Congress.org's "power rankings" for both houses of Congress are out this week. Previously, Senator Maria Cantwell was previously ranked 93 out of 100--not a very impressive placement. But in the new rankings just out, she fell back even further to 99 out of 100.

That should give McGavick some ammunition on the campaign trail, and backs up his claim that she has only been working on the "periphery" of the issues that keep us voters up at night. Washington deserves better representation in the U.S. Senate, and it's time for a change.

McGavick also received the endorsement of the King County Journal this week. It's worth re-posting in part here:

A sniper is someone who shoots at an exposed person from a concealed vantage point. It's a definition that fits Sen. Maria Cantwell, who has been hiding behind smarmy ads funded by the Democratic Party aimed at discrediting her opponent, Mike McGavick.

You may not see her except in TV ads extolling her first term in the Senate because Cantwell is doing what smart incumbents do: laying low, appearing at events only occasionally and sharing a stage with your opponent as seldom as you think you can get away with.

It also allows her to stretch her accomplishments and demean McGavick's. It's a strategy that does Washington voters an enormous disservice. She is asking us to return her to the Senate, but she ducks opportunities for public debates with McGavick where unfiltered and unscripted answers, attitudes and agendas can be weighed. In effect, she has turned her back on all of us.

Cantwell has had her chance. It's time for a strong new voice from someone who has shown himself to be a leader. Mike McGavick is that person.

Cantwell has had six years to make her mark in the other Washington, yet her influence and accomplishments, even among her freshmen Senate colleagues, are less than what we expect. She ranks seventh in a field of the nine freshmen senators in terms of her committee assignments, influence and ability to shape legislation, as detailed by Power Rankings from http://www.Congress.org, which examined thousands of data points.

We need someone who can confront issues, take on big problems, work with Senate colleagues -- on both sides of the aisle -- and get things done.

McGavick has not held elective office, although he did work for Sen. Slade Gorton, but his business background has shown him to be pragmatic and a leader in tough situations.

Cantwell's ads portray him as a ruthless businessman who cut 1,700 people from the Safeco payroll when he was its CEO. The fact is that McGavick saved Safeco -- and more than 9,000 other jobs -- from going under after he took over the reins in January 2001. Safeco rebounded from losing nearly $1 billion that year to recording a net income of more than $100 million at the time McGavick left the company to run for the Senate.

At the same time McGavick was making the tough cost-cutting decisions at Safeco, Cantwell's Senate voting record earned her the title "Big Spender" from the National Taxpayers Union.

In one of her debates, Cantwell said she has been the voters' voice in the Senate, "never forgetting who I was sent there to represent." She didn't mention, however, that almost 60 percent of her campaign contributions have been from outside of our state -- much of it from Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles and Boston.

Go read the whole thing, including a brief look at each candidate on the issues, and more reasons why the paper endorsed McGavick over the incumbent.

(h/t McGavick's campaign blog)