When you've lost Norm Dicks…

…you've lost the war.

Bring 'em home.

I foolishly overlooked...

...how important Rep. Norm Dicks was to that Boeing contract. Kudos to the Husky Hall of Famer, too.

As a native son…

…of Scoop and Maggie's Washington, I have a genetic appreciation for the parochial benefits of clout. Ours expands...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Adam Smith won the top Democratic post on the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday night…

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The Democratic Caucus on Thursday also backed a bid by Rep. Norm Dicks of Bremerton to remain the top Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee. Dicks overcame a resolution offered by Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina to bar him from serving as the subcommittee's ranking member while also holding the same position on the full appropriations committee.

Good for them!

Good for us, too.

Inch by inch…

…ballot by ballot, we're starting to get a pretty clear picture of the election outcome in the upper left. Patty Murray has extended her lead, holding nearly 51% and expected to increase that lead a couple points as King County ballots continue to be counted. My own personal Congressman will continue to be my own personal Congressman, with over 80% against his "prefers independent" opponent.

I'm not happy to see Denny Heck go down in the third. I'm not sure whether he would have ended up being Jay Inslee or Adam Smith once in office, but my bet is on the Inslee side of the progressive divide. Either would have been an improvement over the relatively renegade Democrat Brian Baird. Republican Jaime Herrera is, of course, the worst alternative of all. Third District Democrats need to get to work on preventing Herrera get entrenched in '12.

Inlsee, Smith and Norm Dicks will be returning to D.C. with Jim McDermott, but there's still a question mark in the 2nd District, where Democrat Rick Larsen has taken a 507 vote lead after trailing in election night returns. This one could take a while.

Locally, Democrats swept the legislative seats in the 32nd District, averaging about 60% of the vote. I've always said that if everybody does what they're supposed to do, this is a 60% D district, so apparently everbody did. Congratulations, then, to everybody, and in particular to Senator Maralyn Chase and Representatives Cindy Ryu and Ruth Kagi.

Not every legislative district produced such a definitive result, but despite some too-close-to-call races and our snails pace ballot counts, it looks like Democrats will continue to hold both legislative bodies. Given the challenges bound to be produced by some of the ballot measure outcomes, that's a mixed blessing. They seem fated to spend the next session apportioning misery. Still, though I'm glad there will be Democrats in charge of the painful process.

More on those ballot measures later...

Clout.

PolitickerWA has the latest Congress.org power rainkings. Overall the Washington delegation ranks 20th among the 50 states. A better than middling ranking for a state our size, I suppose. Senators Murray and Cantwell rank 21 and 48 in the Senate, both in top half, though I’d think Patty's position in the Democratic leadership would have given her more of a boost. Both rankings suffer, I suspect, from a lack of tenure.

In the House, our ranking is boosted by two top-ten percenters, Democrats Norm Dicks (22 out of 435) and my own personal Congressman, Jim McDermott (39). Jay Inslee's an up and comer at 72, while the remaining Democrats, Brian Baird (212), Rick Larsen (236) and Adam Smith (252) fall nearer the center.

The Republicans, naturally, are a drag on the delegation. The senior Republican from our fair state, Doc Hastings, checks in at 301 while Cathy McMorris Rodgers trails at 356.

Sherrif Dave? Almost off the chart at 401.

You can start making things better from the bottom up by doing your bit for Darcy.