I like Darcy Burner a lot. I would have been thrilled if she had won. And yet, I felt after the 2006 election that she wasn't a good fit for the 8th CD of Washington. This time, I feel even more disappointment, and even more that she's a bad fit for the district.
Washington's 8th CD contains some suburban areas, but there's also a lot of rural areas and small towns. It's not a terribly progressive populace; rather, it's more the kind of region that tends to elect Blue Dog Democrats to the House.
I live next door in a district that's far more liberal, and feel like Burner would be right at home as a representative in my area. However, I have and continued to think that she's a bad fit for the 8th CD. I worried that if we got her elected this time on Obama's coat tails, that the next two reelection campaigns would have been at least as hard of a fight, and probably worse than 2008.
So, I urge some caution among the net roots before investing so heavily (financially and emotionally) in a candidate who seems to be "one of us." Sure, she'd make a great rep for us; but what about the voters actually in the district? In voter contacts I had, I heard anti-elitism (and face it, the big thing about the degree flap was more to emphasize that this was a candidate with a degree from an elite, far-off university); I heard concerns about her lack of experience, and most often I heard disdain for the fact that she's been running full time instead of holding down an "honest" job. Once the race turned to be primarily about the economy, the strong anti-war work she had done didn't seem to give as much traction with the voters.
I've knocked on doors, made calls, and helped in other ways in Washington's coordinated campaign in her district, and am sad to see it turn out this way. Still, because of the reasons above, I hope she doesn't run for the same seat again. Hopefully the Democrats in that area can come up with someone more appealing to the voters of the 8th CD. Meanwhile, I hope Darcy takes on some different challenge, either as an elected official in a state or local office, or internal to the Democratic party or some issue advocacy group.