Poll Watch: Darcy Burner overtaking Dave Reichert in WA-08, new DCCC survey says

We the Northwest Progressive Institute aren't big fans of polling - as we have noted on many occasions - because we think campaigns and the media are over-reliant on public opinion surveys to gauge how people are planning to vote.

But there's a WA-08 poll out this morning that we feel is blogworthy, if only because it contradicts the trend that we've been seeing in polls of Washington's 8th to date. Commissioned by the DCCC and conducted by Bennett, Petts & Normington, it puts Darcy Burner ahead of Dave Reichert, 49 to 44. This is notable because most polls to date have given Reichert a lead of several points. (We think it also shows that polling can be all over the place).

The DCCC says:

Conducted October 8-9, the poll surveyed 400 likely voters and has a 4.9 percent margin of error.

Voters believe Reichert has not gotten much done in Congress and has sided time and again with President George Bush. More voters believe Burner rather than Reichert shares their values and will try to bring change to Washington.

"Darcy Burner's campaign for change is resonating with families who have had enough of Congressman Dave Reichert's support for George Bush's failed economic policies," said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Yoni Cohen. "Reichert was a good sheriff but is ineffective in Congress, rubber stamping Bush's war in Iraq and Bush's effort to privatize Social Security and risk seniors' retirement benefits in the stock market. Burner is running to change Washington and provide tax relief to Washington State's middle class families."

A side note: There's that ugly right wing phrase again - tax relief. When are Democrats going to stop using counterproductive conservative frames? Taxes are not an affliction or even a "necessary evil", either. They're just necessary.

Taxes support the common wealth. The common wealth is all the great resources that are available to everyone: a free public education, a transportation system, courts to handle all those corporate law cases, the Internet. To suggest that taxes are an affliction is to suggest that government itself is ineffective or hamrful, which is ludicrous. Without government, our markets and our economy would tumble down and collapse overnight.

Anyway...

Darcy Burner is working awfully hard these days to earn the votes of the people she seeks to represent. While no poll can definitively predict how the election will turn out, what we can conclude is that this is a very close contest and Darcy appears to be holding up well against Republican attacks.

But there will be a fierce onsalught from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, N-FIB (a right wing organization claiming to represent small business owners) and the National Republican Congressional Committee in the coming weeks.

Darcy's campaign team needs to be prepared to counter the lies and distortions from each of these entities instantly.

The campaign has already demonstrated it knows what to do; last month's response to the U.S. Chamber's lying radio ad was excellent. Every vote counts in this race, so neutralizing the other side's desperate attacks is critical.