Darcy Burner

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Darcy Burner

Eighth Congressional District of Washington

Darcy Gibbons Burner is a Democrat from Carnation, Washington. She was a candidate for Washington's 8th congressional district in 2006, but lost in a close election. She worked for a dozen years in high technology including five years at Microsoft as a Lead Product Manager, working on the .NET Framework. Burner left Microsoft in 2004 to enter politics.

1 Early life, education, and family
2 2006 Congressional election
3 Views
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Early life, education, and family

Burner was born November 12, 1970, and grew up in a Republican household in Nebraska farm country. She was adopted at birth. Her father, Ralph Gibbons, spent 20 years in the Air Force, settling with his wife and five kids in Fremont, Nebraska. She was the Civil Air Patrol National Cadet of the Year in 1989.

In high school, Burner was a National Merit Scholar. She worked multiple jobs, both part time and full time, to earn her way through Harvard, graduating in 1996 with a B.A. in computer science and economics. Her jobs included working for Lotus Development, Asymetrix, and, starting in 2000, as a lead product manager for Microsoft .NET.

Burner married in 1993. She and her husband Michael have a son, Henry, born in 2003. They live outside Carnation, Washington.

[edit] 2006 Congressional election

Darcy is a first-time candidate running for Washington's 8th congressional district to unseat first-term U.S. Representative Dave Reichert. She was a volunteer in the unsuccessful campaign of Dave Ross for the same seat in 2004 and has been a local Democratic activist. She decided to run for office after attending a Camp Wellstone training.

Burner has achieved numerous fundraising goals against an incumbent congressman in a congressional district that has so far never been won by a Democratic candidate. On the other hand, in 2004, Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry won the district with 51% of the vote, making GOP incumbent Reichert one of just 17 House Republicans elected in a district that went Democratic for president.

Because of her strong fundraising, Burner has garnered a number of endorsements. In August 2006, CQPolitics wrote: "though Reichert appears to maintain at least a slight edge in the fall contest, CQPolitics.com has changed its rating on the race to its more competitive Leans Republican category from Republican Favored." [1]. On October 11, they changed their rating to "No Clear Favorite" [2].

Multiple polls showed Burner in a virtual tie with Reichert with just weeks left before the election. In late October the two major Seattle newspapers split in their endorsements: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer endorsed Burner while the Seattle Times, which had endorsed Democrat Dave Ross in 2004, endorsed Reichert.

As of November 10, 2006, the results of the election were too close to call, because of the large number of absentee ballots in the district. By 7:00pm, official tallies showed her trailing by 3,095 votes, with a reported 76% of votes counted.

Burner conceded at a press conference on Tuesday, November 14, 2006.

[edit] Views

Burner describes herself as a "practical progressive".[3][4] Her positions on various areas include:

Reproductive rights: Pro-choice, supports family planning
Education: Supports early childhood education
Environment: Against additional nuclear storage at Hanford, Washington
Foreign policy: "Supports United Nations efforts to provide essential family planning and healthcare services to poor nations." [5]
Health care: Supports stem cell research
Military benefits: Supports extending military health coverage to families of Reservists and National Guardsmen