Way out west…

…they have a name
For wind and rain and fire.
The wind is Tess, the fire's Joe
And they call the wind Maria.

Lerner & Lowe were, it seems, prophetic. Credit the DSCC blog, From The Roots, with the catch...

VANCOUVER -- The Port of Vancouver's expertise in receiving wind turbine components is helping jumpstart a new economy that could reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and transform Americans into "energy leaders, not energy laggards," U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell said Monday at the Port.

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Once the 230-megawatt Wild Horse farm is completed at the end of the year, it will power 73,000 Puget Sound-area homes at a rate 25 percent lower than a natural gas plant and 5 percent lower than a coal-fired plant, saving Washington residents an estimated $260 million over 10 years, Cantwell said.

Construction of the wind farm has provided 250 local jobs and brought $240 million in capital investment to Kittitas County, said Debbie Strand, executive director of the Economic Development Group of Kittitas County. It will provide 20 permanent family-wage jobs and, as the county's largest single taxpayer, reduce homeowners' property taxes, Strand said.

Maria's progressive leadership on energy issues is just one reason that, as Goldy reports...

After only a month on the air and a few weeks on the ground actively campaigning, US Sen. Maria Cantwell has widened her net approval rating from a mere 5 to 6 point margin in June and July to a healthy 17 point margin in August.

At 55% to 38%, Sen. Cantwell not only sits comfortably above the 50 percent approval mark where incumbents want to be, but also matches her highest approval rating over the past year in the monthly SurveyUSA poll.

Maria's been working for us, all of us, and it's working for her.