While George Bush may be a political albatross for just about any Republican to bear these days, he sure can wring cash out of the corporatist arm of the party. He’s going to Washington State on Monday to play rainmaker for Dave Reichert, who is running against Blue America candidate Darcy Burner in WA-08.

Darcy is holding an online town hall on Iraq this Monday. Reichert, on the other hand, is proving sort of town-hall adverse and has taken to ambushing constituents with robo-conference calls instead:

The conference call was supposedly in lieu of a public town hall meeting, you know, the kind where people gather to ask questions of their elected representatives. Apparently Reichert felt that the crowd was too hostile to him the only time he ever had a town hall meeting as a congressman, way back in early 2005. The hot topic of that day was Social Security. People didn’t want it privatized and were vocal about it. Reichert has essentially “cut and run” from his constituents since.

Well I guess if you’re rich and willing to part with some of it, you can yuck it up with Commander Codpiece and laugh about, oh I don’t know, the latest torture techniques or how badly poor people dress or something. (As opposed to rich people, who are all elegant ‘n ‘shit.)

Anyway, there’s a counter-fundraiser for Darcy going on at ActBlue. As Duncan says, “Consider the fun if the headline in the Seattle Times on Monday is ‘Burner Raises $100K On Bush Visit to Rival Reichert.’”

Heh.

(h/t Christy for what might possibly be the ugliest handbag in the world.)