Mak Looks at Washington’s Swing Districts

Day Two of Larsen’s Spectacular Video Gaffe

Rick Larsen’s in-house attack ad painting the Tea Party as racist whackjobs is still up.

Why is that surprising?

Because the ad was widely derided today in the mainstream, conservative, and liberal media.

Every hour the ad stays up, Larsen faces an increasingly difficult situation.  Pull an ad that’s undermining his credibility, but in so doing energize his opponent further, or leave it up, continue to lose “face,” with the local media and potentially become a national Tea Party target.

Larsen should calculate quickly and carefully.

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…

Koster Lays Out Agenda in First TV Ad

Taxes, spending, and the budget figure prominently in John Koster’s first ad out of the gate:

Can Koster capitalize on dissatisfaction with the incumbent? In an email to supporters, Koster’s campaign cites a Wenzel Strategies poll showing him leading Rick Larsen in the primary. If we get a link to that poll, we’ll post it here. Primary ballots will be in voters’ hands very soon.

UPDATE: Sam Taylor has an update on the race at the Bellingham Herald’s Politics Blog.

Human Events Shines National Attention on Koster

The Koster campaign emailed around this timely profile from John Gizzi:

Washington State’s 2nd U.S. House District

Koster vs. Larsen

There are always arguments over whether sequels to movies should be made.  Whether any of the subsequent Star Wars or Batman films were really as good as the originals is hotly debated by cinema lovers.

In the case of the political drama now playing in Washington State’s 2nd District, there is no argument among conservatives on the need for a sequel to a saga of ten years ago.

When Republican Jack Metcalf, the grand old man of Evergreen State conservatism, honored his term-limit pledge and retired after three terms, his friend, State Rep. John Koster, sought the open House seat.  Running as an unabashed conservative on cultural and economic issues, dairy farmer Koster faced his polar opposite in liberal Democrat Rick Larsen, Snohomish County councilman.  With Al Gore sweeping the district, Larsen edged Koster by a narrow 51% to 49%.

Larsen (lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 12.89%) went on to vote the opposite of how Metcalf voted and Koster would have voted.  In an ironic turnaround, Koster won the vacancy on the county council created by Larsen’s election to Congress.  To the surprise of no one, Koster emerged as the council’s leading fiscal hawk, opposing all tax increases.

And this year, the two old foes are in a rematch of their 2000 contest.

Click here to continue reading Human Events’ profile of the John Koster vs. Rick Larsen re-match.