
	Chris Mulick has worked for the Herald since 1998 and has served as the statehouse correspondent covering state government and politics since 2000. He works year-round out of the Herald's Olympia bureau on the state Capitol campus. Have a question? Send Chris an e-mail and he'll answer the best questions regularly.

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Wednesday, Jul. 30, 2008

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Democrats drop $20,000 on Eastern Washington race

Richland Democrat Carol Moser

Rummaging through campaign finance filings yesterday produced this somewhat startling tidbit: This month the House Democratic Campaign Committee contributed $20,000 to Carol Moser’s campaign for an open House seat in the conservative 8th Legislative District.

“That was a nice gift, wasn’t it?” Moser said yesterday.

What it is is an unusually large check to be handed to a Democrat in that part of the state before the primary. It’s also a message that the 8th District might turn into a legitimate battleground this fall as four Republicans scramble to keep retiring Rep. Shirley Hankins’ seat in the humble GOP fold.

Moser said she is unaware of any polling that’s been done that alone would justify the contribution. So perhaps Democrats are enamored enough with current circumstances to think they could actually pick up a seat in a reliably Republican district that they’ve been uniformly trounced in starting in 1994.

Even active and credibly managed Democratic campaigns have struggled to get much more than a third of the general election vote in the 8th District.

This year the Republicans in the hunt — Rick Jansons, Brad Klippert, Steve Simmons and Skip Novakovich — are challenged to distinguish themselves from each other and it’s the lone Democrat who has the biggest name on the ballot.

Moser spent 10 years on the Richland City Council and has connections in Olympia from her time on the state’s Transportation Commission and Climate Advisory Team, among other assignments. Several Democratic legislators have contributed to her campaign.

It’s pretty plausible to see how she’d be the top vote getter in the Aug. 19th primary, what with the Republican vote being so split. But might she garner enough support to get elected in November? The Democrats seem to think it’s plausible and are backing it up with money.

At a minimum they’ll make Republicans work and spend their relatively scarce resources just to keep one of their already paltry 35 seats in the lower chamber.

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