WA-03: Some Local Media Carry Water for Heck

Kathie Durbin and Tony Lystra. Both names you’ll be familiar with if you follow political news in Southwest Washington.

But you might not know that both have also occasionally carried water (enthusiastically) for the retiring Democratic incumbent Brian Baird.

For instance, back when Rep. Baird was describing constituents who opposed a government takeover of health care as “Brown Shirts,” “Lynch Mobs,” and reminiscent of “Timothy McVeigh,” Lystra cast Baird as embattled but not in the wrong.

The Columbian’s archives don’t stretch back far enough now to link to their coverage, but suffice it to say Durbin is not exactly a paragon of unbiased journalism. Read up on NWD’s previous Brian Baird coverage for details.

Now, in the current race to replace Baird, coverage from both The Columbian and The Daily News has tended to swoon over Denny Heck, and have a decidedly negative bent against Herrera.

The latest one-sided hack jobs can be found here, and here. You’ll notice that both pieces pretend to be objective. Except that instead of covering the issues, both writers instead deliver what amounts to cheap political analysis of campaign strategy. They implore readers to forget about the national debt, stagnant economy, and sky-high unemployment for a moment — and instead focus on insider baseball.

You see, it’s OK for Heck to be an Olympia fixture and wealthy businessman who’s self-funding his merry “Give ‘Em Heck” campaign.  But apparently if you’ve ever worked in the other Washington (gasp! and gained relevant experience), Durbin thinks you’re the “career politician.” Not the guy who’s been in the thick of Democratic machine politics for 30 years. Uh-huh.

Of course, in the next breath, Durbin will be only happy to completely discount or marginalize that same Congressional experience. Lame.

Lystra is probably the more redeemable of the two. The TDN story looks more like a botched pitch from Team Heck. He’s behind in the polls, and all his campaign can do is whine about Herrera’s shrewd and strategic campaign schedule.

Stay tuned for more. We’ll be taking apart many more stories as Election Day nears.

Rick Larsen Picks a Fight with the Tea Party

And it’s not pretty:

This video (h/t: SoundPolitics.com) seems to signal a leftward lurch in Larsen’s re-election strategy. To be sure, it wasn’t all that long ago that Democratic incumbents like Brian Baird, Adam Smith, and Jay Inslee would go to great pains to play up their “moderate” credentials.

The above, however, is more reminiscent of a segment on MSNBC — or something scripted with the help of the increasingly notorious JournoListers.

Whatever the thinking behind the ad, something tells us Rick Larsen just put a down payment on an interesting August recess…

Threatening Calls Follow Baird Cancellation

In case you missed it, The Columbian, picked up on Baird’s cancelling the town hall he agreed to have in my living room.

My phone started ringing off the hook early this morning.  At some point, I have to get work done, so I’m letting calls go to voicemail.  Suspiciously, the calls have all followed the same talking points: “We will destroy you!” and “This is War!”

Here’s an example of one of the threats (left on my voicemail), from Cliff Hazen of Vancouver, WA.  Nothing like a threat to destroy one’s livelihood to get the morning going, heh?

More as I get time to upload them. Some of us have to work for a living…

Running Scared: Baird Backs Out of Town Hall

Brian Baird continues to sink deeper into the partisan pit sands. In doing so, he’s losing any remaining semblance of being a moderate.

A few weeks back, I managed to join one of his “tele-town hall” calls, after a source sent me the call-in info.  Last week I blew the top off Baird’s sham tele-town halls. Among other questionable practices, Baird intentionally keeps the date, time, and call-in info for his “tele-town halls” secret. Indeed, you might say his calls amount to taxpayer funded private focus groups.

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Baird’s ‘Tele-Town Halls’ Appear to be a Sham

Our S.W. Washington Congressman has taken a drubbing in the press for his initial decision not to hold town halls. As cover, he tried lashing out. He then had to apologize. Now, even his apology has seemingly backfired.

At the moment, he needs to be perceived as reaching out, and re-building bridges he burnt to a charred crisp.

Baird’s first attempt at preempting criticism by trying to short-circuit the democratic process not only failed, it caused one heck of a backlash.  Rather than be honest and earnest, Baird appears to be right back at it again: holding sham “town hall” calls with constituents.

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