Last December, Jake Zimmerman said:

Perhaps you’ll remember Jim Lembke, the diabolical, despicable Jim Lembke, who’s now running for the state Senate, and who must be stopped at all costs. But for purposes of the House, the diabolical, despicable Jim Lembke leaves that seat open. And suddenly you don’t have the hard-working creature of Satan, who’s been there for, like, six years, you’ll have some new creature of Satan, who nobody really knows who they are yet. And that’s potentially four or five percentage points of difference with a good Democratic candidate. Thank god we have a good Democratic candidate, whose name is Vicki (Englund), and she’s been working hard and raising money early. I like that district. Republicans’ll probably invest some money there because they’ll try and force us to work for it.  But, you know what, I think the odds are very good we’re going to win it.

The latest creature of Satan, as Jake would put it, is, from what we can tell so far, much less colorful than Lembke. His replacement on the ticket is Cloria Brown, who–like Vicki–thinks that property taxes shouldn’t go up when the housing market is on the skids. Brown also wants to make sure that illegal immigrants don’t get government benefits. Just your typical Republican, who got the nod to run because she’s been a good footsoldier and it’s her turn.

Ms. Brown, though, finds herself digging in her fingernails in an attempt to hold this district for the Rs, because the area is no GOP stronghold. Before Lembke took it in 2002, it had been in Democratic hands. It’s considered a 50/50 district. Both Kerry and McCaskill won there. And although Lembke won solidly when he was first elected, the subsequent two Democratic opponents each came within four points of unseating an incumbent. Bob Burns lost last time partly because of Lembke’s underhanded (hard as that may be to believe about a Republican) tricks.

But Brown may find herself victory-challenged on November 5th. Conventional wisdom has it that incumbency is worth about five percentage points, so that four point lead Lembke had in the last two elections just got erased. The playing field isn’t quite even, though. Here’s the story on money: As of September 5th, Vicki had taken in a total of $52,732 and had $17,170 on hand. As of the that same date, Cloria had taken in $26,567 and had $16,293 on hand. Whoa, we have not just parity but a situation where the Dem has actually raised more money? Ha! When I said things weren’t quite even, bet you thought I was going to repeat the usual line about how the opposition has stinkin’ tons of money but our gal is knocking on those doors.

Not that she’s being careless about knocking on doors. Of the 12-13,000 homes in her district, she and her people had knocked on 8,000 by primary day, concentrating on Dems, undecideds and the slew of unknowns that have resulted from all the newly registered voters.

And then there’s Vicki herself. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything world shaking to say about her. She’s just … normal. Hard working. Interested in good governance. Honest. Well-informed. You know, all that boring stuff. Which we’d be delighted to settle for.

She’s a good fit for that district. It’s true that even though she’s Catholic in a district with lots of Catholics, she’s pro-choice (has endorsements from Planned Parenthood and NARAL). But the Catholics there are mostly moderate. They voted in favor of stem cell research a couple of years ago, a stand Vicki shares with the majority of voters. Her attitude about abortions is that we need to prevent unintended pregnancies by having sex ed programs in schools that cover more than just abstinence only.

And like all her Democratic brethren, Vicki is interested in restoring the Medicaid cuts. She would like to see emergency rooms used for emergencies again, instead of as holding pens for uninsured sick people. These days emergency rooms have infinitely long waiting lines–for the most expensive kind of treatment per square yard of space that there is. Treating people there is driving up insurance costs for all of us.

So. It’s looking good for Englund and the Dems in HD 85. Englund and her people will hang in and do their jobs in this final six week push. But let’s not risk letting this seat elude us. Help her out.