Catching up with the Challengers

In 2006, upstart politician Darcy Burner (D-Carnation) came out of nowhere to nearly capture the 8th District Congressional seat from incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Auburn), who defeated her by 7,000 votes and three percentage points. In 2008, she is back for more.  read more »

Former Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart (R-Arlington) is running for U.S. House in the 2nd District in part because he just isn't ready to call it quits on public service. Bart spent his entire 35 year law enforcement career in the Snohomish County Sheriff's office before term limits forced him out of his job as Sheriff.  read more »

Republican Larry Ishmael, who ran unsuccessfully for the same 1st District seat he is now seeking against Rep. Jay Inslee in 2006, got his start in politics about five years ago with the help of a prominent local pol. In 2002 and his family moved back from Brazil, where they had been living for three years. Upon their return, his wife began teaching in the Issaquah School District, which became embroiled in a long teacher's strike.

"I got this call out of the blue from a guy named Dino Rossi, and I'd never met him before," Ishmael recalled. "Of course I'd heard of him, he was my State Senator, and basically he encouraged me to run for school board."

Paul Richmond, Democratic candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in the 6th District that covers much of Tacoma and the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas, calls himself the "story telling lawyer" in his private law practice. With his candidacy for Congress, Richmond hopes to tell the story of a nation turning its back on a history of civil liberties, experiencing economic trouble and a shrinking middle class, and how the current representatives in Washington, D.C. are not doing enough to change that.

The Republican candidate for Congress in the 3rd District, Washougal's Michael Delavar, flies planes for a living. He is also an accomplished ballroom dancer who cultivates bonsai and spends a lot of his spare time chasing around his two young boys. Flying, dancing, and parenting all add up to a lot of motion, and coincidentally it is the downward motion of the U.S. dollar, among other things, that has helped to prompt the novice politician into the big leagues of running for U.S.

Olympia's Cheryl Crist, challenging Rep. Brian Bairdrd District (D-Vancouver) for his 3 seat in the House, bills herself as "the peace candidate" and stakes her candidacy to the notion that "peace and prosperity are our birthright as citizens of the United States of America," and that voters are clamoring for a candidate who represents their shared goals of peace and social justice.

4th District Democratic candidate for Congress Don Moody grew up in Peshastin, Washington and became known around the Wenatchee area as a Sheriff's dispatcher and radio newsman in the 1970s and 80s. He never went to college, but has become well-versed in history and economics on his own, spending hours a day reading journals on the subjects. He even published a book called "America's Worst Train Disaster" about the Wellington Avalanche on Stevens Pass in 1910.

George Fearing grew up the son of a preacher, and while his father's ministries took him all over the country, he always felt a connection to Eastern Washington. He spent much of his childhood in the region, went to college in Walla Walla, and returned to the Tri-Cities upon completion of his law degree in 1982. He has stayed there ever since.  read more »

For more than a decade Mark Mays has been something of a mainstay in Eastern Washington politics. He served as Peter Goldmark's campaign chair during his 2006 congressional race, acted as one of Gary Locke's Eastern Washington campaign coordinators, and sat on Tom Foley's finance committee during the days that he was the speaker of the House.

But through all of this, the professionally accomplished Mays, who works as a psychologist, holds a law degree and is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, has never been a candidate. That all changed earlier this spring when Mays expressed interest in running for the 5th District position for U.S House of Representatives.

Beginning Monday morning, PolitickerWA will launch a series of profiles of the nine candidates who have announced their intention to challenge an incumbent member of Congress in 2008. Every weekday morning for the next nine days PolitickerWA will publish a profile of a challenger. The schedule, which starts in Eastern Washington and moves counterclockwise around the state, is below:  read more »