Chris Gregoire

WA-Gov

Governer Gregoire has been a prudent leader for our state for the last four years, if somewhat handicapped by the razor-thin margin of her election. This year, let's give her a margin that carries a clear mandate.

Dino Rossi is trying to hide his record and his affiliations, but he's a Bush/Delay Republican through and through. He's voted against infrastructure and transportation measures; is against reasonable environmental protection measures, has a terrible record on health care, and denied global warming straight through to this campaign. His campaign and his Web site don't square with his voting record; he's even taken to referring to his party affiliation as "GOP" to avoid saying the R-word, because he knows that his party and his views don't square with what our state needs and wants. Don't let him get away with it.

Chris Gregoire has shown exceptional prudence in managing the state's budget, and that's why we're one of the only states whose budget is in surplus right now -- we fell short of the revenue we expected to raise, but Governor Gregoire's rainy day fund means that we don't need to overreact and slash programs carelessly. There've been a few gimmicks — I'm no fan of the "tax holiday," which just seems like a way to give CPAs more business keeping track of it all — but on education, global warming, environmental responsibility, job creation and economic issues in general, as well as the aforementioned great handling of the state's own money, Gregoire has been a great governor and has done right by our state.

In 2004 she won by just 133 votes, and this is a rematch against the same opponent. Give her money here, and please, if you can, do more — talk to your friends and neighbors, volunteer for her campaign, put up a yard sign or a sticker or whatever you can do. Let's give her a wide victory and a solid mandate this time.

Darcy Burner

WA-08 (Map)

The DailyKos "Orange to Blue" fundraising effort stresses that we need both "more Democrats" and "better Democrats." Darcy is firmly in the "better" category.

One of my pet peeves with politicians is how few of them have a decent understanding of technology issues, including net neutrality, the digital divide between those with quality Internet access and those without, and the like.

Tech is one of the areas where Burner's clearly on the right side of the issues. (She's a former Microsoftie — program manager for the .Net Framework — and the support she's gotten from the netroots is one of her strongest endorsements, in my opinion.)

The Republican she's running against, Dave Reichert, is not a villian; indeed as Republicans go, he's not half bad. But he voted to make the PATRIOT act permanent, voted to strip courts of constitutional rights in an over-reaching pledge of allegiance bill, and voted to require photo ID for voters. When it comes to domestic surveillance, immigration and foreign policy, his record is chilling. But there's no denying that his incumbent status combined with his moderate social, economic and environmental issues make him look good against other Republicans, and thus make him hard to beat.

This race was razor-thin in 2004 and has been a tossup all along this year. Darcy needs all the help we can give to get her over the edge and into victory.

George Fearing

WA-04 (Map)

George Fearing, a central Washington candidate for the House of Representatives, is up against a deeply corrupt member of Tom Delay's political machinery, Richard 'Doc' Hastings. While this part of the state is deeply red territory, Hastings has been taking a beating on ethics issues lately, and Fearing is running a great campaign.

I haven't been sure whether this campaign was tilting at windmills, but as of today, Oct 30, Fearing is polling within five points of Hastings. He can win. And you can help make it happen.

Barack Obama

President

My goal with this page is to spread some of the Obama fundraising magic down the ticket, but not to leave out Mr. Obama. Barack Obama is my president, and he will win this election. But don't settle for a 51% victory — with enough help, it won't be close.