"8th District battle in Washington a surprising tossup"

USA Today:

ORTING, Wash. — By all rights, Republican Rep. Dave Reichert shouldn't be having such a tough time winning a second term.

He's the popular former King County sheriff who brought the Green River serial killer to justice in 2001. He represents a district that has never elected a Democrat. His opponent has never held public office, while he's a 30-year public servant. As a freshman on Capitol Hill he landed a coveted post: chairman of a Homeland Security subcommittee.

Yet Reichert's race against Democrat Darcy Burner, a former Microsoft manager, is rated a tossup and considered a key race if Democrats are to regain control of the House. A poll Oct 24-26 by Constituent Dynamics, an independent research firm, had Burner leading 49% to 47%.

Heavy hitters from both parties — including President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Democratic senators John Kerry and Barack Obama — have stumped this fast-growing, affluent suburban region. Al Gore appeared last month with Burner and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell and lambasted Reichert on global warming.

The national parties have funneled in gobs of money: $1.5 million from the Republicans, nearly $900,000 from the Democrats has been spent so far. The candidates themselves have raised a combined $5.1 million.

Reichert's unexpected struggle against a political novice is due to growing opposition to the Iraq war and scandals in the Republican-controlled Congress, to the 8th District's changing demographics and to Burner's well-financed campaign, political analysts say.

Burner, 35, tries to paint Reichert, 56, as a Bush apologist. Reichert maintains that he votes independently and doesn't always toe the party line. However, Burner has not called for withdrawing the troops but thinks Congress should be more assertive over Iraq policy. Reichert says troops should stay put until Iraq's government and economy are stable.

"This is a referendum on national politics, the Bush administration and the Republican Congress," says Todd Donovan, a political scientist at Western Washington University. "If she can find a picture of him getting on Air Force One with George Bush, that's in her ads."

If Burner were running in any other year, Reichert says, "she wouldn't have this kind of showing. All she has is to paint me with the Bush brush. ... But Congress is not running the war. We shouldn't be calling the shots. We have been and will continue to ask tough questions and provide oversight."

Burner says voters she talks to have turned against the war. "They understand that Bush's strategy in Iraq has failed," she says. "They look at (Reichert's) voting record and the times he's voted with his party and President Bush. They understand if they want to change course, they have to change him."

Shifts in the district, packed with bedroom communities of commuters to Seattle and Tacoma, haven't helped GOP candidates, says David Olson, a University of Washington political science professor. Recent Asian and Russian immigrants have dropped income levels a bit in the state's most prosperous district.

Bellevue, the district's largest city, "is not the rock-ribbed Republican city that it once was," Olson says. "There's a significant group of blue-collar workers. ... That's not the usual image we think of" here.

Wealthy voters usually associated with Republican values are more high-tech centered here and tend to be moderate on social issues. "Very much like Silicon Valley," Donovan says.

Women could be a key. "On everything from school prayer to abortion, women in these satellite suburbs are economic conservatives and social liberals," Olson says. "That makes a Darcy Burner an attractive candidate."

In Congress, Reichert reversed his opposition to more federal funding for stem cell research after, he said, he investigated the issue. "This is no dyed-in-the-wool follower of the Bush line, up, down and sideways," Olson says. "Part of that is driven by the social liberalism of women in this district."

Here in Orting, in eastern Pierce County, change has been rapid. The city has tripled in size to 6,000 since the early 1990s, including a 12% growth rate in the last year alone. Most of the influx was families with children looking for affordable housing, a group that might have moderated a historically conservative rural town, says city administrator Mark Bethune.

Or maybe not. Stan Gunno, a general contractor among 25 or so who turned out last week for Reichert's appearance, says the congressman will support "finishing the job" in Iraq. Burner, says Gunno, "is running a campaign against George Bush instead of running against her opponent."

Another Reichert supporter, retiree Dixon Blackmer, 67, likes it that Reichert "supports the administration most of the time."

"You want to know if I support Bush and the war? Absolutely," he says. "You want to know do I think we need an exit strategy? Yeah, he has one: We're going to win."