Reichert's latest ad goes right after Burner on the image of youth, inexperience, and partisanship that has been forged since the start of her 2006 run:

The netroots and Burner backers will protest, but the same themes seen in Reichert's ad are come out in a slightly different way in a new article from Time magazine on the race. The piece includes this short quote that inadvertently summarizes much of the race so far:

And yet Burner has focused surprisingly little on the pocketbook issues that are drawing voters to Democratic candidates around the country.

In the all-important race for campaign cash, Burner benefits from her blogosphere profile. She has raised $2.3 million, much of it from outside her district.

Money from outside the district and issues that don't match it either. That makes for a fiery race, but not necessarily a winning one.

Speaking of which, independent polling the race continues to indicate the race favors Reichert (yes, I'm not including partisan, internal polls because those usually include "messaging" questions, rather than just a direct voter preference question).

There was that SurveyUSA poll in early September that showed a 10-point Reichert lead. While that seemed a bit high, perhaps a bit of the post-Palin pick bump, note that no public poll has yet shown anything but a Reichert lead.

The most recent public poll was a Research 2000 survey, conducted for DailyKos (!), showed Reichert ahead by eight.

Reichert probably has a lead, though a smaller one than that which the polls above indicate. It's not the Presidential race is going to help boost Republicans down the ballot.

He'll have to close well to win, given the now established Democratic preference of the district. His campaign is well-positioned to do so given the degree to which he has worked to align himself to his constituents...all while Burner still seems to have trouble breaking through with voters who otherwise vote Democratic.

It won't be easy, but it's more than doable.

UPDATE: part of the reason it won't be easy, as we've discussed before, Reichert will be outspent in this race. Darcy Burner is simply a better fundraiser than him, even before one starts discussing the monetary advantage the DCCC has over the NRCC this cycle.