The Return of Darcy Burner

A few months ago, we assessed the ever-widening field of Democratic candidates for the First Congressional District, the seat encompassing Lynnwood, Edmonds, and Seattle's northern suburbs soon to be vacated by Jay Inslee (who will be retiring whether or not he's successful in his run for governor). This week brought the news that a familiar figure will be entering the race- Darcy Burner, the local Democratic Party activist and Microsoft alumna who unsuccessfully challenged Representative Dave Reichert in the 8th District in 2006 and 2008.

Burner is relatively young for a Congressional candidate (she was only 36 when she first challenged Reichert), but she got her start in politics relatively late in life- working on radio talk-show host Dave Ross's unsuccessful 2004 run for Congress, also against Reichert in the 8th District. She entered the 2006 race an unknown quantity, but fell quite naturally into her role as a candidate, and quickly won over Democrats.

Though she is in many ways an unorthodox candidate, Burner's political skills are formidable. There is a readily apparent force of intellect behind Burner's speeches and writing, and she has a techie's flair for detail. Political novices who run for office (particularly those coming from the business world) often have a worrying tendency to brush away complicated policy questions, often with the hubristic subtext of "I'm obviously a genius, just elect me and I'll figure it out," (see: Herman Cain, Carly Fiorina, Ross Perot, etc.). It speaks highly of Burner that she has the opposite tendency. Since her late arrival to politics, she's zealously studied up on the issues, and has built a portfolio of potential legislation that would make a Washington think-tank veteran blush. Burner's campaigns presented an attractive candidate: matching her intelligence, policy savvy, and direct, plain-spoken charisma with a positive, can-do message. She called herself a "pragmatic progressive," and presented big-thinking plans on big national issues like the then-foundering occupation of Iraq.

Around the time of Burner's first campaign, a confederation of liberal activists known as the "netroots" were just emerging as players in Democratic politics. The netroots are online activists, centered around websites and blogs like DailyKos and ActBlue, whose mission is to strengthen the voices of Democrats "with backbone," which is to say, unashamedly left-leaning Democrats who would meet conservatives, the Republican Party and the Bush administration not with capitulations and compromises, but with full-throated counter-arguments in keeping with traditional American Progressivism. Burner's liberal leanings, background in tech and technocratic approach to governing, made her a fast favorite among netroots activists. Donations poured in from all over the country, and among certain online circles, she began to gain a kind of folk hero status- imagine a smaller-scale, liberal equivalent to Sarah Palin or Ron Paul.

Despite all of Darcy Burner's strengths, despite the excitement she generates among segments of the Democratic base, in 2006, by a tantalizingly thin margin, voters in the 8th District picked Dave Reichert instead. Given the opportunity to change their minds when Burner ran in 2008, they stuck with Reichert. Here in Seattle, where the Republicans often don't bother to run anyone for Congress, Darcy Burner may look like a dream candidate, but when the First District Democrats pick a candidate in the primary, they'll be asking themselves if she's a candidate who can inspire the suburbs and towns north of Seattle as well as she can Democratic bloggers and liberal urbanites.

There may be a different bit of political history to give Burner supporters hope: Jay Inslee won the seat in 1998 after losing two elections: one for Congress, and one in the gubernatorial primary. Maybe the First District is kind to politicians on their third chance.