Here's the profile of the 8th Congressional District RealClearPolitics has been forecasting the last couple days. It's pretty solid though the faithful on both sides of the aisle won't find much new in it, except perhaps this:
[Darcy Burner] favors a new focus on health care, a problem which she says is at "crisis level"; and measures to curb and end global warming.
Neither of those issues were a prominent part of Burner's message last year. They in theory also offer an excellent chance to assess whether Burner will continue to run to the left of her district or whether she'll actually become the "more moderate" Democrat she claims to have in her.
Posted by Eric Earling at September 07, 2007 07:14 AM | Email ThisKids don't care about health care, etc., but I think you can get them on the R side by using Social Security. Now that the Bush proposal died, the Ds are moderately quietly (sorry Eric, I don't have the same compunction with spelling and grammar as you) raising the Social Security bankruptcy issue again.
While kids don't care about retirement, they do care about paying taxes into a bankrupt system.
Darcy is the darling of the national blogosphere now, isn't she? Tough to beat that group, except Reichert has won the tough one- the first reelection. The others, theoretically, are supposed to be easier by tradition?
Posted by: swatter on September 7, 2007 08:00 AMI think you're looking at the 8th District as something that is more and more affected by the loose-money liberals who've made their stash and aren't affected by rising taxes the way normal people are in the district.
I'm glad to see Darcy move to global warming - religious people generally vote their faith and not their intelligence, and she'll get all the members of the Church of St. Albert.
Posted by: steve miller on September 7, 2007 08:24 AMBut chances are she won't be able to significantly differentiate herself on health care, especially since the Dem candidate is going to be more moderate on health care than she'd like to be to differentiate herself. Indeed, Hillary might be closer to Reichert than to Burner on that issue.
Posted by: pudge on September 7, 2007 09:16 AMWhile Burner does not have electoral experience, she plays up her business credentials. "The career politicians have gotten us to this point," Burner said when asked what experience she would bring to myriad problems the country faces. "Maybe we need some new thinking."
Apparently, Darcy will be recommending that Patty and Maria not run again....
Posted by: SouthernRoots on September 7, 2007 11:34 AMSounds like she may have hired a new (ie non-Kos) policy guru. If so, this may be only the first shift in her rhetoric, which could include more issues where the dems can get traction.