In sitting down to write on the campaign we are faced with over the next six weeks for U.S. Senate, between Patty Murray and Linda Smith, the bad analogies come flooding. It's a train wreck you can't stop watching (because of all the !%$# TV commercials). It's a recipe that turned out horribly that you have to eat anyway. It's the relative you hate.

Man, this choice sucks.

In one vermin-infested corner, we have Patty Murray, who for the last two years has set up this election as exactly such a choice, by crawling as far into the lap of her corporate patrons as possible without (by her calculation) sending 50.01% of the voters into Linda Smith's camp.

Patty Murray, self-styled "Mom in Tennis Shoes," was elected in the so-called Year of the Woman specifically to bring a plain-spoken, non-political, outsider voice to D.C. She has, from the moment she arrived in office, betrayed that image and mandate utterly--not just as a muted opponent, but as an enthusiastic backer of Bill Clinton's corporate parasitism.

The list of Murray's betrayals is as wide as the list of those who elected her. In the second half of her term alone, she's alienated queers with her support of the Defense of Marriage Act. She alienated women's groups by supporting the first, harsher version of welfare "reform." Labor resents her constant support of free trade and the anti-union NAFTA, WTO, and MAI. She pissed off enviros by forestalling any real opposition to, and chance of overturning, the Salvage Logging Rider. Peaceniks and anti-corporate welfare activists remember her shameless shilling for Boeing in particular and military boondoggles in general, as well as her leadership in the misleading, if not willfully untruthful, campaign to restart and privatize nuclear production at Hanford. Human rights advocates have been horrified by her enthusiasm for the murderous (but business-friendly) regimes of China and Indonesia, and her endorsement of the genocidal U.S. sanctions against Iraq's civilians. Consumer advocates don't like her work to ease Food and Drug Administration regulations for medical devices and drugs. And on, and on.

Murray's arc over her six-year term is well-illustrated by her "Spirit of Enterprise" award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which gave her a 14% voting rating her first year in office--and 70% last year, one of the highest ratings of any Senate Democrat. It's also illustrated by her virtual lock on big-money campaign donations this year. Corporate donors favor incumbents and fear Linda Smith, but they've also been treated very well by Patty Murray.

As we get deluged with images of the Patty-that-cares these next weeks, it's useful to remember the other Patty, the Patty that wants to be a player, a Scoop Jackson or Warren Magnuson. The Patty that last fall let her own bill, to extend welfare deadlines for domestic violence victims, die, so that she could attend a ceremony announcing China's purchase of 50 Boeing jets.

And this, of course, is Patty's other problem, and the reason why she has been targeted nationally by the Republican Party. It's not just that she's a sellout who has clung pathetically to Bill Clinton at every opportunity. She's also incompetent. In six long years, she hasn't actually done anything. Not one major bill or initiative she can point to. She is widely reported by D.C. insiders to be in over her head; a clueless Senator frequently lost in the Senate's procedural morass and horse-trading.

One of Murray's TV commercials, spouting her concern for class size and (of course) the kids, has the tag line: "...and my bill lost by just one vote. But I'll keep fighting!" It's sorta like the coach of the 0-16 football team, pleading for his job by reminding fans of the game he almost won.

That's the good candidate.

In the other corner, we have Linda Smith. Smith will appear attractive to some of Murray's natural supporters, because of her high-visibility opposition to free trade and support of campaign finance reform.

Don't buy it for a second. Linda may well be the most reactionary member of Congress.

She is well beyond merely being a foot soldier for Newt Gingrich (voting with him over 90% of the time, and having a 100% voting record on the Contract With America). She is also a vicious bigot, a Helen Chenoweth of the West, with a history of anti-Jewish slurs and references to "colored" people as well as the usual queer-baiting. She's tacitly supported the bombing of abortion clinics, saying that "it's wrong to be more concerned about buildings than we are about little babies." Her Christian Coalition base is anxious to impose its biblical morality on any and all.

And posturing aside, she is every bit the corporate lackey that Murray is, having passed, while in the state legislature, a campaign finance reform measure that made public financing of campaigns impossible and greased the wheels for the rich (but not unions). Her other contribution to the state is I-601, the spending cap that has decimated social programs in Washington state. That's Linda's legacy. She and Slade would be the Senators From Hell.

One of these two, Linda or Patty, will win. This is what it boils down to: a disingenuous, ineffective corporate Clintonite sellout who can't legislate her way out of a wet paper bag, or a disingenuous, vituperative Gingrichite bigot who would be happiest turning us into an Iranian-style theocracy (minus the colored people). There is no doubt that Murray would vote better on enough different, important legislative issues that she's clearly a better choice, and it becomes essential to keep Smith out--which is exactly the calculation Patty's made while spitting in the eyes of her grassroots constituents.

More than the dilemma of who (if anyone) to vote for, there's another, even more urgent question we must confront:

How did we get into this mess?