Like the proverbial bad penny, Darcy Burner is back.

After two unsuccessful runs against Congressman Dave Reichert in Washington’s 8th District, a move to the other Washington to run the Progressive Congress Action Fund (and to work on her inside-the-Beltway fundraising chops), Burner has announced she is running for Congress again. This time, she’s picked the 1st District seat that was vacated by Jay Inslee when he decided to run for Governor.

The introductory video on her campaign website gives a preview of what’s to come: Darcy channels her inner class warrior, promising to take it to those evil banks, insurance companies and oil corporations that she purports are rigging the rules and stealing half our wealth. She promises to fight for the 99%. (Apparently it is only that rotten 1% preventing us from sending our kids to excellent schools and keeping all our promises to retirees on Social Security and Medicare.)

She asks “What happened?” when noting that although the size of the economy has doubled since 1995, Americans today are wiped out, underwater in their mortgages and out of work. Then she professes confusion on how the richest country in the world could run out of money (hint: Congress spent it all, then borrowed a few trillion more and spent that!) Actually, the economy had doubled by 2007, but we have yet to pull out of the recession that started that year or return to 2007’s GDP.  Perhaps the answer to her question can be obtained by the inconvenient observation that Republicans controlled Congress from 1995-2007, and by her Democrats from 2007-2011.

In a way, it is refreshing to see a far-left politician make no pretense of hiding their radical liberalism. The solution to every problem is another government program, another increase in government spending. The successful in America are responsible for the misfortune of the less successful, and no one can reach their dreams without the government first “investing in greatness”. Darcy is optimistic that the Redistricting Commission will make the new 1st District more fertile ground for her liberal message than the 8th District ever was, but it is hard to imagine how they will carve out a district that far left.

###

[photo credit: Netroots Nation]