Koster To Run Against “Acorn” Larsen; It’s A Rematch!

In the 2000 primary election for Congress in the 2^nd Congressional District Republican John Koster beat Democrat Rick Larsen by almost 4,000 votes. In the general election the final results were Larsen over Koster by 11,957 votes and the third party plus write-ins netted 11,900 votes. Now as many of you know the new ‘top 2’ system in place in Washington only allows the two candidates with the most number of votes in the primary to appear on the general election ballot, a significant change.

What happened in this 2000 campaign was that with Koster beating Larsen in the Primary, the National Republican Congressional Committee sent in some ‘hot shots’ from Washington DC to run Koster’s campaign and they proceeded to make serious and stupid mistakes; refusing to listen to local advisors who were much closer to the people in this Congressional District. This is not going to happen this time!

Another factor in play here is the fact that Rick Larsen has suddenly and without warning gone so far to the left that even his most ardent supporters are having problems understanding what’s happened to him. He ran in several campaigns as a ‘moderate, blue dog, Henry Jackson’ Democrat. That is the best way to be elected in this Congressional District. Unfortunately, Rick decided to come out ‘of the closet’ immediately after the Democrats re-took control of the House of Representatives in the 2006 elections. His first pronouncement was that he was now a ‘global warming/climate change’ convert, confounding many in his own party here in SNO County. Following that Congressman Rick Larsen has literally gone off the deep end. He voted for the big banks and Wall Street bailout packages despite being inundated by thousands of phone calls and e-mails asking him not to do so. He voted yes on the idiot Obama stimulus package despite again receiving thousands of e-mails and telephone calls from his constituents telling him not to do it. He had a lousy and messy town hall meeting which I reported on at the time on Red County. And then to the astonishment of political observers all over the state, Larsen voted yes on Acorn funding right in the middle of the Acorn Scandal! Finally and probably the most telling votes that Larsen cast in this last Congress were his votes for the Al Gore Cap and Trade bunko scheme and the socialized medicine Obama Healthcare plan.

Here are Koster’s comments from his press release: Quote "And now, Congress is on a course to destroy the finest health care system in the world. They are asking us to believe that "it will be more efficient and cost less". The last survey I saw showed that 63% of Americans are against government run health care. What has the federal government done so well that we want to give them our health care?  With John Koster as your congressman, you will get smaller, less intrusive government, and more freedom. You will get a government that takes far less from the people, because it recognizes that wealth is created in the private sector, and belongs to you!” Unquote

A group of conservative activists funded a private political poll in the last few weeks to check on Larsen’s negatives and generally how the folks in the district regard Rick Larsen. The result was an amazing political reversal for Larsen. His poll numbers were very, very bad. I talked to a national political campaign strategist and read off some of those numbers and he had this to say, “It is early in the campaign season, but so far these numbers are almost as bad as Harry Reid’s numbers in Nevada’s coming Senate race. Brian Baird ran a poll in his 3^rd CD and decided to pack it in. Baird was 12 points behind a generic Republican candidate in that poll. Unless Rick can turn things around, I doubt if he has any chance against Koster. Koster’s overwhelming victory in his County Council Race is more than just impressive. He will do a lot better than he did ten years ago!”(Koster won the Council Seat by an overwhelming 58%)

Frankly though, Larsen’s biggest problem is that he is completely out of touch with the folks who live in the 2^nd CD. One issue that has dogged him for the last 4 years has been the Highway of Death; United States Highway 2! Not once has Larsen tried to solve the problems of this ignored FEDERAL highway. He has never even once sponsored a bill for major funding on the highway that has killed, maimed and destroyed lives between Everett and Stevens Pass for the last decade. It is a cloud over his head that will not go away in the Eastern part of the District.

Side Note:

GOP Mole Hunt? I received word late last week that very sensitive and highly confidential campaign information is leaking out of the Snohomish County GOP and a major MOLE hunt is underway to find out who is leaking this information to a reporter (I am withholding the reporter’s name at this time). One senior GOP official said this when I asked about the internal investigation: “God help whoever is doing this….NO ONE ELSE WILL!”

Full Disclosure: “I helped pay for the poll that is mentioned above!”