

Two new, and essentially conflicting, polls on the Maria Cantwell-Mike McGavick Senate race. Both show Cantwell ahead; they differ sharply on the spread.

The new Strategic Vision poll gives her a five-point lead, 48%-43%. That’s actually up from a four-point lead a month ago. SV polls mainly for Republicans.

The latest Survey USA poll puts Cantwell ahead 56% to 39% - a 17-point lead.

Our suspicion is that the current reality lies in between.

Both polls were conducted during the period when McGavick’s confessional (from last week) was making the media rounds.

The Rob Brading campaign seems to be almost on to something - almost. Tactically, it knows it has to do battle with the library Internet porn charge poured down from an ally of its opponent, Oregon House Speaker Karen Minnis. But the strategic element hasn’t quite been there. Yet. But could be. May be that Oregon’s premier legislative race - and if it wasn’t before, it surely is now - hangs on it.

It hangs on a question of power.

Karen Minnis has been speaker of the House for four years, and she is no figurehead. In close alliance with Majority Leader Wayne Scott, she runs the House; her effectiveness in the role is acknowledged by her critics. Her effectiveness is widely bemoaned, in fact, by many Democrats.

As makes sense, she plays this up in her district (the 49th, in eastern Multnomah County, including Troutdale and Wood Village and part of Gresham). Watch her campaign video for a good sense of how. In a short but effective string of examples, she shows people from the district talking about problems they have faced, and how Minnis helped them through her work in the House. It’s cleanly produced and an effective declaration of usefulness and effectiveness. And at the end of it one of the (unnamed) people adds, “They say Karen’s in for the fight of her political life. I can’t see how that’s true. She’s never stopped fighting for us.”

It’s an interesting acknowledgement, and probably necessary. Two years ago, when Minnis was coming off her first term as speaker, she drew a little-known opponent - Brading - who ran an enthusiastic but lightly funded and organized campaign against her. Minnis won, but it’s a tossup which candidate was more surprised at the close margin, just 53.4% for a solidly established House speaker who drastically outspent her opponent, who never seemed to have delivered a real blow of his own.

Or, in a backhanded way, did he? The most notable incident of the campaign came when Minnis, in an unusual acknowledgement of her opposition, suggested that in his service on a library advisory board, Brading should have pressed for more efforts to keep children from accessing porn at Internet-linked library computers. The implication that Brading is okay with kids viewing porn was too much, and he demanded an apology from Minnis, and got one. The subject was not revisited. That cycle. (more…)

The mass media may not take note, but it should: The Northwest now has two Democratic-”netroots” endorsed U.S. House candidates. Darcy Burner, challenging Dave Reichert in the Washington 8th, was endorsed a while ago (and in our estimation remains the closest call of any House race in the Northwest). Today a second was added: Larry Grant, the Democrat running in the open Idaho 1st, against Republican Bill Sali. There are 18 such candidates nationally, so it’s not a massive group - each one gets some genuine attention.

Meaning what? These races essentially are being put on the national liberal net network, backed specifically by blogs such as Daily Kos, My DD and Swing State Project, all among the most visited political web sites in the country. That translates to putting these candidates consistently in front of hundreds of thousands (at the least) very active activists, who have demonstrated an impressive track record in generating money and on-ground support for favored candidates, as well as putting the opposition under an atomic microscope. Such support is not enough to win an unwinnable race. It can be enough to matter if the race tightens on its own merits. (Republicans, by the way, do not yet appear to have any direct counterpart.)

And in Grant’s race? We’ve suggested before that the dynamics of the race presently favor Sali, and still think so, but that does not mean the dynamics cannot change. Given the nature of the year, the nature of Sali, and other intriguing elements, that is certainly possible. And if it does - if the race looks as if it’s closing at the end - this kind of support can be very important. It has been in other House races around the country.

Afascinating report in the Seattle Times suggests that Initiative 933 - the land use measure - has thinner support in that state than most people probably have supposed.

I-933 is the spawn of Oregon’s Measure 37 from 2004, aimed at limiting governmental enforcement of land use rules. The Oregon measure passed easily in that state. The Washington provisions are somewhat different, in part reflecting differences in the two states’ laws, and partly other considerations, but the overall intent is the same. In Oregon, measure got support from a wide range of people and groups traditionally active in the property rights movement.

In Washington . . . apparently, not so much.

The Times piece by Eric Pryne notes, “The state’s leading developers are providing scant backing for a measure opponents label a ‘developers’ initiative.’ They offer varying explanations.
The Building Industry Association of Washington says it has higher priorities this year. The Washington Association of Realtors says its members are deeply divided on I-933.”

And, in another irony, the initiative’s main organizational backer is the Washington Farm Bureau - an organization that in Oregon was deeply divided on the measure, and probably more opposed than in favor. The Washington campaign seems to be taking on a flavor unexpected a few months ago.

It was a long day at the Idaho Statehouse. A bill of some significance, House Bill 1, a property tax measure proposed by Governor Jim Risch, was passed. We were struck most especially, however, by three other things.

Sympathy for Mark Ricks. You had to feel for Idaho’s new lieutenant governor, just appointed, Mark Ricks. His appointment by Risch some weeks backwas supposed to be mainly an honorary thing; it expires in January. But here comes this session, just one day but very rugged, and it put him through the mill. Neither he nor Risch, who appointed him, could have expected anything like it.

Only one bill was on the agenda, but it was controversial. Everyone seems to want to do something about property taxes, but over the last month a large protest around the state developed against Risch’s proposal, which involves moving much of the cost of paying for public schools from the local property tax to the state sales tax. That protest in advance included press conferences and “pork BBQ” lunches, but it was only a warm up. Once the session started, Democrats, first in the House and then even more forcefully in the Senate, used almost every parliamentary device in the rule book to block the bill. Some of those devices, including obscire protests, hadn’t been tried in a generation or more. A Senate session expected to last maybe two or three hours went on, and on. A session launched at 8 a.m. and originally expected to be over at least by late afternoon, wrapped at about a quarter past 11 at night.

Ricks presided over just about all of the Senate session. Years ago, as a senator and a majority leader, he periodically presided over the Senate, and knew the rules and presided fluently. But he left the Senate 12 years ago, and he is 82 years old now, and the procedures don’t roll out quite so easily. And this was his first day on the job in a dozen years. From time to time, he would sound confused and - you could hear it from a distance - call out for help.

No matter. Ricks, a courteous man with a positive outlook, managed to keep both his perspective and his humor throughout what had to be a rough experience. He emerged as a class act. (more…)

Maybe, as Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and his staff considered the complaint filed last Friday against Mary Starrett, the name Douglas Patterson came up as well. If it did, it easily could have prompted the line of though that led to a decision keeping Starrett on the general election ballot for governor.

On Friday attorney Kelly Clerk, representing three northwest Oregon clients, filed a complaint with the secretary of state’s office. He said that the Constitution Party of Oregon, which nominated Starrett for governor, had not followed proper procedures in offering notice of its upcoming nominating convention. Whether it did or not remains in dispute. Assuming the secretary of state’ s office also perceived a violation, Clark wrote, it should strike Starrett from the ballot, as having been improperly nominated.

Starrett has some strategic political significance here. Her odds of actually coming close to winning are not good - most political observers probably would agree (she would not) that she will get more than 1% but less than 10% of the vote, well less than Democratic incumbent Ted Kulongoski or Republican nominee Ron Saxton. But her presence on the ballot as a skilled candidate and as a more-conservative alternative to Saxton creates problems for the Republicans, and if the race otherwise is close, she could cost him the win. May not turn out that way, but it’s a plausible scenario.

Bradbury’s decision was that whether or not procedures were violated, candidates should not be thrown off the ballot as a result. If the party really screwed up, some form of sanction might be considered - a fine, for instance - but the candidates shouldn’t be barred.

All of which has led to Starrett and the Constitution Party accusing Saxton or his backers of being behind the ballot challenge (no hard evidence of that has developed), and Republicans accusing Democrat Bradbury of giving Starrett a break.

In the process, everyone forgot about Douglas Patterson. And Dean Wolf.

He was another candidate nominated by the Constitution Party convention, for the 5th district congressional seat; Wolf is his counterpart in the 1st district. The question, unasked publicly: If Starrett should be thrown from the ballot, should not too Patterson and Wolf? And two state Senate candidats, Robert Simmering in District 16 and John Pivarnik in District 17?

Expand on that a bit. Why should the make-a-mistake-and-bar-the-candidates principle apply only to minor parties? Suppose the Democratic Party found a legal glitch in the way the Republicans processed their party’s business, should that be grounds for throwing all the Republican candidates off the ballot? (Or, of course, switch the parties if you like.)

It’s not hard to see how quickly mischief can develop from this approach. The state law doesn’t specify what sort of action should be imposed if a party failed to jump through its bureaucratic hoops, but something aimed more directly at a party’s structure would seem more appropriate.

Meantime, Starrett and her allies have something to be really, personally, steamed about.

Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed is figuring that when votes are cast for the September 19 primary, about 80-85% of them will be cast by mail. Only five counties - King, Kittitas, Klickitat, Island, Pierce - still allow the option of voting at a precinct polling location, and even there, he estimated fewer than a third of voters will choose that option.

For meaningful purposes, that will mean the mail voting option will get a good, solid test in Washington this year. It has worked well in Oregon; now we’ll see how well it exports.

This one made us stop and pause. There is an inescapable element of political tactic here, and we’ll get to that, but also a more painful matter: Have we got to the point that candidates are bound to reveal their darkest, back-of-the-closet secrets to the world if they choose to run for office?

We suspect things haven’t gone quite that bad, but Mike McGavick, the Republican running for the Senate in Washington (and near-certain nominee), apparently does. And so, today, he decided to confess all, to the news media and directly to his supporters through a post on his blog. (He also says he had no indication that these items were slated for disclosure by Democrats, that he was beating them to the punch. That’s credible, since he makes no effort to excuse or minimize.)

You could say that in one astonishing shot he characterized himself as a drunk driver - testing .17, extremely drunk - a man who got a divorce because he and his wife simply came not to like each other much, a part-time father, a purveyor of a dishonest campaign tactic - in a U.S. Senate race, no less - and a corporate exec who, Enron-style, first said the business was fully righted and then proceeded to lay off 500 employees who weren’t expecting it.

You could say that - it would be an intepretation which may get out there and take hold. It would not be a fair interpretation. Three of these incidents were incidents, one-time events, and McGavick indicates remorse for each. The other - about his first marriage - is an essentially private matter, and what he describes is unfortunately familiar to a lot of people. He suggests he has learned and grown. “Here it is,” he writes. “I have lots of faults, and I have made some mistakes that I deeply regret.” (more…)

Took a bit, but the transcript of the state Senate Democratic primary chat between Tim Sheldon, often blasted in-party as too pro-Republican, and challenger Kyle Taylor Lucas, is posted on the Olympian site.

Top reader question: “Sen. Sheldon, in the past you’ve explained some of you more controversial votes by saying the 35th District is much more conservative than other parts of Washington. This implies that your votes are based on what your district believes, rather than what you believe. What votes would have changed had you voted your conscience, rather than what you believed was the will of your district?”

His answer: “I can’t think of a bill I personally disagreed with.” Make of that what you will.

Alex LaBeau, for quite a few years the top lobbyist at the Idaho Statehouse for realtor interests, has been hired as the new president of the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry, replacing its veteran leader, Steve Ahrens.

IACI is one of the two or three most influential organizations in Idaho politics (and some say you can strike the “two or three”), partly because of some skilled leaders (such as Ahrens) and partly because of its membership, which includes a large chunk of the state’s leading business community. It rarely loses at the Idaho Legislature, and it does well in negotiations with state agencies and other groups as well. The sucession, once Ahrens announced his retirement earlier this year, has been closely watched, and a number of names have been floated.

One of those most floated in recent weeks (whatever the validity) was Brian Whitlock, who was a chief of staff and budget official for former Governor Dirk Kempthorne. That makes him very well connected, close to many of the people in power (albeit less so to the new Risch Administration). The IACI choice for LaBeau sends a somewhat different message.

Not that LaBeau isn’t well connected. (For that matter, as the government guy for the Association of Realtors, he has been an active participant in IACI committees and decision-making.) But he’s known (well known) in governmental circles more as a solid lobbyist and widely respected - put another way, a pro at doing the sort of things IACI expects its government affairs operation to do, whoever’s in power at the time. That may be sound thinking for the long run.

Not bad: A total of what will be five debates - counting one earlier this summer at Mount Hood - for the two major candidates for Oregon governor. It’s a good number; most states don’t get that many. More would always be nicer, and Republican challenger Ron Saxton was at one point talking as many as eight (and evidently would like one located east of the Cascades, which none now are). But Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski, who for a time pulled the office-keeps-me-too-busy bit during the primary election, certainly can’t, with this number of debate, be accused of hiding from the opposition.

Three of them apparently will originated somewhere in or around Portland, and be hosted by Oregon Public Broadcasting, KGW-TV with the Oregonian, and the Portland City Club, from September 28 to October 17. The last will be in Medford about a week later.

The minor party candidates won’t be included.

Neither campaign seems to be saying a lot about it; neither website refers to be the debates (yet), so there’s not a lot of spin out. Loosely, we’ll suggest this: Kulongoski, who has been getting some pretty good poll data and as governor has the excuse to duck most debates, wound up accepting more of these meetings that he really had to. Presumably, he/his staff did that because they figure there’s some advantage to be gained. We have reason to believe (see previous posts) that base turnout is a key component of that campaign. Do they see the debates as a useful tactic in that strategy?

Regardless, it means Oregonians will get to see and hear a good deal from their candidates for gov this year. Two of them, anyway.

Senator Larry Craig and his staff - and they wouldn’t be alone - must still be wondering about just what the hell happened at their town hall meeting Tuesday night in Coeur d’Alene. They’d have good reason to, because a significant issue rides on it: To what extent did it reflect a substantial strain, or just fluke fissure, in the community?

Craig has taken heat for a few years now from parts of the conservative community - which for most of his years in Congress has given him unqualified support - for his stand on immigration and illegal aliens, a stance bearing some resemblance to that of President George W. Bush. Yes, there are a lot of people in this country who aren’t supposed to be, and that fact - and border security - need to be dealt with more effectively, Craig has suggested. But he also suggests that there’s no reason for a panic reaction, either.

As he was quoted by the Coeur d’Alene Press: “You can’t go door to door and force between 8 million and 10 million people to leave at gunpoint. For 20 years, immigration laws have failed. We know there’s a problem and we’re working on it. The first step is securing the border and we’re doing that.”

That seems hard to argue with, reflecting a general reality we’ve managed to live with for a long time, and yet the reaction has suggested it’s an edgy statement. In some places, as at Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint, audiences have been fine with it. In some places in southern Idaho, reaction was angrier. But the reaction at - and yes, this is where it was - the Human Rights Education Institute at Coeur d’Alene, was something else again. (more…)

The new round of Survey USA reports - we noted presidential popularity in the Northwest a few days back - are out, with mostly good news for the area’s governors.

The most critical situation is that of Oregon, where Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski has had to deal with low poll approval numbers for some time now. They got especially bad earlier this summer, but now seem on an uptick - 44% approval, 47% disapproval. Not good, but better than where he was, and very close to where he was toward the end of last year.

In Washington, Democrat Christine Gregoire has improved her numbers considerably from the early part of her term; on taking office in January 2005 her approval/disapproval according to SUSA were a horrible 34%/58%. Early this year the lines crossed, however, and excepting one month (June) her favorables have steadily grown. She now stands at 51%/45% - not great, but a lot better than a year ago.

Idaho Governor Jim Risch, in office only since May, has a shorter track record, so you can’t really do an analysis based on trend lines. The current snapshot - 53% favorable, 32% unfavorable - is certainly positive enough, though, enough to rank him as the 18th most popular governor in the country. (Gregoire is 31st and Kulongoski 36th.)

Down at the very end of U.S. Highway 30 at Astoria, close to where it meets U.S. 101 and the Pacific Ocean, there is a tricky little roundabout, a circle where four roads come together; you use the circle to get from the road you’re on to the road you’re headed.

That is not an unusual roundabout, either, and in Washington and Oregon you’ll find them in some unexpected locations. (We distinctly remember getting discombobulated at one in Arlington, Washington.) In Oregon, there are enough roundabouts that you can expect questions about their proper use on your driver’s license exam. (And be aware there’s a distinction between a roundabout and a traffic circle.)

Idaho, like most of the Rocky Mountain states, never has been much for roundabouts - if any have existed at all in the Gem State up to the last couple of years, we can’t think where they are. (If anyone does know, please advise. The loop on the south side of the Clearwater River bridge at Lewiston doesn’t count.)

But that’s changing. The city of Nampa, which is doing a massive re-do of transportation (and understandably, given the explosive growth there), has just opened its first roundabout, at Amity Road and Happy Valley Road. More are planned for construction before long. And not only that, others are planned for Ada County.

Will be interesting to see how they work in Nampa, Boise and Meridian. Most places we’ve spotted them in Washington and Oregon, they’ve been in substantial-traffic but smaller communities, since the circles do require a considerable traffic stop or slowdown.

We’ve long argued that the proper format for candidate debates is the simpler the better: Clear away everyone but the two (or more) candidates and a moderate to keep the peace and guide the discussion. Start with a general topic or proposition, and then - within the general bounds of civility and time fairness - let the candidates have at it. You’d get much better insight into the candidates and their ideas that way - and even much better drama - than through the usual glorified press conference approach that characterizes most debates.

The new proposal by Governor Jim Risch for his lieutenant governor debate with Democrat Larry La Rocco (as reported on Spokesman-Review reporter Betsy Russell’s blog), however, takes things in the other direction - no candidate interaction at all, and nothing left but two glorified press conferences. Risch’s proposal calls for two half-hour sessions in which each candidate would be questioned by reporters, with the other candidate entirely absent.

She said Risch’s spokesman (and his son) Jason Risch explained the idea was proposed “due to the disruptive nature of previous experiences with the opposition.” Russell did not indicate that he elaborated.

The proposal was rejected by Elinor Chehey, the veteran coordinator of debates for the League of Women Voters.

A pile of questions come to mind. Let’s sift through some of the more pertinent. (more…)

The first television spot from Democratic challenger Darcy Burner - opposing Republican incumbent Dave Reichert in Washington’s 8th congressional district - is out. And is it ever controversial.

Among Democrats.

What should a challenger Democrat do this year, by way of message? There’s a great to-and-fro on the subject, and analysis of this opener ad from every which direction, up on the MyDD Democratic political site. It’s a good discussion of campaign strategy and tactics, and the debate shows why these things remain more art than science.