Congressional combat.
Let the congressional combat games begin. Alex Wong / Getty

So far, the race to flip Washington's hopefully, finally, flippable 8th district has two serious contenders. (According to the Times, two others—Poga Ahn and Thomas Cramer—have filed paperwork, but do I see any campaign videos or websites up and running? No, I do not.)

The first is Tola Marts, a tastefully bearded, two-term Issaquah city councilman whose name sounds like a desert planet in a galaxy far, far away. Funny that he's an engineer who worked for Jeff Bezos's space project, Blue Origin. Though a brief Wikipedia check tells me that someone named "Tola" was the son of "Issachar." Whoa. Coincidence, or was he born to lead Issaquah?

The second is Jason Rittereiser, a fresh-faced prosecuting attorney from Ellensburg (go Bulldogs!) whose last name sounds like an air conditioner. He plans to be "a bulldog every day until next November prosecuting the case against our failed incumbent." He's young! He's true to his school! He's married to a person! He's from the east side but he went to UW and his last name begins with an "R" and sounds kinda Teutonic!

Let's compare campaign initiation vids, shall we?