Checksum Arcanius

Today, I caught on the tube a debate between Dave Reichert, the Republican running for Washington’s 8th District seat in the United States House of Representitives, and his Democrat opponent, Dave Ross. The seat was formerly held by Republican Jennifer Dunn, a fiscally conservative, socially laisez-faire congresswoman who suited this district and myself fairly well.

Neither candidate had particularly distinguished himself until I actually talked to Dave Ross about a week ago. About the same time, I had heard (albeit briefly) Ross dominating John Carlson of KVI 570 (a conservative talk radio station) on John’s own show. So Ross had gained some points in my book, which he needed because in an information vacuum (which I would have alieviated by election day, regardless) I would have voted for the Republican in this race. But Reichert hadn’t earned any points with me, and so really it was a toss up with the information I had.

Until tonight.

In the debate, Reichert came across as by far the superior candidate. He responded sensibly and instilled confidence in me that he would be a better representitive me and my views than the other Dave. Ross seemed to want to pick a fight while Reichert wanted to have a civil discourse. Reichert won that face off. And while Ross’ comments got the only chuckles during the debate, that may have ended up hurting him in the end.

The main points that I got out of the debate were the following:

• The Republican attack ads against Dave Ross were basically true: he supports federalized universal healthcare, which is perhaps the worst idea in contemporaryAmerican politics
• Reichert is pretty much party line on the half-arse solutions that seem mostly designed to throw wrenches in the efforts to impose universal health care: HSAs, MSAs, etc, and the constant “we must lower the cost of healthcare” line which gets old pretty quickly, considering that it comes from both sides of the aisle
• Dave Ross really does seem to be more about talk, and Reichert more about actually doing things, as the latter asserted in his closing statement
• Ross is pretty much Party-line semi-anti-Iraq-war: It was the right war for the wrong reasons, we shouldn’t have done it but now that we did oh boy they need armor…

So they are both pretty straightforward representitives of their parties tweaked for the district slightly. And for a district where all we want is another Jennifer Dunn, Reichert is the closer match, and seems to be better suited for the job too.

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