Jason Ritchie

Blue America’s last endorsement of the 2014 cycle is Jason Ritchie, the candidate running for the seat currently held by conservative Republican Dave Reichert in a swing district that stretches from the suburbs south and east of Seattle all the way out to Wenatchee and Ellensburg. Obama won the district both times, by almost 15,000 against McCain and by close to 5,000 against Romney.

Saturday night I had dinner with Matt Stoller and Ted Lieu. Matt, a former organizer and blogger works on Capitol Hill now as a senior policy advisor. Ted, California's most accomplished state senator, is running for the congressional seat being vacated by Henry Waxman (Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Venice, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, West L.A.) Matt wanted to know why Ted wanted to work in Washington.

Last night John Amato and I went to the first of two rallies in L.A. this weekend meant to help turn out Democratic voters. The main speaker was Alan Grayson and he was out here supporting CA-33 progressive Democrat Ted Lieu. Without any doubt, the biggest reactions came when Grayson explained why he was one of the leaders of the fight against arming and training the so-called "moderate" Syrian terrorists-- the tragic McKeon Amendment that passed the House Wednesday, 273-156.

Although the successful 61-35 cloture vote last week to break the Republican filibuster on extending unemployment benefits was the real test, yesterday the Senate officially passed the bill, 59-38, and sent it to the

I don't expect lazy Beltway reporters to dig this deep, but the real story of yesterday's DCCC Red-to-Blue announcement was less about a bunch of lame recruits like Blue Dog Gwen Graham (FL) and "mystery meat" no issues candidates like Domenic Recchia (NY) and Ann Callis (IL), than it was about which candidates and which districts got left out again.

Here at DWT, once we saw Patty Murray and the Senate Dems sacrifice the working poor to the voracious appetite of conservative predators in their shameful compromise with Paul Ryan, we amped up our coverage of the Republican War on the Poor and the Republicans' latest advances in the highly effective class war they've been fighting against America's working families for decades.

Many of us know about WA-08 because a progressive champion, Darcy Burner ran against Republican incumbent Dave Reichert in 2006 and 2008. Darcy came close but never unseated Reichert... and the DCCC has ignored the district. They shouldn't. With a PVI of R+1, President Obama won it in 2008 against McCain 51-47% and last year against Romney 50-48%.