House Minority Leader John Boehner is spending his holiday recess on the West Coast, stumping for two safe incumbents and one top Democratic target, as well as for an open seat candidate in a heavily Republican area. Boehner made stops in Washington State earlier this week, holding fundraisers for Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Doc Hastings and Dave Reichert, and he will hold an event later in the week for Duncan Hunter Jr., son of the retiring congressman who is running to succeed his father. McMorris Rodgers and Hastings, who represent districts east of the Cascade Mountains, are seen as safe incumbents. Democrats have not held either seat since 1994, and even with solid recruits in McMorris' Fifth District, Democrats still lost by twelve points in 2006 (Hastings won re-election that year by twenty points). Reichert, though, is in trouble. His suburban Eighth District, just east of Seattle, has increasingly voted Democratic for Senate and President, but Reichert has managed to cling to the seat since 2004, when he won by just five points. In 2006, Reichert beat former Microsoft employee Darcy Burner by just two points, and this year he will face Burner again. Those close to Reichert's campaign brag that he made more voter contacts in 2006 than any other campaign in the country, but in a presidential year he will have to do so again just to hold off Burner. Boehner, Cole and Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel are all on the trail this w ...
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