WA-08: House Recruitment Thread

On to another installment in our House Recruitment series, and, having just done PA-06, we’re off to another district that has been a consistent, painful tease to the Democrats for the last three cycles: WA-08. Despite a D+2 lean, Republican Rep. Dave Reichert has eked out three close victories in a row.

For background on this district, including its demographics and potential other challengers, a good starting place would be the post-mortem I wrote following Darcy Burner’s second loss. Since not much has changed in the last few months, the names I mentioned there are still probably the likeliest ones to make the race: State Sen. Rodney Tom and State Rep. Chris Hurst.

As you may remember, these two guys were both considering jumping into the 2008 primary race against Burner, although only if the other one didn’t. Finally, Tom jumped in, only to hastily jump back out a few weeks later after Burner’s “Burn Bush” fundraiser showed him the futility of trying to compete for fundraising dollars against a united netroots. (He graciously endorsed Burner and was a big help during the campaign.)

While neither of them would be as purely progressive as Burner, they both have pretty solid voting records in the legislature, and would have stronger appeal to voters who were deterred by the ‘experience’ meme regarding Burner. Hurst, in addition, is a tough-guy ex-cop and is from Reichert’s base of rural southern King County, so he’d be able to run straight at Reichert’s strengths. (One downside for both of them: they’d have to give up their seats to run in 2010.)

Other legislators in the district:

*State Senator Fred Jarrett. Like Tom, he’s a former moderate Republican turned center-left Democrat, and unlike Tom, would be in the middle of his term in 2010… however he’s older, and unlike Tom, I haven’t heard of any interest from him regarding the seat.

*State Senator Claudia Kauffman. She is still getting settled in a more marginal seat and doesn’t seem likely to run, although she would be Congress’s first Native American woman if she ran and won.

*State Rep. Ross Hunter. An ex-Microsoftie himself, he was one of the first Dems to pierce the once-Republican stronghold of the Eastside… in fact, he was widely expected to be the 2006 nominee in WA-08 before health problems derailed him and gave Burner the opening for her first shot. He may be feeling up to the task of taking on Reichert in 2010, and if he does it’s possible that Tom would defer to him.

As for Burner herself, I haven’t heard any indication of her future plans; considering that her numbers went down the second time, I wouldn’t expect a third try. One other vaguely Burner-esque figure that comes to mind, although I haven’t heard a peep out of him lately, is Alex Alben, a well-to-do techie (former exec at Starwave and Real Media) who ran as tech’s candidate in the 2004 primary and lost to milquetoast talk radio host Dave Ross; I could see him at least sniffing out the possibility of becoming the netroots’ horse in the race (which he didn’t try to do in 2004). Also, in this district there’s always the possibility that some other Generic Tech Millionaire will emerge from heretofore-unknown territory and swamp the race with money.

Anybody else I might have missed?