When I first got the invitation to a $500/plate brunch with Darcy Burner, I was little dubious. I am not normally a $500 brunch person. My breakfast is normally oatmeal, my salary as a contract attorney is modest in the extreme and if I spend even $50 on a dinner, I become dizzy with visions of my future retirement home in a cardboard box somewhere in Seattle.
However, the more responsible part of my brain reminded me that I had promised myself at the beginning of the year to give at least a few hundred to Darcy. And I was able to persuade my friend, Jan, for most of her life a poor poet and now an ad writer with newfound lucre, to join me, and so we were off to fabled Mercer Island for a sit down with Darcy, Senator Cantwell, and 40 or 50 others.
We only got lost once on the way there, and since I have completely forgiven Jan for her part in that I see no reason to dwell on it now. The two of us ended up at a waterfront home on Lake Washington, large, modern, with many good looking paintings inside.
We met Darcy for a little chat. She is just as engaging and intelligent in person as people have told you. She looks you right in the eye and has a sense of humor. She mentioned how she felt she was at the end of a marathon and could just the finish line down the road.
There was milling around and good food (very, very good brownies) and then we were corralled into the living room, for a talk from Darcy and Senator Cantwell. The latter person was impressive in her own right. (And exactly the same height as Darcy, they are like a matched set).
Senator Cantwell gave a serious, straight ahead talk about the need in Congress for people who understood the tech sector which was crucial in the 8th Congressional District (Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Renton, south ing County, parts of Pierce County). She mentioned her vote against the bailout bill and talked about her frustration on dealing with congresspeople who really did not understand the economic/financial reasons why the original bill was seriously flawed and the current approach only gradually getting better. And she pointed to Darcy as someone who knew enough about these issues to help make the 8th District and Puget Sound as a whole a real leader in the national effort on innovating our way out of a recession.
Darcy then spoke on her own behalf. First, she talked about the state of the race. Polls put her slightly ahead (she did not mention Kos' poll on the front page leaving her at even). The Seattle Times' recent article accusing her of exaggerating her resume could be a problem, but they had efforts to combat it, including advertising featuring the Dean of Harvard. They also have several other ads they hope to put into rotation in the last week.
The problem is that they have to place their ad buy tomorrow and they are 300,000 short. So thus the requests for donations. Kos has already posted for Darcy on the front page, so I won't try to repeat all the donation details here. Except for this:
Contribute
Then, Darcy really impressed me. As Cantwell and Darcy were trying to inch away to make it to a rally, someone asked, "what should we do about the economy?". Cantwell gave a quick summation of the bailout bill problems and took off. Darcy spent 6-7 minutes giving one of the best capsule descriptions of U.S. economic problems that I have heard.
I won't be able to do it justice, but basically, she broke it down into the larger economic issues, and the immediate financial crisis. She spoke a little about the need for larger economic fixes then drilled down into the roots of our current credit problem, correctly citing the bipartisan effort to deregulate banks in 1999, the Gramm bill of 2000 freeing credit default swaps from regulation, the effect this had on the financial markets, the problems for banks when the mortgages went sour, the successive bailouts of AIG and Bear Stearns, and then the crucial role of the Treasury decision to let Lehman fold. (She was equivocal about whether that was a good move or not, but spot on about its repercussions).
There was more (she talked about the effect of the credit crisis on local industries and how the Treasury's current moves to buy equity are constructive but insufficient, and had some ideas on what the Treasury should be doing to take care of the immediate problems for businesses) and there was nothing in it that was new, but I have never heard anyone synthesize the roots of the crisis and its consequences so clearly in a single, off the cuff, statement.
She understands this stuff, and does not mind fully answering any particular person who wanted to ask, even when she had a good reason to cut it short. After having to parse through the nonsense provided by McCain, Palin, and the right wing in general as they muddle through half understood talking points about economics, it just cheered me the hell up about the possibility of having someone in office who understands our economic situation.
So she was done then, and Jan and I chatted a little while longer, admiring the view, eating some darn good cheese and few more brownies. and took off, I with some brownies in a napkin, most of which ended up with some hungry looking valet parkers.
My family is mostly liberal, so they will be o.k. with a barer Christmas. It was a nice time and left me hopeful and anxious, which are my ruling emotions as I check the polls.
Everyone knows what their limits are for donating. The best I can say about it is that after making sure that we are basically secure in our homes and family and finances, we should buy the things that will bring us joy. And I cannot think of anything that would make me happier than an election night in which I thought my government was at last run by intelligent, trustworthy and caring people.