Sen. Patty Murray has reluctantly agreed to head up the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, a big job given the Republican tide and the 20 Senate Democrats at risk in 2012. It's not that Murray hasn't already paid her dues in this unpopular, demanding job: She volunteered for the position in 2001, raking in millions from special interests.
Since Murray campaigned on how much she tends to Washington state business, returning all kinds of federal funds to the state, it's more than a little ironic that she has now so visibly "gone national." Voters might understandably feel betrayed. The first time she served made some sense, since it catapulted the obscure senator into the inner circle of the Senate Democrats, where she is currently the fourth in the inner power circle. Typically the job goes to a senator being groomed (and tested) for higher responsibilities.
Another reason for unhappiness is that Murray's counterpart, Sen. Maria Cantwell, is not only up for reelection in 2012, a huge distraction for her, but she has typically been the "national senator" of the pair. Cantwell, a very diligent student of complex issues, thus carries on the Scoop Jackson tradition in the state of being a voice on national, international, and economic issues. Murray has been the modern incarnation of Sen. Warren Magnuson, tending to home issues and dispensing federal dollars from key appropriations committees.
And so, right as the state is scrambling to regain its economic momentum and capture diminishing federal dollars, the key senator takes another job. Meanwhile, in the House, the key dispenser of local dollars, Rep. Norm Dicks, now finds himself in the minority. Nor has the state any heavyweights in the Republican majority in the House.
