The state's # 1 newspaper, the Bellevue Times is a republican enterprise, as is Vancouver's daily, so no state Democratic officeholder should ever consider their seat 'safe' unless they're running against a nobody. Patti will not treat hers as such, and she'll weather this election come what may.
Oh, the terrible and dread DEFICIT! is somehow never an issue when the R's are on charge starting wars and cutting taxes for their base, the upper 1%, but the Dems are in office so look out Social Security, which we pay for in every damn paycheck. Also capped for the upper class. Somehow TVD has neglected to mention even the possiblity of cutting the budget of the big ticket spenders at Defense (No wasted dollars there, no doubt!) or their sometimes-rivals in Intelligence. Nope, only the social safety net is mentioned, on a day when the minjority R's are strong-arming another year of no estate tax for the Paris Hiltons of the nation.
Another Republican-lite piece, another day at the crosscut.

Social Security will be a full blown crisis in 6-18 months:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/economy/social_security_bailout.fortune/index.htm

"Washington, D.C., dialogue still focuses on the prospects of stalled health-care and cap-and-trade legislation. But, out in the country, ordinary voters and taxpayers are more concerned with a) their personal financial and economic situations,"out in the country, ordinary voters and taxpayers are more concerned with a) their personal financial and economic situations..."

The writer still seems to have a hard time understanding that health care is a major piece of the personal economic anxiety of Americans. Listen to today's NPR piece, entitled "As focus shifts to jobs, the uninsured seek solutions." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123346497
If the writer would talk to people on the street, even Tea Partiers, as I have, he'd find that anxiety over health coverage is very close to the surface, particularly since people know that if they lose their job they also lose their health coverage.
And please, citing Bob Samuelson is not convincing. He's a charter member of the Pete Peterson senior bashing school, accusing older Americans of selfishness and demanding cuts in Medicare and Social Security for many years now. But he and the other senior bashers have no realistic suggestions for how the large percentage of seniors who have little or no savings are supposed to live on less Social Security and skimpier health coverage -- or wait longer to be eligible for benefits, as Mr. Van Dyk has absurdly proposed.

Harris are you still supporting your statement about the CBO scoring Healthcare reform as a deficit reduction in ten years? You seriously think that a plan that collects taxes for ten years while delivering services for only four of those years is a good measure fo the fiscal stability of the program? I realize you only do this to tweek Van Dyk, but the numbers simply do not work.

Ted's presuming that lots of voters have very short memories and have forgotten about the extraordinary deficit spending when Republicans are in charge, and the financial abyss that W steered the country towards, leaving Obama and the D's to deal with. No; Ted, this voter does NOT want to return to those days, and I'm confident that a majority will be agreeing with me when Sen. Murray is re-elected in Novemberr.

If the jobs are there, the Dems will win. Worrying about the deficit in the middle of a recession is bad politics and bad policy, which is why the Republicans are pushing this issue so hard.

Danny K: You are right about jobs. But, as noted above, all credible projections point to unemployment near 10 percent right up to election day.
As to deficits, they of course are and should be incurred in recessions.
But the present scale of the deficits.. the unpopular financial-bailout and stimulus packages which contributed to them...and the resultant record federal debt have voters genuinely worried. The concern has not been generated by Republican propaganda. It is genuine and based on the substance of the problem. Democrats will fool themselves if they think otherwise.

As I mentioned, Republicans would be in a similar box if they presently were governing. But they are not. Voters generally do straight-line thinking. The "in" party gets credit, deserved or not, when things are going well. It gets blame, deserved or not, when they are not.

What Mr. Van Dyk and other "deficit hawks" keep ignoring is that health reform is essential to mid- and long term deficit reduction. Here's what Obama said the other day: "We've got to control costs, both for families and businesses, but also for our government. Everybody out there who talks about deficits has to acknowledge that the single biggest driver of our deficits is health care spending. We cannot deal with our deficits and debt long term unless we get a handle on that. So that has to be part of a package."
Just cutting federal contributions to Medicare and Medicaid, as the entitlement cutters want, does not address the overall crisis of soaring U.S. medical spending. All serious health care experts recognize that the country needs a comprehensive approach. The Senate health reform bill includes a variety of cost control methods that both Republican and Democratic experts have praised.
As to the 10-year costs of the House and Senate bills, both include some valuable benefits and some revenue measures that would start in year one, and other benefits and revenue measures that would start in year four (including the biggest ones, the insurance subsidies and the individual mandate and penalties for not participating). The nonpartisan CBO has scored the bills as reducing the deficit by about $130 billion over 10 years, with much larger savings possible over the next 10 years. Contrary to what Mr. Van Dyk says, all the revenue and other measures the CBO scored would become law with passage of either the House or Senate bill; no other legislation would be needed.

Snohomish County Councilman John Koster (R) has filed against Rick Larsen in the 2nd CD. Koster gave Larsen a run for his money in 2000, until his campaign dropped an ill-timed pro-life piece weeks before the election which sent moderates runnning. Interestingly enough, his campaign manager ran the R-61 campaign opposing domestic partner benefits this past election. This should be an interesting race to watch, but Larsen's moderate and open approach (remember the health care town hall that filled Everett's Memorial Stadium) should prevail over uber-conservative Koster.

So you admit the CBO manipulated the data to show a deficit reduction, when after the 10 year mark it will ADD to the deficit. Thanks for the clarification Harris.

Geez, where did you get that from what I said???? That's the opposite of what I said. Look it up yourself. Accurate articles about the deficit reduction impact of the reform bills have been written in the NY Times, Wash Post, New Republic, and other publications. Here's one:
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2009/November/19/CBO-Costs-and-Savings.aspx

I agree that this will be a challenging time for Democrats. I worked for a Senator in California during the 1994 Republican landslide. In my view, the biggest difference between then and now is that the Republicans at that time had a unifying plan -- Contract with America. I don't think dislike for Obama and healthcare are enough for them to achieve those same gains. There will certainly be a "throw the bums out" mentality but Senator Murray can, and probably will, be able to position herself as a fighter for jobs and the middle class.

Sorry Harris you are just wrong.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_senate_reform_fraud_PVp3TSIkA1O5pB9mY4W2aJ

Jordan: You are correct that the Republicans lack a unifying plan, such as
Newt Gingrich's Contract. Usually, though---especially in congressional elections---no such unifying alternative is necessary. Voters cast their ballots yes or no on the basis of their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with
current conditions. An alternative agenda is more important in elections for executive positions---President, governor, mayor, etc.

You may be right that the present relative unpopularity of President Obama
and his health-care plan may not be decisive in fall elections. Please note, though, that those were not the factors I cited in my analysis.
The factors were a) present financial/economic difficulty and b) dissatisfaction with offshore military commitments. Those will overwhelm everything else this fall, irrespective of Obama's personal popularity or
the fate of health-care legislation.