Today's Washington Times reports that the FEC is investigating the GOP complaint that Darcy Burner failed to report donations from "Eastside Democracy for America". The article also exposes inconsistencies in the stories of the Burner campaign and Andrew Tsao of the EDFA
Burner campaign Chairman Zach Silk ... said the campaign did not distribute physical copies of the video and did not coordinate with Eastside ... Mr. Tsao wrote, "The Darcy Burner Campaign delivered 30 videos to LD's and precincts throughout the 8th Congressional District -- The video was produced by Eastside DFA, and our video finishes the end credits. We carried Darcy's message to the entire 8th CD today."Darcy Burner is also mentioned in this chart accompanying yesterday's Washington Post article "Democrats Face Uphill Battle to Retake House". The chart puts Burner in the third tier of Democrat challengers, "races in swing districts where Democrats should have recruited stronger candidates". As my good friend and avid Burner fan Eli Sanders put it: Ouch. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 14, 2006 10:49 AM | Email This
Since the apologists in Puget Sound have concluded, based on their interpretation of some of her responsibilites, they feel that yes, she was an executive.
I used to do the scheduling at a local McDonalds, a Multinational, multibillion dollar, publically traded corporation.
Can I start referring to myself as a "former McDonalds executive"?
Posted by: Former McDonalds exec on April 14, 2006 11:03 AMI counted the word "frivolous" used 5 times on the response to the WSRP complaint on the EDFA website. Wonder how many times they will use it once the FEC is done investigating.
Posted by: Palouse on April 14, 2006 11:04 AMThis is going to be her John Kerry "I voted for the war before I voted against it" moment. Stick a fork in her.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 14, 2006 11:25 AMIn re: Jeff B.'s comment, how many degrees away from the real executives was Burner? For instance, was her direct boss Bill Gates? Was she responsible for reporting to the Board of Directors?!?
Posted by: Patrick on April 14, 2006 11:30 AMAs to Andrew Tsao and Eastside DFA, concerned citizens can get together as a group and call themselves whatever the want, but if they are not raising and spending money as this group, they are not a PAC. Period. Tsao produced this video as a volunteer, and it doesn't matter under whose name he did it. No money changed hands.
Posted by: Goldy on April 14, 2006 11:48 AMThis is a mistake that anyone going in to politics should never, ever make. Especially on their first try at a very visible office. Appearances and how one represents themselves are so critical for a politician. And especially an aspiring "representative." The fact that Darcy has not addressed this mistake honestly, after making it in the first place is the critical defining moment of her candidacy. Most reasonable people will be suspicious of anyone who would use such a major, highly visible household brand like Microsoft, to their advantage, in an anything but completely accurate way. And ESPECIALLY the voters of the 8th CD. Many of these people work AT the major household brand name company in question.
Wouldn't you be offended if one of your former co-workers inflated their former title to get a leg up on a new position at a new employer? It happens all the time, and it does offend hard-working ladder climbers. But, most of the time, the person in question is not seeking a highly visible public office.
Here's a chance for all of you hard working ladder climbers to vent your frustrations about all of the Dilbert bosses you've ever worked for that misrepresented their qualifications and got their position with smooth talking. Vote for Dave Reichert.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 14, 2006 11:50 AMOn 6/15/05, Steve Ballmer donated to Reichert.
On 6/21/05, William Gates donated to Reichert.
These are undeniably Microsoft Executives and it looks as if they feel Reichert can do a better job.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on April 14, 2006 11:55 AMWTF??? So Steven Speilberg can produce a 3-hour documentary supporting Burner "as a volunteer" and it doesn't matter???
When someone is in the "trade or business" of producing videos, I believe it counts as an in-kind contribution. Same with companies that do printing. The underlying premise of the Disclosure Law is so the public is made aware of this stuff.
Goldy, yer beatin' a dead horse here....but keep on beatin' it pal!!! The longer you beat it, the longer it stays in the news!!!!!!!!!
I cannot wait for Goldy to try & spin away the discrepancy between what Andrew SOW said and what Burner's campaign manager, Zach Silk said!!!!
This one will be yet another KLOWNstein Klassic!!
In re: Jeff B.'s comment, how many degrees away from the real executives was Burner? For instance, was her direct boss Bill Gates? Was she responsible for reporting to the Board of Directors?!?
Posted by Patrick at April 14, 2006 11:30 AM
Patrick, since Stefan hasn't answered, I looked it up on the MS internal site while killing time on a slow day here at work. Darcy was a Group Program Manager at her highest level of work as near as I can document. That would make her, in MS-speak, a level 63 or 64. She would report into a Marketing Director, who then would likely report into a Senior Marketing Director, who would then report into a General Manager, which is generally the lowest level that anyone would consider an executive. In most organizations, a GM will report into another GM or a VP, but normally there are multiple levels of VPs before you get to the C-level, and of course all the C-level folks report to Balmer. In the case of a friend of mine who is in a similar sort of group in marketing, he is the Group Marketing Manager, reports into a director who reports into an "officer" who then reports into a VP who then reports to the COO who reports to Balmer. That would mean, if Darcy's org was that flat (they skip the GM level in his part of the org chart, for example, and that may not have been the case with Darcy's org), she may have had quarterly access to someone at the executive level but was at least two and maybe three levels below anything that could remotely be considered an executive. To give you an idea, if she were in the sales organization she would have been at the level of your average account generalist in the field sales organization from a career level perspective, and even though those guys call themselves Account Executives, I think we could all agree they aren't real executives.
That said, aren't there better ways to attack this shameless working-outside-of-the-home not-man? Where does she stand on nuking brown people? Does she have the balls to cheer Tehran's vaporization?
What about all the brown people mowing our lawns and cleaning our toilets? Will she stand with us when we charge them with felonies and ship them off to Mrs Malkin's camps?
Is she supportive of Our Leader's betrayal of CIA agents to punish those who are disloyal to him?
Aren't these issues far more important than what appears to be a legal independent expenditure?
Posted by: Gen. JC Christian, patriot on April 14, 2006 01:28 PMThe people in the 8th district are much more interested in issues like, will their congress(wo)man be a Bushco Bootlicker. The current one is and that's why he's got to go.
Posted by: Claire on April 14, 2006 02:09 PMYep, I'm sure the voters are keen on all that jive...
Posted by: alphabet soup on April 14, 2006 02:23 PMBushco = tens of thousands of needless deaths and billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money wasted in the process
Moveon.org = zero needless deaths and zero taxpayer money wasted
With that in my mind, I don't care what part of Moveon.org Darcy licks.
Posted by: Claire on April 14, 2006 03:53 PMReichert's voting record speaks for itself - he consistently votes with Tom DeLay and the rest of the (anti-american, pro-wealthy, anti-clean air)Bushco Bootlickers (tm). What kind of person votes against stem cell research? He either hates diabetics and quadriplegics or he's a bootlicker - either way he's got no business representing the 8th district.
Posted by: Claire on April 14, 2006 04:05 PMhttp://www.sologig.com/employer/profiles/view.php?id=100924
http://homepage.mac.com/andrtsao/Menu16.html
to arrange for more $250 videos. Since he is a professional and IF he is telling the truth, the cost to produce a comparable corporate video or commercial or whatever should only be $250. Maybe buy him a beer if your spot needs a little extra work.
Order today! Maybe all of us can get slick videos for only $250!
Posted by: (The Real) Mark on April 14, 2006 04:05 PMAhhhh, more talk of Dave Reichert! Methinks you're in love with him! Dave, dave, dave, dave, that's all you talk about!
I told you before - nobody's voting for Darcy because she's Darcy. Nobody will vote for her who wouldn't also vote for a warm body that could fog a mirror with a (D) behind her name. If you can't state a reason to vote for Darcy other than 'She's not Dave Reichert', well - that says it all!!
You can run a campaign on hatred, but you won't win. How did that 'We hate Bush 2004' campaign work out? Oh yeah, you got beat by 3 million votes, I remember now.
Posted by: Larry on April 14, 2006 04:16 PMThanks for doing the foot-work, I will definitely use that in an upcoming post on my own blog.
I'd now like to call SP readers attention to the following "public service" announcement:
Darcy Burner's campaign is supposedly going to answer questions posed in the comments section at The Stranger's 'Slog'. Follow this permalink and make sure to get your question in the mix!!! And no fluff questions like "Where do you stand on under water basket-weaving?"...
Posted by: Patrick on April 14, 2006 04:21 PMIs that he same Eli that owns a house with Ron Sims King County spokesman and noted podcaster Sandeep " Liberal values are Drinking and "F#%king" Kaushik? Probably not, but he appears to be just as far left.
Posted by: Smokie on April 14, 2006 05:40 PMNo amount of stem cell breakthoughs can cure your condition.
I have seen more positive reports of progress with the adult and cord blood cells than with the embryonic cells.
So Reichert is a rabid follower of Bush, therefore a bootlicker.
You seem to be a rabid follower of someone else, who's boots do you lick?
Every day that Moveon types prop up the enemy by trying to drain this country's will to defeat the terroists and discredit the commander-in-chief, his subordinates, or the troops in the field is another day where people are killed. They may not have pulled a trigger but they make a direct contribution every day.
Answer Larry's question - why vote FOR Burner? So far you've shown no real commitment to her except for the "anybody but Bush syndrome".
Talk issues. Talk about positions. Is Burner the lesser of two evils? Is she a saint? Is she her own person or is she someone that is pure party line?
Reichert doesn't vote the way you want him to? Guess what. My representative is Jay Inslee. He doesn't vote the way I want him to and neither to the two Senators from this state and neither do my three state representatives, yet I am willing to talk about the issues and them and I certainly show far less unbridled hatred towards them than you show towards anything Republican.
Why don't you come back when you become an adult.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on April 14, 2006 06:57 PMNo one should let this get their goat. It's very easy for someone like Reichert to remain calm, leave options open, and spin this away. Darcy lists this because there are not many other issues where Reichert does not already have a sensible position that plays very well in the 8th CD and very well to the center. Despite all of the rhetoric, most of the population falls more towards the center from either direction.
Don't let the Dems turn this into a major issue. There are much bigger fish to fry.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 14, 2006 11:31 PMThat claire would even suggest such a thing tells us that she is such a complete party hack that there is nothing that could convince her to cross the aisle. Indeed, probably nothing that could coax her to open her mind at all.
If a candidate were to run that more closely matched my interests, I would be inclined to vote for him and not Reichert, but that isn't the way politics plays and so the choice will be between Reichert and someone like farcy marcy.
No question here - Reichert gets my vote!
Posted by: alphabet soup on April 15, 2006 08:12 AMI see you have made your quarterly trip from that sewer you run to step out into the light. Now run away little man. Your socialist ideas don't survive the light of free and open debate and Stefan won't censor out opposing arguments for you. Run along now to the cursing crazies of your equine anal blog and see how many times in a day your degenerate regulars can post synonyms for fecal matter and sexual acts.
Posted by: pbj on April 15, 2006 11:06 AMWell said. If you look at the comments of Goldstein's toy blog, you will see that they are largely dominated by one guy who thinks he's a rabbit and has figured out how to cut and paste. I expect that kind of behavior from a twelve year old. But at HA, that's what passes for rational discourse. And it makes Goldstein proud. A good example of why the left will ultimately get nowhere.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 16, 2006 09:39 AMThis is an excerpt from an article in the Sunday 04/16/2006 edition of the King County Journal. This story didn't make it into the on-line edition for some reason -- they had two stories about the 8th district race, and only posted one. It is only in today's print edition.
"Raised in Nebraska in an Air Force family, Burner went to Harvard as a National Merit Scholar and wound up in a high-tech career, ultimately spending five years as a product and group manager at Microsoft. She left the company at the end of 2004 to raise her and husband Michael's 3-year-old son, Henry. And, she began preparing her political run."
MAYBE YOU CAN CALL THIS A "WHITE LIE". BUT WHY IS BURNER SO ASHAMED OF HER ONE YEAR AT UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON LAW SCHOOL, THAT SHE TELLS THE NEWSPAPER SHE LEFT MICROSOFT INSTEAD TO BE A FULL-TIME MOM?
Posted by: Richard Pope on April 16, 2006 07:37 PMNot sure if the URL will post, but I'll give it a shot.
http://stokefire.com/blog/2006/04/14/poking-politics-from-across-the-continent/
Posted by: Tate Linden on April 17, 2006 12:19 PM