Michael Delavar

NAPAVINE -

According to banners hanging from every streetlight in town, Napavine is Tiger Country. But Saturday afternoon the local high school gymnasium, where the Tigers play basketball Delegates seek support at Napavine High School/Politicker Photoevery winter, was also home to the 3rd Congressional District Democratic caucus. At the caucus, five delegates, two males and three females, would be elected to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer to elect the party's nominee.

But he delegate contest was not the day's only vote. With the advent of the state's "top two" primary that effectively ends the Party primary system, the Democrats' official nominee for Congress was also decided at the caucus. Rep. Brian Baird, the five term congressman from Vancouver, won his party's nomination by a vote of 59 to 24 over fellow Democrat Cheryl Crist.

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.

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 »