WA-5: 2006

Today's Joel Connelly column was about the third article i've seen in the past month to mention Peter Goldmark as a potential Democratic challenger to Rep. Cathy McMorris next year. I don't know much of anything about Goldmark, aside from his involvement in farming and Washington State University, and have a feeling he'll be another over-hyped Don Barbieri, but hope this isn't the case. McMorris has spent her first year aligning herself with the right edge of the Congressional GOP, and I have been less than pleased with her performance thus far. Perhaps with the national GOP troubles Goldmark will have a shot, provided he's more conservative than Barbieri in order to allow his candidacy to fly outside the city of Spokane, but we'll see. The thing that's sad is a reasonable, independent-minded Republican like Dave Reichert will almost certainly fall before a polar authoritarian like McMorris.